[FA] NDS port

[Madoka]

Sorry for the newb question, but what do I need to get this on my DS? I assume I need some type of memory card for the DS?

Thanks.

[Donald Jonker]

There are a lot of options, I've got the Datel MaxMedia Dock - which is one of the worst ones, it turns out, but it works. Basically you need some sort of flashcart to plug into your gba port...google search will give you a ton of 'em.

Once you get one you need to patch the *.nds file depending on what sort of flashcart you have with a program which I got from this site http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/DLDI/ though there may be more up to date ones.

[Nick]

I have a CycloDSEvolution, which doesn't require any patching, and plugs into the DS game slot. There are other, much cheaper ones available for the DS slot now, but I don't know anything about how good they are.

[Nick]

Emulator screenshots, courtesy of Michael (note the watermark in the bottom right corner is from the emulator):

Opening screen:


Normal play:


Map on top screen to put the keyboard on the touch screen:


Zoom mode:


Help screen:


Holding down L for a short time brings up a direction keypad:


Holding down L for a longer time brings up an overlay copy of the face buttons so they can be used via the touchscreen:

[Donald Jonker]

I got the scrubbing to work. For anyone else who is having difficulty: make sure you keep your stylus on the *inside* of the button and move it back and forth quickly a few times. Simple really, but it took me a while to figure out what I was doing wrong.

Also, Nick (& your silent partner), do you want bug reports/feature requests at this stage?

[Nick]

Also, Nick (& your silent partner), do you want bug reports/feature requests at this stage?

Definitely. It's changing fast at the moment - I'm only updating every couple of weeks - so now is a good time to find out what works and what doesn't.

[Donald Jonker]

Bugs
-Help-specific buttons don't go away after exiting help screen - you need to restart the game.
-Map in help file doesn't scroll left-right (although some of the other help files do). EDIT: the character screen does.
-Sometimes (and sorry to be so vague) when tapping around in the wilderness, I've noticed that occasionally the @ goes in the opposite direction, to some arbitrary spot. It's possible that a dangling finger's the culprit, but I don't think so. In any case, if you haven't run into this yourselves, feel free to ignore.
-EDIT: Mughash didn't display properly - showed up as a black space. A similar problem with a petty-dwarf something or other.

Feature Requests
-The way I use items is to hit the inv button, scroll with d-pad, select with d-pad right, and then select an action. It would be nice if the _first_ action in the list were "to use" it, e.g., read/aim/zap &c.
-Make store inv scrollable like player inv (it's hard hitting store items with stylus).
-Make options and help scrollable - would a way around the "arrow key" problem would be to make the selections letters instead of numbers? EDIT: Z+ does this.
-When zooming, keep status bar on left the same size. (This may be a tall order.)
-Maybe *eventually* make the ds face and dpad buttons configurable like NethackDS so you can play stylus-free. But the stylus plays so well here that I wouldn't insist on it. Just a thought.

Thanks again for the DS lovin'.

EDIT: Would you rather receive these things by email? I want to give useful feedback but am wary of gradually becoming The Complainer...

[Nick]

Version 2.50 is now on the site. It includes cool screen-swapping effects and a number of fixes, etc:

-Help-specific buttons don't go away after exiting help screen - you need to restart the game.

Fixed.

-Map in help file doesn't scroll left-right (although some of the other help files do). EDIT: the character screen does.

This is universal for FA in small screen mode; if you hit 'h' it will swap to the other left-right half.

-Sometimes (and sorry to be so vague) when tapping around in the wilderness, I've noticed that occasionally the @ goes in the opposite direction, to some arbitrary spot. It's possible that a dangling finger's the culprit, but I don't think so. In any case, if you haven't run into this yourselves, feel free to ignore.

Yes, this is a bug, and we're not sure what's causing it. It seems to be specific to the DS; a first guess is it's coordinates being mangled somehow.

-EDIT: Mughash didn't display properly - showed up as a black space. A similar problem with a petty-dwarf something or other.

There seems to have been an issue with shades displaying (I saw it earlier too), but it seems to be fixed (at least Mughash looked right in Interact with Visuals).

-The way I use items is to hit the inv button, scroll with d-pad, select with d-pad right, and then select an action. It would be nice if the _first_ action in the list were "to use" it, e.g., read/aim/zap &c.

Done.

-Make store inv scrollable like player inv (it's hard hitting store items with stylus).

Yeah, that one's my laziness - I had menufied all the other lists, and shops were a pain. I'll try to get it fixed in 0.4.0

-Make options and help scrollable - would a way around the "arrow key" problem would be to make the selections letters instead of numbers? EDIT: Z+ does this.

It actually should be handleable by a .prf file - although using letters may often is a nice idea.

-When zooming, keep status bar on left the same size. (This may be a tall order.)

Ah, yeah Zoom mode is fairly quick and dirty - the correct solution is probably to remove the stats altogether, or put them on the top screen, when zooming, but that will take a bit of structural work (ie more copying from UnAngband).

-Maybe *eventually* make the ds face and dpad buttons configurable like NethackDS so you can play stylus-free. But the stylus plays so well here that I wouldn't insist on it. Just a thought.

I think that's coming.

Would you rather receive these things by email? I want to give useful feedback but am wary of gradually becoming The Complainer...

Up to you. I don't mind people complaining - at least it shows they're paying attention

[Psi]

Yes, this is a bug, and we're not sure what's causing it. It seems to be specific to the DS; a first guess is it's coordinates being mangled somehow.

I'm not convinced it is just DS - I get odd things happening on WinCE too with stylus navigation. Particurly in the dungeon, the @ will run in the opposite direction to where I expect (I've noticed this particularly in O and particularly in unexplored or partially explored areas).

[Nick]

I'm not convinced it is just DS - I get odd things happening on WinCE too with stylus navigation. Particurly in the dungeon, the @ will run in the opposite direction to where I expect (I've noticed this particularly in O and particularly in unexplored or partially explored areas).

Yes, in fact you've told me this more than once. So it might be that it's mainly small devices that anyone uses anything but the keyboard, or it is some kind of coordinate issue which is an artifact of small screens. But then I had the feeling you played in a 24x80 screen on your device - have I remembered that right?

[Donald Jonker]

FYI: The latest zipfile you have up on the site doesn't have a savefile in the lib/save folder, which causes the program to freeze after clicking through the splash screen - it hangs on the credits page (the console repeats the line n=48 over and over).

I threw in the default PLAYER save file from an older zip (2.33) and now it works fine, even after suiciding and starting up a new char.

Any recommended game setting changes between versions I should be aware of that might've been reset by the old save?

[Nick]

FYI: The latest zipfile you have up on the site doesn't have a savefile in the lib/save folder, which causes the program to freeze after clicking through the splash screen - it hangs on the credits page (the console repeats the line n=48 over and over).

Thanks for the info. I thought I'd been lazy not taking the savefile out before - apparently I was being sensible. I'll put one with a PLAYER file up straight away.

I threw in the default PLAYER save file from an older zip (2.33) and now it works fine, even after suiciding and starting up a new char.

Any recommended game setting changes between versions I should be aware of that might've been reset by the old save?

Possibly the ones in the release notes, but probably nothing else.

[Psi]

Yes, in fact you've told me this more than once. So it might be that it's mainly small devices that anyone uses anything but the keyboard, or it is some kind of coordinate issue which is an artifact of small screens. But then I had the feeling you played in a 24x80 screen on your device - have I remembered that right?

I play at 91x34 but bigtiled. Mu guess is that it is a pathfinding issue when clicking on the screen. From playing the comp I know that the pathfinding seems to be aware of hidden doors, so there is at least one bug in there - maybe fixing that will sort other things out?

[andrewdoull]

Ah, yeah Zoom mode is fairly quick and dirty - the correct solution is probably to remove the stats altogether, or put them on the top screen, when zooming, but that will take a bit of structural work (ie more copying from UnAngband).

IIRC its just a matter of an additional option and some defines. And some fancy footwork around displaying money vs. xp.

Oh - and differing string lengths...

Andrew

[Nick]

From playing the comp I know that the pathfinding seems to be aware of hidden doors, so there is at least one bug in there - maybe fixing that will sort other things out?

The secret door bug is an O only bug, and has been fixed (update of O will be out soon). This DS bug (as I have seen it, anyway) involves tapping in a spot and @ running way past it. So I'm thinking either the coordinates have been translated wrong, or it is being treated as running with a direction, rather than to a point as is usual with stylus.