News
Downtime
Posted by Ant on 15.06.2007, at 04:34PM
Short period of downtime whilst I got the site swapped to a server with PHP5 instead of PHP4. That means I can finally get my upgrade to the site uploaded! When I've finished it, anyway...
Demo Update - MenuDS
Posted by Ant on 12.04.2007, at 02:45PM
New version of the binary uploaded (nothing obvious changed) and the GPL sourcecode is now available.
Visit the Demos section for the download.
New Site Area - Blog
Posted by Ant on 11.04.2007, at 05:49PM
Added a WordPress blog to the site - there's a link to it at the bottom of the "Navigation" section on the right.
I would have written my own blogging system, but I haven't got the time or the inclination. In fact, I wouldn't have needed a blogging system had I not been overzealous in the security setup of this site when I was writing it - it won't let me post links or images. The site needs upgrading at some point.
Anyway, new blog. It's essentially a "diary of a game", or the story of how I'm writing a port of Defender for the Nintendo DS. That means it's full of C, C++, Blitz BASIC and Amiga assembler, so not the most riveting read.
New Demo - MenuDS
Posted by Ant on 11.04.2007, at 11:49AM
Another new Nintendo DS demo. This one is a demo build (binary only) of a menu system I'm working on. It's a hierarchical menu system that can be controlled via both the stylus and the D-pad. It does a few clever things, but the main purpose of it is to enable DS programmers to create complex tree-like menu structures quickly.
Source code coming as soon as it's adequately polished.
See the Demos section for the download.
Demo Updated - ScrollingTextDS
Posted by Ant on 08.04.2007, at 10:17AM
I've made a few bugfixes and optimisations to the ScrollingText library, and refactored it into several re-usable classes that do things like printing 16-bit text to the screen. I've also added a sine scroller class and bumped the version number to 2.
Visit the Demos section for the GPL source and demo binaries.
New Demo - ScrollingTextDS
Posted by Ant on 06.04.2007, at 04:03AM
PALib, the library I'm using with the DS, doesn't allow you to put text on top of a bitmap, nor does it allow you to work with 16-bit fonts. It also has a restrictive text positioning system - text must fall within the grid defined by a font's width and height. It's not possible to position text at a specific pixel co-ordinate.
The C++ class included in this archive gets around all of these limitations - I've basically written my own 16-bit font and text routines and wrapped them into a horizontal scroller.
See the Demos section for the GPL sourcecode (VC++ 2005 Express) and a pre-compiled binary zip.
Demo Update - SlideshowDS
Posted by Ant on 05.04.2007, at 05:25PM
I've updated the SlideshowDS binary to the latest version and released the GPL sourcecode.
New Demo - SlideshowDS
Posted by Ant on 01.04.2007, at 05:29PM
This is a basic slideshow for the Nintendo DS. It's actually a small part of the next DS game I'm working on - this code will form the intro sequence.
It isn't very exciting on its own, but the code, which I'll release eventually under the GPL, is quite handy. It's a set of C++ classes designed to build a slideshow of 16-bit images with just half a dozen commands. It:
- Features 16-bit crossfades between images (can be disabled)
- Allows slideshows to be looped or run until they finish
- Allows users to skip to the next image in the sequence by tapping the touch screen or a button.
It's also programmed to be asynchronous, so (for example), the slideshow can run in the top screen, whilst something else happens in the screen below. The binary you can download from this site has two instances of the Slideshow class running, one in the top screen and one in the bottom. As it's written in C++, adding the second slideshow is as easy as creating a new instance and starting it off.
Visit the Demos page for the download.
New Game - PongDS
Posted by Ant on 25.03.2007, at 04:37PM
Not so much a game as a test to see if I could get anything working, this is an almost-finished version of Pong for the Nintendo DS. Runs on the real DS via a flash cart or an emulator.
Binaries are supplied in the source archive, in the folder "Test/Test/Release", should you want to give it a go without compiling it.
If you do want to compile it, you'll need DevKitPro, libnds, PALib and Visual C++ 2005 Express (and probably the application template). You can get away with using Visual HAM as the editor if you're prepared to go to the hassle of creating a new vham project and copying the files over (though I can't imagine it's worth the hassle for 80% of Pong).
This version even includes a SoundTracker mod I wrote for a Blitz Basic version of Pong way back when I first got an Amiga. Suddenly mod files are relevant again! Now I just need to work out how to get OctaMED Sound Studio running in WinUAE in Windows XP under Parallels in OSX...
See the Games section for the download.