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DS development > Homebrew inter-game communication protocol?

#70118 - MrD - Sat Feb 04, 2006 12:36 pm

With the DS, Nintendo seem to have been trying to recreate the attitude of the Pok?mon cartoon in real life: Everybody has a DS, you get on a train to somewhere, and somebody in the next car has a DS. Bing! Let's duel! (Which would be damn damn cool.)

Unfortunately, the only game that actually does this as far as I know is "Yoshi's Touch and Go", with it's Pictochat sensor. I don't know anybody with a second DS, so I don't know whether it's possible to switch between the YTnG main menu and Pictochat.

I have an idea for a new protocol, allowing text and/or image communication between different homebrew DS games. For this to work, we'd have to collaborate and create a whole new open protocol which folks could implement in their own homebrew games, allowing players to communicate no matter which game they're using.

There's only two situations where this would work in practice:
You're playing a turn-based DS game using both screens, and there's an option on the games GUI to open a DS-chat window for talk. (All I can think about is Millenium 2.2 on the amiga here... I apologize, but it's a really good example! Can somebody else think of a turn-based game where a chat window could open?)

Or: You could receive DS-chat messages on one screen while playing a GBA-style game on another screen. When you're done playing and you're on GBA-style game's main menu, you switch the DS-chat screen to the bottom and use it for two-way comms. (And maybe organise a multiplayer player of whatever it is you're playing)

Abuse of this system would inevitably arise... not sure how you'd rectify that though. :(

I'm really suprised Nintendo didn't actually try this for real. It's a bit sad, really. :(
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#70122 - Mrshlee - Sat Feb 04, 2006 1:15 pm

Great idea for a community but there are a few cons/pros of this.

Mainly DS to DS communication e.g. Ad Hoc might not be available for a long time.. but still an option Secondly and a better possibility would be to host a piece of software on a local computer to tunnel the "Home brew community" traffic from DS to DS via Internet.

Connection via the Internet allows for many possible features - in game Chat/download/multi player/clans/blah blah blah and would only really be limited by the amount of effort someone puts into it.
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#70124 - arlow - Sat Feb 04, 2006 1:21 pm

The problem indeed is that Ad Hoc (standalone communication between two mobile network devices) at the moment is not possible in homebrew.....if it was there would be possibility for homebrewn chess games or whatever...but it just is not possible so your idea fails...even if it is a great one!
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#70139 - MrD - Sat Feb 04, 2006 3:08 pm

Ahh... my bad. I should pay attention, heh.
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#70186 - LiraNuna - Sat Feb 04, 2006 10:11 pm

*caugh* battery drain *caugh*

#70195 - MrD - Sat Feb 04, 2006 11:17 pm

That can't be the only reason, surely?
Then I shall fund the development of ?ber batteries.
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#70231 - SeanMon - Sun Feb 05, 2006 3:06 am

Ad-Hoc is not usable at the moment, but won't SgStair's wifi lib support connection to an Access Point soon? It's not as portable, (everyone has to be near an Access Point with an internet connection or the same AP for local wireless connections), but there shouldn't be too much of a difference between a game's Ad-Hoc and AP-based wireless.

Homebrew developers should definately include both an option for Ad-Hoc local and for AP local wireless in their games/programs.
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#70237 - Alex Atkin UK - Sun Feb 05, 2006 3:17 am

Thats what I was thinking.

Being homebrew it wouldnt need to talk NiFi. Surely the same code that runs WiFi could be modified to run without an Access Point? Even if it wasnt a standard Ad-Hoc implementation, so long as it was built into the homebrew dev tools then all homebrew would have access to that protocol.

Also I doubt battery power would be an issue as even my PSP can run for many many hours if all its doing is periodically looking for WiFi networks. It shouldnt even need to use as much power as Wardriving as it neednt be probing so frequently.
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#70251 - HyperHacker - Sun Feb 05, 2006 3:49 am

What I would suggest is basically what Nintendo should have done. Each game broadcasts, every minute or so, some information such as the player's name and what game they're playing. You also have one central 'hub' type game (a small .nds you could load from your flash cart) that just looks for these broadcasts and lists them. You can then click one and specify that you want to play or chat (via Pictochat) with the person, and their game will notify them whenever is appropriate. (An RPG game could pop up a message at the beginning of move selection; a racer or platformer might just have a little icon appear and play a little sound, displaying the information when paused, etc.) Your DS would simply wait for the acknowledgement; maybe it would automatically cancel if they didn't respond within 5 minutes or the signal disappeared. (Give it a minute or so to reappear, though, in case it's just interference.) If the game being played is capable of running entirely from RAM (as most homebrew is), or works with whatever flash card you have and doesn't rely on you having certain files, you could also download the game from the other player; for a small game, it should be possible to just siphon off the program during gameplay without any noticeable disruption (the other player need not even know you're downloading a copy). Larger games might require players to allow or deny the download and wait for it to complete before resuming the game. (Denying being necessary to prevent tards from just downloading over and over, or if you just don't feel like waiting.)

Of course you'd have to be able to turn off the broadcasting (in case you're in a hospital, airplane etc) and downloading (maybe it's a game you're developing and don't want people to have access to yet).

The problem is, whoever's developing it would need 2 DSes to test. Most could be done with a PC with a compatible card (and if standard TCP/IP were used, any card would do) but for optimal testing you'd need 2. You can probably buy a 'broken' DS on eBay that just has a busted hinge, dead pixels, or is bricked and can be recovered with ppflash.