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PokeDS

Shikamaru88

Back dont know if I will stay.
120
Posts
15
Years
  • Seen Apr 25, 2010
Now this may seem lazy but im not, okay maybe at times but if i understand you correctly to make a game with this would be a huge amount of work, Example
For example, the scripts for the movement of the character have to be copied into each and every map you make
Thats just crazy, you cant make a global function for walking that is called for each map? But its a good idea i just think you should work at it ALOT more before you release it at all...
 
401
Posts
19
Years
  • Age 29
  • Seen Dec 4, 2016
3 year bump! Hope that's okay since I'm the OP and I'm reviving the project.
 
401
Posts
19
Years
  • Age 29
  • Seen Dec 4, 2016
Updatred OP with more detailed info and a preview image for use on an emulator or DS Flash Cart!

oh good grief, I thought you were gone! Welcome back even though you don't know me!
Thanks!
 

Conan Edogawa

One Truth Prevails
1,061
Posts
15
Years
I like the looks of it, from what I've read. Is the language only C, or is it compatible with C#? And does it have 3D capabilities(the engine more-so than PokeDS itself)?
 

venom12

Pokemon Crystal Rain Relased
476
Posts
17
Years
  • Age 33
  • Seen Dec 28, 2023
Oh great you back :D Welcome back, i waiting for more updates.
 
401
Posts
19
Years
  • Age 29
  • Seen Dec 4, 2016
I like the looks of it, from what I've read. Is the language only C, or is it compatible with C#? And does it have 3D capabilities(the engine more-so than PokeDS itself)?
As far as I know, only C can be used as PaLib itself is written in C. In terms of 3D, DS Game Maker has no front ends for importing,using and manipulating 3D models. PaLib, however, does have some support for 3D but its not something I plan on looking into any time soon.

Oh great you back :D Welcome back, i waiting for more updates.
Thanks! Nice to see that you're still active in the community.

Interesting, buy why should people use this over essentials?
That's a very good question. I don't doubt that RMXP is a great tool for making Pokemon fangames. It really gives you the feel of something homebrew and on a PC, of course you'll be able to build something that can take advantage of a powerful graphics card and CPU.

PokeDS, however, aims to bring fangames to the DS for use by casual gamers. For example, if PokeDS becomes something as fully fledged as Essentials, you only have to pay $15 for the license for DS Game Maker and you're allowed to sell your games. You're even allowed to submit them to publishers. The Pokemon fangame scene is great but ever since I joined way back in 2005 (I'm aware that the community extends past Pokecommunity), I've always felt that the games have been limited to people who know of the existence of the community. There hasn't really been an attempt to capture the same audience that the original Pokemon games was geared to. I wanted to change that. I hope that made some sense, I'm just rambling on from my head...
 

the__end

Pixel Artist
141
Posts
13
Years
  • Seen Jun 9, 2016
PokeDS, however, aims to bring fangames to the DS for use by casual gamers. For example, if PokeDS becomes something as fully fledged as Essentials, you only have to pay $15 for the license for DS Game Maker and you're allowed to sell your games. You're even allowed to submit them to publishers. The Pokemon fangame scene is great but ever since I joined way back in 2005 (I'm aware that the community extends past Pokecommunity), I've always felt that the games have been limited to people who know of the existence of the community. There hasn't really been an attempt to capture the same audience that the original Pokemon games was geared to. I wanted to change that. I hope that made some sense, I'm just rambling on from my head...

so something i am curious about...
is it as easy to use as essentials?
you know with essentials you can make a game without knowing much about scripting...
it wouldn't be that good but its possible...
and aren't there some limitations that you have to consider?
for example the rom size and all the other technical stuff?
can you add every audio format you want to use or do you have to use midi?
you said that you add the maps as png files right?
how do you manage the priority of the tiles or autotiles?
there are more points that i am curious about but i think the above are enough for now... :)

ahh and i doubt that you can sell any game which use pokemon related stuff...
maybe if you use only fakemon and avoid using anything pokemon related like pokeballs or any sprite used in the official games...
but i dont think that someone would spend money to buy a pokemon lookalike instead of buying the official games... ;)

but i have to say that if you manage to make a DS variant of essentials it would be awesome for any fangame developer! :D
 
401
Posts
19
Years
  • Age 29
  • Seen Dec 4, 2016
so something i am curious about...
is it as easy to use as essentials?
you know with essentials you can make a game without knowing much about scripting...
it wouldn't be that good but its possible...
and aren't there some limitations that you have to consider?
for example the rom size and all the other technical stuff?
can you add every audio format you want to use or do you have to use midi?
you said that you add the maps as png files right?
how do you manage the priority of the tiles or autotiles?
there are more points that i am curious about but i think the above are enough for now... :)

ahh and i doubt that you can sell any game which use pokemon related stuff...
maybe if you use only fakemon and avoid using anything pokemon related like pokeballs or any sprite used in the official games...
but i dont think that someone would spend money to buy a pokemon lookalike instead of buying the official games... ;)

but i have to say that if you manage to make a DS variant of essentials it would be awesome for any fangame developer! :D
Yes, it will have similar user-friendliness as essentials.

You won't need much scripting knowledge for this. Right now I'm working on automating all events. For example, the door event in the preview was originally 6/7 different event functions on that object. I created my own event function that combined the 6 previous ones so that when you want to create a door, you just select the function 'door' from the menu in the event creator and you provide the following arguments: x coordinate of door, y coordinate of door, teleport location and sound of door. It will be that simple for 90% of the commands.

I don't think room size will be that much of a problem. Read the OP RE how DS Game Maker/PaLib converts the maps to a tileset.

Audio is added using MP3 or WAV files.

Yes, each map will be a .png file. Priority in PokeDS will be much simpler than RMXP, you will not need to use that 1-6 numbering system which I despised with a passion. A picture tells a thousand words. 3 will tell quite a lot:

361ac93e6460d8345059a795bf74ee42.png


ee4237998d2e073d6013f8341812a514.png


f6576f72420bbb191fe999a96791a6aa.png


The first image is the map - quite self explanatory.

The second image is the collision map. Red is walkable area. Any other colour is blocked. Also note the different colours there. Yellow represents a door. The creator of the RPG movement functions (all credit goes to him for these images and functions) coloured these areas so that the game knows which area the player is colliding with. For example, he originally had it so that when he collided with the door, a message would pop up saying "This door is locked". The water is also coloured blue. What I plan on doing is creating special colours for each area on the map. For example water would be coloured blue and water would be recognised to be walkable if the character is currently surfing. We could also add green to the collision map to denote grass areas for wild pokemon encounters. This would give the added benefit over terrain tags in the idea that you can put grass that does not have encounters.
Also note how small the collision map is. This is because it is scaled down to the ratio 1 pixel:1 tile.

The third image is the priority map. Any parts of your map that the main character should appear behind will be part of this map.

All three of these "backgrounds" (as DS Game Maker calls them) can be easily mapped using Tiled. It may seem like a complicated process but in my opinion, it allows for much more rigorous mapping - you can control exactly where collisions can occur and where your priorities are as opposed to applying those properties to just a tileset.

And yeah I realised after posting that Pokemon is copyrighted. The idea is still the same though. This would give people a chance to distribute their games to a much larger audience. And there's always the portability benefit!

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask. I want to get all feedback and ideas from the beginning so I can get everything right from the get go.



Also I'd just like to point out that I did change that ugly door noise that was in the preview. That's the only one I could find.
 
Last edited:

DaSpirit

Mad Programmer
240
Posts
16
Years
The second image seems like a bad idea to me. It's easy to visualize but it uses more data than it should. Each pixel would be 3 bytes (or 4 if you're using alpha transparency). 256^3 (or 4 lol) seems like it would be too many possibilities. Consider using a black/white collision image instead, where you would only need 1 byte (char) per pixel. There is no way you would use more than 256 possibilities.
 
1,748
Posts
14
Years
Why not just use tiles such as rmxp or graphical tiles alongside of collision tiles? this would be easier to handle than having full map images
 
401
Posts
19
Years
  • Age 29
  • Seen Dec 4, 2016
The second image seems like a bad idea to me. It's easy to visualize but it uses more data than it should. Each pixel would be 3 bytes (or 4 if you're using alpha transparency). 256^3 (or 4 lol) seems like it would be too many possibilities. Consider using a black/white collision image instead, where you would only need 1 byte (char) per pixel. There is no way you would use more than 256 possibilities.
Again, all maps (whether collision or not) are split into tiles by DS Game Maker itself. Yes, at first it has to load the whole image but it will take only 4 pixels to store in the VRAM: red, black, yellow, blue (in this case). The positions of each tile will be stored in an array by the program and it will then rebuild the map itself when it has to display it. A lot less VRAM is used in this way.

Why not just use tiles such as rmxp or graphical tiles alongside of collision tiles? this would be easier to handle than having full map images
I'm not sure what you mean by 'alongside collision tiles'. In essence I would agree with you but the current system using .png uses no more resources than that method (if not less - RMXP has to load the entire tileset, whether or not certain tiles are being used, definitely a waste of resources) so it isn't on my list of priorities. When the time is right and user-friendliness is the only thing left, I will think of ditching the .pngs and using tilesets,
 

the__end

Pixel Artist
141
Posts
13
Years
  • Seen Jun 9, 2016
I'm not sure what you mean by 'alongside collision tiles'. In essence I would agree with you but the current system using .png uses no more resources than that method (if not less - RMXP has to load the entire tileset, whether or not certain tiles are being used, definitely a waste of resources) so it isn't on my list of priorities. When the time is right and user-friendliness is the only thing left, I will think of ditching the .pngs and using tilesets,

hmm depending on the tileset you can use 1 to create 20-30 maps if not more...
so i am sure that a tileset will take much less space then 20 maps would do...
just think about routes...
making all the routes with one tileset is easy...
making all indor maps with one tileset is possible...
making all cities with one tileset would be harder to do if you dont use the same houses in every city...
but well lets say we need 3 tilesets for the cities...
so a game with 100 maps or so would require 5 tilesets... ;)
well it was a pretty rough description...
but it should just show you that tilesets actually save a lot of space...
but i dont care if you have to use png or tilesets if there isnt any differences in performance... :D
i mean it shouldnt lag when changing maps...

and you still didnt explained how autotiles will work...
i mean animated water or flowers...
and of course we need to know how the character sheets should look like...
like in rpg maker or are they different?
how will you manage adding pokemon in the game?
 
401
Posts
19
Years
  • Age 29
  • Seen Dec 4, 2016
hmm depending on the tileset you can use 1 to create 20-30 maps if not more...
so i am sure that a tileset will take much less space then 20 maps would do...
just think about routes...
making all the routes with one tileset is easy...
making all indor maps with one tileset is possible...
making all cities with one tileset would be harder to do if you dont use the same houses in every city...
but well lets say we need 3 tilesets for the cities...
so a game with 100 maps or so would require 5 tilesets... ;)
well it was a pretty rough description...
but it should just show you that tilesets actually save a lot of space...
but i dont care if you have to use png or tilesets if there isnt any differences in performance... :D
i mean it shouldnt lag when changing maps...

and you still didnt explained how autotiles will work...
i mean animated water or flowers...
and of course we need to know how the character sheets should look like...
like in rpg maker or are they different?
how will you manage adding pokemon in the game?
I can't really explain it any differently than I have so I will just say this. DS Game Maker will never have to see the tileset you are using in Tiled or RMXP. It will however, have the same performance as RMXP (or better).

I haven't yet figured out the implementation of autotiles. I'm still thinking of a way similar to RMXP's. Currently, the only way to do it would be to use events which of course will get laggy and consume more resources than necessary. Not to worry though, they will get done!

Here's an example of a character sheet:
0d24a6a07d50d610972bc15e82d124fc.png

RMXP charsheets will work absolutely fine as long as each frame is spaced out correctly and positioned in the order left right up down. But don't worry if they're not in that order. DS Game Maker allows you to rearrange each individual frame once the charset is imported.

For the Pokemon, I will probably nick Poccil's idea of a stand alone program that allows you to add/remove pokemon, trainers etc etc - all that will come in due time. All that's done so far is the map and the teleporting - which by the way still needs a bug kinking out, the screen fades back in before actually teleporting.
 

KingCharizard

C++ Developer Extraordinaire
1,229
Posts
14
Years
I looked into ds game maker and I understand your kit is being developed for the software/engine, I dont see how this is a good idea ds Game Maker seems to be very limited even if you buy the pro..also to fully develop a game using your kit they would have to but the pro version and I am not sure if many people would even want to do that.. because lets face it most of the ppl here probably use a pirated version of RMXP unless their parents bought it for them... but what about other game makers for DS? Is there no other solution out there to use?
 
1,748
Posts
14
Years
It will however, have the same performance as RMXP (or better).

What? You are giving it a chance to be the same speed and not going "it will be better than RMXP"? C is MUCH FASTER than ruby (considering ruby was programmed in C) so as for that it HAS TO BE FASTER! (Unless you are planning to add a ton of extra unneeded things into the system which could be erased from the CPU's memory)

With that said, I do like the way charsets are put together.
I haven't yet figured out the implementation of autotiles. I'm still thinking of a way similar to RMXP's. Currently, the only way to do it would be to use events which of course will get laggy and consume more resources than necessary. Not to worry though, they will get done!

The auto tiles (un animated) are just loaded each as different tiles the animated are loaded as animation arrays I believe, either way all auto tiles take tiles 0 - 383 (or 393 not sure anymore) so in this case tile sets are needed instead of map images.
 

Maruno

Lead Dev of Pokémon Essentials
5,285
Posts
16
Years
I agree that tilesets do seem to be a better method than map images. RMXP has rather severe limitations on what tiles can do (7 autotiles limit, 7 terrain tags limit, 3 tile layers plus events), all of which you can easily improve on, but I think the ability to "define once, map infinitely" is much better and more efficient than requiring 3 picture files per map.

If you're worried about huge tilesets, then you could be inspired by the GBA games, wherein each map has two different small tilesets defined for it to use. You don't need to limit it to just 2 tilesets per map, though; the user could import whichever tilesets/autotiles they want to use on that map. This would also make it much easier to add custom tilesets.

Having images for each map requires that the user create those images. This in turn requires that they place graphics so that they match up to a grid, which many claim to be incapable of (it's like creating a Town Map picture, but hundreds of times over). There would need to be a map creator program which uses tilesets to properly draw maps anyway (half of RMXP is such a program), and if you're creating maps like that, you might as well just use the raw data from that program rather than convert it to three pictures then into usable data.

Space is also an important factor (remember, people need to download these games). One map in Essentials has an RMXP map file which is 28kB in size, which includes the graphics data and all the events in it. A screenshot of that map is 77kB (and you'd need 2 full-size screenshots plus a movement picture in your system, plus events on top of that).

You don't need to be different for the sake of it. It's no coincidence that even the official games use the tileset approach. I severely doubt there would be any noticeable lag caused by drawing maps on the fly during the game - there is none in RMXP, and you claim your system will be better and faster. I don't think tilesets are even that difficult to work with, once you understand what is needed.
 
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