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Scrolling Multi-choice boxes
Multiple choice boxes have been a really cool, yet in my opinion, a very unmastered feature in ROM hacks. Most people use JPAN's patch to make multichoice boxes, others edit the existing ones in the ROM. However, it seems like there is no solution for when the multiple choice box needs to hold more than just 8 or so options. Most competent hackers seem to have the last option be something which opens another box. It seems clunky and quite troublesome, so I decided to hack it and make it support scrolling and customization :)
Here are some things which are in some popular hacks which use a work around that can be avoided altogether with this hack:
The hack in action:
How to insert:
Before getting started with the hack there is a little bit of setting up which is required.
You need to set up a table of pointers somewhere in your ROM. This table will be a table of pointers to possible mulitchoice boxes in your ROM. Each pointer in that table will point to a location of another table. The second table will have pointers to 0xFF terminated strings which will appear in your multichoice box. Visually this is what it should look like:
Spoiler:
Once you've configured the above tables, take a look at the routine in the spoilers.
Code:
table:
.word 0x8[Location of your table, do not +1]Once that's done compile and insert the routine into free word-aligned space!
Spoiler:
Now navigate to 080CB94C and insert the following byte changes:
Code:
00 49 08 47 XX XX XX 08Usage:
So this is a hack of special 0x158. I've essentially fixed the hard coded table read, and removed limitters as well as recoded the size readings to read of a variable instead. So the script usage of this implementation is quite simple, yet there are some complications which arise along the way. I'll talk about those complications later and first describe usage!
Code:
Paramaters:
var 0x8000 = which multichoice box should be shown from the table of multichoice boxes
var 0x8001 = How many options are supposed to be shown
var 0x8004 = leave as 0x0 for expected output. It does more, but don't play with it for now (I'll document it on a later day!).
Return value:
var 0x800D = Which option was selected, where 0x0 is the first option and 0x1 is the second options....ect.Sample script snipplet.
Code:
#dyn 0x740000
#org @start
lock
faceplayer
msgbox 0x874001B
callstd MSG_NORMAL
setvar 0x8000 0x0 'Use first multichoice box
setvar 0x8001 0x12 ' First box has 18 options
setvar 0x8004 0x0 ' standard
special 0x158
waitspecial
release
end
#org 0x874001B
= Hello here's some tough choicesNote, after the waitspecial command finishes, variable 0x800D will have the selected option's index number inside it. From there you can do your own checks to verify which option the user had selected.
Some usage requirements:
- 0x8004 = 0. Keep it like this for now until I explain it more a later day. You can play with it too if you want, but it will likely cause a game crash.
- The menu does not close unless the "B" button is pressed inplace of an option, OR the last option is selected. FR counters this by having an "EXIT" option as the last option of the multichoice box, and any scripts which use the multichoice box are looped as well. I have a fix for this:
Code:
@ 080CBB84 insert the following byte changes:
@ 00 00 00 00
