Hi there!

I was rather surprised that no good platforms have been yet released for the DS (besides contra) so, as a former fan of sonic and jazzrabbit and a proud owner of such handheld, I have decided to 'port' jazz2 to the DS using the paLib c++ libraries.

However, I do not plan on simply copying the game, I want to improve it and fix its bugs, and also make it multiplayer-oriented. I am pretty sure that most of you have played the game SOLDAT, where you can aim and shoot at any direction, with the mouse. I want to implement this in the game among with other expansions (except you will be using the stylus for this).

The platform engine is almost done (I wrote it in java), and ready to be converted to c++, but ofcourse it's only a small part of the whole process in the making - therefor I would like to ask for help on this project:

What I need is:
- the ripped level tiles and sprites of characters
- the sounds and music in either mp3 or mod format (yes mod, not s3m)
- some home made levels + later on I am planning on releasing a level creator, similar to jcf, for mostly multiplayer map creating purposes.

All help is gladly welcome and appreciated.

sedthh

edit1: the engine will most likely use 16*16 tilemaps instead of 32*32 because of the small displays of the DS, but I might write a code that zooms in sometimes, like when you stand still or action takes place nearby you, but this depends entirely on how powerful the hardware is.



ps: in before trolling about 'no good platforms on DS' take that elsewhere

Proof of the engine before we do your gruntwork please, especially since you can find/make most of this on your own.

Originally Posted by sedthh

the ripped level tiles

http://www.jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/dow...p?levelID=4087

Originally Posted by sedthh

sprites of characters

http://www.jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/dow...p?levelID=4041

Originally Posted by sedthh

the sounds and music in either mp3 or mod format (yes mod, not s3m

http://jazz.madskills.org/music/Jazz2mp3-LC/

Originally Posted by sedthh

some home made levels

http://www.jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/downloads/


Have fun.

Oh come now Cooba, don't take all of the fun of explaining the search function away D=

JJDS? You mean something like this?

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3095/im001120ja4.jpg
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3944/im001121rd7.jpg
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3844/im001122zw1.jpg

On a side note...PALib? You've got to be kidding me! Somebody doesn't know diddly squat about the DS.

thx a bunch cooba, especially for the quick answer

I forgot to mention that ideas on new weapons are also welcome. You can use 4 kinds of weapons in each level only (I will explain later why)
There are 6 attributes for every weapon
-damage | damage made by weapon
-recoil | you move to the opposite direction (like rockets in j2)
-speed | speed of the bullets
-reload | not really reload, just the time that needs to pass between two shots
-special | like homing, freezing, bouncing etc
-hit | (bool) can it hit other bullets as well


(FTA)

[Flame tag removal and swearing removal. Please read the rules and start abiding by them. - FQuist]

Originally Posted by sedthh

if you are trying to be an internet toughguy at least do it good.

If you are trying to be a ds coder tough guy, at least learn how to search

Originally Posted by ahat

JJDS? You mean something like this?

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3095/im001120ja4.jpg
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3944/im001121rd7.jpg
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3844/im001122zw1.jpg

On a side note...PALib? You've got to be kidding me! Somebody doesn't know diddly squat about the DS.

oh shi- someone did it before me then what stadium is it in?

what's wrong with palib? I am ok with everything else as long as I don't have to assembly the poor thing

Sometimes people hear what they want to hear, this is especially the case on the internet where this little to none vocal to be heard in text. Since this is the case I'd like to ask you to stop taking everything I say so aggressivly and perhaps read my posts in a more monotone or calm manner. Pretend I am Hal-9000 or that sex offender ice cream man everyone at one point in their lives has met when you read my posts and maybe this feeling of aggressive-ness will subside. Perhaps I am quite lame at being an "internet toughguy" (which is an oxymoron in and out of itself) because I am not trying to be one. Also, don't use such harsh language, man. Did you read the rules before posting here or not?

Originally Posted by sedthh

oh shi- someone did it before me then what stadium is it in?

what's wrong with palib? I am ok with everything else as long as I don't have to assembly the poor thing

If you have to ask what's wrong with PALib you're obviously a (-) to the DS Homebrew scene as well. You obviously know very little about the hardware and likely will not, ever, create a functioning game for it.

[Swearword removal - FQuist]

ok sorry it's just I'm only here for some help on a project I've been working on for days and I was pretty sure that you would all appreciate it, since nothing related has been released lately. I guess I've got unused to forums

Originally Posted by sedthh

ok sorry it's just I'm only here for some help on a project I've been working on for days and I was pretty sure that you would all appreciate it, since nothing related has been released lately. I guess I've got unused to forums

What I'm trying to say to you is, you don't even know what you're doing and should just stop now.

Why am I saying this to you?
1) Invalid use of the word "port".
2) Wanting MP3 versions of the music in JJ2.
3) Saying "PALib" in an context.
4) Being unable to rip the assets you need, by yourself!
5) The list just keeps going...

n00b and ahat, a less aggressive attitude would be much appreciated.

I can't say much about your effort (apart from that I like seeing some activity in porting Jazz2). I'm surprised by your choice for Java though, does that run on the DS?

Welcome to the forums, too.

Originally Posted by Stijn

n00b, a less aggressive attitude would be much appreciated.

I can't say much about your effort (apart from that I like seeing some activity in porting Jazz2). I'm surprised by your choice for Java though, does that run on the DS?

Welcome to the forums, too.

It wouldn't be a port, it'd be a remake. They don't even plan on making the game the same.

Originally Posted by ahat

What I'm trying to say to you is, you don't even know what you're doing and should just stop now.

Why am I saying this to you?
1) Invalid use of the word "port".
2) Wanting MP3 versions of the music in JJ2.
3) Saying "PALib" in an context.
4) Being unable to rip the assets you need, by yourself!
5) The list just keeps going...

I do not care

Stijn: thanks lol

Originally Posted by sedthh

I do not care

Stijn: thanks lol

Get in IRC and talk to me, I want to discuss it with you.
Quakenet, #jj2

Originally Posted by Stijn

n00b and ahat, a less aggressive attitude would be much appreciated.

Again, I'm not being aggressive. I would appreciate it if you stopped seeing my posts that way.

I percieve your replies as aggressive and so does sedthh, I don't know about others. If that was not your intent you might want to think again about how you phrase things

Originally Posted by ahat

Get in IRC and talk to me, I want to discuss it with you.
Quakenet, #jj2

lol wut

Originally Posted by sedthh

lol wut

You don't know what IRC is?

Why leave everyone hanging, Ahat? You could explain here why PALib is a bad decision. I'm sure you can learn about the DS to find out, but since you know about it..

well if it is really that slow then I guess I will just have to stick with devkitPro instead. But I would still want your opinions on that

Originally Posted by Fquist

Why leave everyone hanging, Ahat? You could explain here why PALib is a bad decision. I'm sure you can learn about the DS to find out, but since you know about it..

PALib is like the "OMGZ GAME CREATOR 2005!!!1!11eoneon1!1" of DS homebrew. The only reason you would use it is if you have limited knowledge in both programming and the hardware. Because of its simplicity, it's both buggy, and lacks flexibility/functionality. It manages the vram horribly, it mangles the input from the touchscreen, it's just garbage. I could keep going on and on about the matter.

Originally Posted by sedthh

well if it is really that slow then I guess I will just have to stick with devkitPro instead. But I would still want your opinions on that

I hope you realize that you'd be using devkitpro regardless...PALib just gives you higher level functions, which are poorly coded.

any suggestions on what should I use then? I didn't know PAlib sucks that much :/ then again it doesn't really change anything

Originally Posted by sedthh

any suggestions on what should I use then? I didn't know PAlib sucks that much :/ then again it doesn't really change anything

devkitpro is the only devkit you'll find, unless you get the official one from Nintendo.

You could also write pure ARM ASM if you want.

Time for my 2 cents.

Before I start analyzing every aspect of this thread, I thought it would be fair to give a rough background of myself. I have been in the JJ2 hacking scene for many years now, which of course counts for nothing. But I am also a proud owner and homebrewer of the Nintendo DS.

The Idea
The idea of "porting", if you can call it that, Jazz Jackrabbit 2 to the NDS is not a new one. Of course, all of us here (albeit sounding very harsh in this thread) would really love to see something like this work. Unfortunately, many have tried and failed... Ok, maybe not. Unless ahat was already working on such a port. So let's further break down this analysis.

Hardware
Honestly, there's nowhere I'd rather see a JJ2 ported to than the Nintendo DS. And yet, when this is said and done, the DS is also one of the harder platforms to program on, mainly because of it's extremely limited 4MB ram. Depending on the design and implementation of the port itself, the CPU and screen size should also be taken into account.

Implementation
It is difficult to see how much thought you have put into this. I am by no means a game expert, nor have I actually made any full-fledged games. The tiles for a start; 32x32 would be pretty cramped I agree, yet 16x16 will not do any justice to the graphics. Also, the stylus controls sound very gimmicky. I'm not really sure how this will work out, since one hand will have to control a lot of buttons. A Metroid Prime Hunters style control might or might not work. Then again, don't take my word for this; I'm really bad at game design. But another thing you should consider is how much this port will be able to handle. Remember that memory is very limited. Level sizes will have to be kept small, and events (JCS events) will have to be kept few. Going in and out of levels, which many DS games do in order to load the next level, or next portion of a level, may not work in a multiplayer context.

Resources
Again, I'm not trying to completely destroy this project, but I have to wonder how much effort you have spent or are willing to spend in this. Is it going to be a one-man programming team? You did start this thread requesting for help, but the help required (sprites, sounds, levels) are nothing more than trivial aspects to the entire game creation process. At the very least, will you be designing and programming the entire thing yourself?

Programming
Finally, the section in which I'd consider myself most experienced in. This section alone can be broken into multiple subsections, but I'll have to start somewhere. Firstly, the engine. Why would the engine be written in java first, only to have it later converted to C++? Unless it was a generic engine, but this will not work very well. Not to say that JJ2 is an extremely complicated game, but the engine should be made to revolve around the game, rather than taking some engine and customising it to meet the game specs. In other words, it should be programmed directly in C++, and probably after the design stage is finalised.

Then there's also the porting aspect. At this stage, only j2nsm has the source code to jj2 but they will never give it to us so that is not an option. Since there is no source code of any sort, the only way to port or remake will be to default to experimentation or reverse engineering of some sort. In which case, it is definitely a better idea to create a "port" or remake on the PC itself; think OpenJazz2. Only when you get something that works closely enough to the original will it be worthy of porting.

Last but not least, programming on the DS. This is what I am most skeptical about. Like ahat has already shown a few times, it is almost certain that you have never programmed any DS homebrew. Perhaps you considered learning the ropes while working on the project. This might work for windows programming, which requires lots of trial and error. But DS programming is very specific, and if it is indeed your first project, you may want to consider my first option. Which is to remake on the PC first then port it to the DS.

Conclusion
Consider whether this project will be realistic. Probably start with something slightly lighter and proceed from there.

Epilogue
OK, I tried to keep this criticism as free of attacks as possible. My apologies if it sounds rather offensive, but I believe it best to correct the entire thing before it starts to go wrong. Also, NDS > PSP!!!

wow thanks for all the ideas, and questions

Originally Posted by Neobeo

Hardware
Honestly, there's nowhere I'd rather see a JJ2 ported to than the Nintendo DS. And yet, when this is said and done, the DS is also one of the harder platforms to program on, mainly because of it's extremely limited 4MB ram. Depending on the design and implementation of the port itself, the CPU and screen size should also be taken into account.

I haven't paid much attention on how powerful the hardware is because there are always alternative options (so that 4 megs of ram doesn't mean you are limited to 4 megs only, and you can pass on most of the tasks to other parts of the hardware), but since jazz 1 could run on a 486 well I am confident.
edit: do not forget that jj2 used directx, and some special effects such as lighting etc, which I will ignore.

I have already come up with a lot of ideas on minimalising the usage of resources (despite the hardware).

Originally Posted by Neobeo

Implementation
It is difficult to see how much thought you have put into this. I am by no means a game expert, nor have I actually made any full-fledged games. The tiles for a start; 32x32 would be pretty cramped I agree, yet 16x16 will not do any justice to the graphics. Also, the stylus controls sound very gimmicky. I'm not really sure how this will work out, since one hand will have to control a lot of buttons. A Metroid Prime Hunters style control might or might not work. Then again, don't take my word for this; I'm really bad at game design. But another thing you should consider is how much this port will be able to handle. Remember that memory is very limited. Level sizes will have to be kept small, and events (JCS events) will have to be kept few. Going in and out of levels, which many DS games do in order to load the next level, or next portion of a level, may not work in a multiplayer context.

bullseye, I was planning on a metroid-like controlling:
depending on which hand you use (lets go with right)
arrows for movement, left trigger for shooting
abxy for changing weapons
stylus: depending on where you point on the screen your character will aim that direction and shoot. If you drag the stylus on the screen your character will aim towards it but will not shoot. if you click on your character and drag it towards north, east,west or south you change weapons just like using abxy.

Originally Posted by Neobeo

Resources
Again, I'm not trying to completely destroy this project, but I have to wonder how much effort you have spent or are willing to spend in this. Is it going to be a one-man programming team? You did start this thread requesting for help, but the help required (sprites, sounds, levels) are nothing more than trivial aspects to the entire game creation process. At the very least, will you be designing and programming the entire thing yourself?

I have a few friends who are willing to help and are interested in coding for the DS, but I am pretty sure that I will have to do the major part of the work. In fact I rather do things myself. Of course it won't be released soon, since I have some php code to take care of first, and I attend Uni. But seeing the other jazz projects I think it will be done faster than those.
eidt: the reason I started this thread now, because I am almost ready with the engine and I didn't know how much time would it taken to get all the sprites. So I thought the sooner the better. Well ,should have used the search for other things than levelpacks and music

Originally Posted by Neobeo

Programming
Finally, the section in which I'd consider myself most experienced in. This section alone can be broken into multiple subsections, but I'll have to start somewhere. Firstly, the engine. Why would the engine be written in java first, only to have it later converted to C++? Unless it was a generic engine, but this will not work very well. Not to say that JJ2 is an extremely complicated game, but the engine should be made to revolve around the game, rather than taking some engine and customising it to meet the game specs. In other words, it should be programmed directly in C++, and probably after the design stage is finalised.

it's just that I had to write some random java homework for my school so I thought I should kill two birds with one stone. I wrote the engine in java, so I could get an A on it from my school and use it for the project later. Yes it is indeed generic, but besides the eventListeners for the keyboard/mouse events and the main threads everything works the same.

Originally Posted by Neobeo

Then there's also the porting aspect. At this stage, only j2nsm has the source code to jj2 but they will never give it to us so that is not an option. Since there is no source code of any sort, the only way to port or remake will be to default to experimentation or reverse engineering of some sort. In which case, it is definitely a better idea to create a "port" or remake on the PC itself; think OpenJazz2. Only when you get something that works closely enough to the original will it be worthy of porting.

remake with the same textures and music not port. my bad

btw even if I had the code, I still wouldn't port it. it's just too booring that way.

Originally Posted by Neobeo

Last but not least, programming on the DS. This is what I am most skeptical about. Like ahat has already shown a few times, it is almost certain that you have never programmed any DS homebrew. Perhaps you considered learning the ropes while working on the project. This might work for windows programming, which requires lots of trial and error. But DS programming is very specific, and if it is indeed your first project, you may want to consider my first option. Which is to remake on the PC first then port it to the DS.

you are almost right, actually seeing the palib documentation and tutors alone made it look easy enough to be done. Some changes in the plan alone won't make me cancell the project. In fact I have already made an idiot of myself here so it would look stupid if I would give it up.

Originally Posted by Neobeo

Conclusion
Consider whether this project will be realistic. Probably start with something slightly lighter and proceed from there.

hahaha no, I prefer deep water

Originally Posted by Neobeo

Epilogue
OK, I tried to keep this criticism as free of attacks as possible. My apologies if it sounds rather offensive, but I believe it best to correct the entire thing before it starts to go wrong. Also, NDS > PSP!!!

no it's ok it was rather helpful, if you have any more toughts on this, please feel free to share it with me.

Alternative options? How isn't 4MB of RAM your limit? The only other way you'd get extra RAM is from certain slot 2 devices (Opera ramcart, certain flash carts, M3 has a ramcart). But at which point you'd be forcing a user to buy certain hardware to be able to play the game, and that just isn't right.

Pass tasks on to other parts of the hardware? I hate to tell you man, but all you have is the ARM9 and ARM7, and the ARM7 isn't going to do much for you.

You wanted to use MP3's earlier, you obviously don't know what you're at, and your project is nothing more than a sham. Stop fishing and go back to your "speed-painting".

you know this just made me want to do it even more and then laugh in your face

thanks for the boost man, now you can be 100% sure that I will make it

Originally Posted by sedthh

you know this just made me want to do it even more and then laugh in your face

thanks for the boost man, now you can be 100% sure that I will make it

Considering you think you can go beyond the limits of the hardware, I completely doubt that. I've done a lot of DS homebrew in the past.

By the way, have you considered that using JJ2's sprites and the like is illegal?

Originally Posted by Stijn

I'm surprised by your choice for Java though, does that run on the DS?

very slowly

I knew it was coming to the ds before all of you and most of the world

Originally Posted by Speeza

I knew it was coming to the ds before all of you and most of the world

Oh no! Ryder came for a lurk.

Originally Posted by Stijn

By the way, have you considered that using JJ2's sprites and the like is illegal?

If it is going to work like OpenJazz, I'd say it would use the original game's files. Jazz2 isn't insanely big and would probably fit on a flashcart. It's been done with other games.

I doubt that's the plan, as sedthh asked for the ripped game sprites in his opening post.

...weapon suggestions are welcome, so...

Deflector:

-Damage = 0
-Recoil | None
-Speed | None
-Reload | None (slowly takes away ammo)
-Special | Creates a shield that can be directed anywhere
-Hit | It can deflect other attacks

Originally Posted by Pako

...weapon suggestions are welcome, so...

Deflector:

-Damage = 0
-Recoil | None
-Speed | None
-Reload | None (slowly takes away ammo)
-Special | Creates a shield that can be directed anywhere
-Hit | It can deflect other attacks

Don't feed the llama.

I have to agree with ahat on this. As for pako, it must be called the shine.