ROM Hack porting a game to ds

[kataro]

is it hard to port a game to the ds? Like for example say I wanted to port pokemon gold or silver to ds (I'd assume this would take about a year to do?) And what if I wanted to port a playstation 1 (lets say resident evil 2)game to DS, is it possible or would only some games work? Also I'll through in that I know nothing about coding for ds or any of that and would love for some one to teach me if anyone would.
thanks ^^

 

[Sephi]

Porting games takes a lot of work, if you know nothing about coding, there's nothing you can do.

 

[Vulpes Abnocto]

From what I've seen, porting a game to the NDS is a difficult task for a group of people.
For a single person, even if they're highly experienced, it seems to me like this would be far too daunting a task.

But if you're thinking of porting RE2 to NDS, I certainly hope you can prove me wrong.
I'd gladly eat my words to play that.

 

[DarthNemesis]

And even if you did know what you were doing, without the original source code it'd still be a herculean endeavor.

 

[playallday]

Its just as hard as making a homebrew, and you are

the easiest way is to rip the images like FretFury and redo the whole game for DS (you need to know C or something). But then you NOT porting it your remaking it (like FF).

 

[thedicemaster]

porting pokemon G/S is quite useless, since you can already emulate that.
and remaking, that will probably take you 2-4 years if you know what you're doing.

the PS1 game, not worth your time.
yes it might be a good game, but it would take so much time that by the time you'd be done we'd be at the DS-3 trying to emulate the current DS.

 

[kataro]

In all seriousness though, once I learn a programming language(C++ good?) I would seriously haul ass to port RE2, maybe even RE3 and I know I could get people to help me and stuffness. But yeah if I can't port I might just make a new game like some kind of multiplayer RE outbreak thing, and for the pokemon thing I guess making a new game might be better too. What sucks is this all sounds great, but I know I'm getting far ahead of myself, does anyone have recommendations for my n00bness to learn from?

(don't mention DS getting outdated, you'll make me sad T.T)

 

[thedicemaster]

In all seriousness though, once I learn a programming language(C++ good?) I would seriously haul ass to port RE2, maybe even RE3 and I know I could get people to help me and stuffness. But yeah if I can't port I might just make a new game like some kind of multiplayer RE outbreak thing, and for the pokemon thing I guess making a new game might be better too. What sucks is this all sounds great, but I know I'm getting far ahead of myself, does anyone have recommendations for my n00bness to learn from?

(don't mention DS getting outdated, you'll make me sad T.T)

i wasn't referring to the DS getting outdated, just so you know.


to port a PS1 game without source would take years.

 

[kataro]

are you telling me not to even try? I mean regardless I want to make homebrew games and I'm not pushing the topic of how long it takes to port a game, so with that aside is there any help any one can give me like advice on what I need to learn and what I need to make a game?
(yes I have googled it but most things are either outdated or too vague to be of any help)

 

[hankchill]

are you telling me not to even try? I mean regardless I want to make homebrew games and I'm not pushing the topic of how long it takes to port a game, so with that aside is there any help any one can give me like advice on what I need to learn and what I need to make a game?
(yes I have googled it but most things are either outdated or too vague to be of any help)

You have no idea what it takes to write anything, do you?

I've spent a year and a half writing a desktop application, and even that's not perfected yet, but I'm only 1 person so it's tons of work. Making a game is even harder, especially on your own. If you've never programmed a day in your life, don't take on such an ambitious task. Start very simple, like how to write simple desktop applications, and when you get a firm grasp of the language, take it to the console and write very basic applications for that as well. The programming involved for game designing is astounding, and it's not just the programming you need to worry about, it's artwork too. You want to "port a resident evil game"? You'll need to deal with 3D models, environments, everything.

It's not easy, You need to start very, very simple, and not jump directly on the DS.

 

[kataro]

well at least you put it nicely without jumping down my throat ^^' oh well... I guess I need to study or something, I mean I knew that it wouldn't happen right away, everyone keeps talking like I said "so yeah this is easy so I'll be done with this thing by tomorrow right?"
Now that I've gotten my due scolding could anyone point me in the right direction on where to start with learning this?

 

[spinal_cord]

Any c tutorials are a good start, if you want to just straight onto the ds, devkitpro and perhaps palib. google will help you find those. But the DS is quite a limited machine (compared with most other machines on the market today) so 'porting' anything to it is a very difficult task indeed.

 

[hankchill]

well at least you put it nicely without jumping down my throat ^^' oh well... I guess I need to study or something, I mean I knew that it wouldn't happen right away, everyone keeps talking like I said "so yeah this is easy so I'll be done with this thing by tomorrow right?"
Now that I've gotten my due scolding could anyone point me in the right direction on where to start with learning this?

Yep, start with a very easy and basic language. Try learning something like VisualBasic, just to get the hang of how programming works. Don't just make something that says 'Hello World' and call yourself a master though

It will take a long time to study and learn how to control your application. Start very simple, and then try something complex. Try writing some tools that you might find useful as well, I know whenever I need a tool to do something for me and I can't find it, I write it.

Once you've spend a number of months getting decent at that, then try moving on to something like Java. Don't jump straight to C or C++, they're more complex that either of the mentioned languages. You'll need to gain a good grasp on the programming fundamentals before attempting either, because I'll tell you right now, if you jump straight into C, you will quit very fast because the complexity of it will completely turn you off. At least if you have past experience and understanding with other languages, it should be a lot less harder to tackle C or C++.

 

[xdzt]

are you telling me not to even try? I mean regardless I want to make homebrew games and I'm not pushing the topic of how long it takes to port a game, so with that aside is there any help any one can give me like advice on what I need to learn and what I need to make a game?
(yes I have googled it but most things are either outdated or too vague to be of any help)

Since you seem interested explicitly in homebrew rather than coding in general, you should try the PALib wiki. Work your way through their (out of date, but still functional) tutorial and you'll learn some basic programming and how to use PAlib. If it catches your fancy, you should know enough at that point to decide for yourself what to do next.

 

[Mentz]

And even if you did know what you were doing, without the original source code it'd still be a herculean endeavor.

You're right!

@kataro: You not only need a good knowledge of C, but you must know the graphic library used to create a game and
a perfect knowledge of DS (harware/processor/memory/ARM7/ARM9). And remember that sometimes C routines are fused with ARM code.

Besides for a porting you need the same knowledge write above for the console whence you want to make the porting...

 

[playallday]

Once you've spend a number of months getting decent at that, then try moving on to something like Java. Don't jump straight to C or C++, they're more complex that either of the mentioned languages. You'll need to gain a good grasp on the programming fundamentals before attempting either, because I'll tell you right now, if you jump straight into C, you will quit very fast because the complexity of it will completely turn you off. At least if you have past experience and understanding with other languages, it should be a lot less harder to tackle C or C++.

My 1st languages was Java and its easy(I can zip files, small games, etc)! I'm starting C soon (looks a little harder).

Making a DS homebrew is hard. I'm not up to it yet and I've been programing for over a year (every few days or so).

 

[DSGameMaker]

No, DS Homebrew is easy!

 

[playallday]

No, DS Homebrew is easy!

Can you post a homebrew of yours?

 

[DSGameMaker]

I've never had time to make anything big, but I did make a DS Game Maker, with support for sprites, backgrounds, sound, rooms and stuff. I am working on a big game at the moment though, but not a remake or copy of anything from before.

 

[psycoblaster]

making a homebrew game is easier than porting a game without the source code.