#151777 - Michoko - Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:54 pm
Hi,
Here is my first homebrew project on the DS: LoneWolfDS - Flight From The Dark.
This homebrew is adapted from a famous Gamebooks series called "Lone Wolf" and written by Joe Dever.
This version is based on the original US edition (the only one, with the Spanish version, which is currently freely available on the net) and allows to play the full first book without bothering with tedious elements like combats handling, random rolls, inventory management... All this is directly integrated into the gameplay, as my primary goal was to make a video game and not just an interactive ebook.
Some screens:
http://www.projectaon.org/staff/frederic/pics/intro.jpg
http://www.projectaon.org/staff/frederic/pics/inventory.jpg
http://www.projectaon.org/staff/frederic/pics/battle.jpg
http://www.projectaon.org/staff/frederic/pics/character-sheet.jpg
You can download the ROM and find further info on the official site:
http://www.lonewolfds.org
Huge thanks to:
- the Project Aon team for adapting the books in HTML format,
- Mollusk for his superb PALib,
- Noda and Tom for their help on playing MP3 files,
- and all those who made this project possible. Special greetings to all the great beta testers for their precious help during the finalization of this game.
Feel free to send me your suggestions, remarks or bug reports!
VERSION 1.41 IS NOW AVAILABLE !
Changelog:
2008/04/28: version 1.41 English/1.01 Spanish
- Hotfix which fixes a bug when saving a game without having the weaponskill discipline.
2008/04/27: version 1.4
- Fixed a memory leak during random rolls, making the numbers disappear after many rolls.
- Fixed some vicious inventory bugs.
- Fixed many sections.
- Updated the events handling engine so future books will be easier to port.
- Spanish version! (thanks A LOT to NewKuato and El Cl?rigo Urbatain!!!)
2008/04/08: Version 1.3
- Fixed section #197, where a sword and some gold coins were not available (thanks Steven!)
2008/04/03: Version 1.2
- Added a left-handed mode finally! I recoded many things to support this new mode, so if you find a bug, please tell me! :)
- Now you throw the dice manually during combats, to make them more enjoyable and add a bit of suspense.
- Fixed a screen brightness bug occuring sometimes after flashing the screen.
- Fixed a combat skill bonus bug when you had taken "MindBlast" discipline.
- Added a "Close" button to the map. Also you can now display the map by pressing START/SELECT.
- Other small fixes and improvements.
2008/03/22: Version 1.1
- LoneWolfDS should now work properly on M3 Real and G6 linkers (many thanks to all the testers!)
- Fixed a small issue on section #33 were gold was not increased properly.
Changelog:
2008/03/09: Version 1.0
- Fixed a nasty bug that was not flushing inventory correctly when you were restarting a new game,
causing various strange behaviours when trying to pick items (thanks Raion!)
- Fixed a bug causing Gold to increase regularly, and limited the number of crowns to 50.
- Fixed a loading saved game bug which was not restoring all events properly (thanks Kirsty!).
- Fixed several sections events
- Smoothed and improved map scrolling using the stylus.
- Fixed a bug where "Previous/Next" buttons were staying in black & white after dying.
- You can't no longer pick/unpick the "Weaponskill" discipline and roll a random number each time.
- You can't drop and lose the map now.
- Various other small fixes and improvements.
2008/03/04: RC6
- First public release candidate[/code]
Have fun! :)
Last edited by Michoko on Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:20 pm; edited 5 times in total
#151787 - Jesse - Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:09 pm
Cool! I thought this was an abandoned project, but I'm glad I was wrong. It looks and plays excellent! Great work.
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#151792 - Kojote - Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:42 pm
really excellent work! *thumbup*
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#151816 - Metaluna - Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:40 am
Look really cool. Do you intend to convert other books such as Scorpion Swamp ?
#151823 - Imprompt - Wed Mar 05, 2008 4:39 pm
Excellent idea for a release, now I can ebay the books away :)
#151825 - poet - Wed Mar 05, 2008 5:39 pm
Wow, great work. Thank you very much.
You used the graphical elements realy well and made it look very professional.
I hope you plan on porting the whole series. It was a blast to play through, no bugs or any kind of problem encountered.
I just noticed that you might want to restore the illustration, if present, to the second (top/left) screen when returning from the character data to the story. But that's no problem, and maybe it's intentional anyway ...
Also when a scene is multiple pages long sometimes a sentence is split between two pages which is kind of akward to read. A check to move the whole sentence to the next page would be nice. Also maybe you could add a scrolling mode where you don't flip pages but scroll down. This would take way some of the "book" feeling, but I think it would feel right too.
#151826 - silent_code - Wed Mar 05, 2008 5:52 pm
THAT'S DAMN FANTASTIC!
i love those old p&p rpg books!
i've got deathtrap dungeon and house of hell and planned to make a "adventure sheet" application for mobiles... but this? it ROCKS! excellent work!
nice work! looking forward to see more of this kind of hb!
Last edited by silent_code on Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:19 pm; edited 1 time in total
#151827 - Metaluna - Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:00 pm
house of horror, great memories! :)
#151841 - Michoko - Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:41 pm
Hi,
Thanks a lot for the kinds words! :)
About porting the other books of the Lone Wolf series, yes, there will be more!
About other books written by other people, right now there is a copyright issue that prevents me to do it. We had the chance to get the Lone Wolf books due to the work done by the Project Aon team (who got a special authorization from Joe Dever to publish his work).
But I admit I'd really LOVE to port books like House of horror, which would be really fun due to its very specific atmosphere.
Now you know what you have to do: harass Steve Jackson until he gives his authorization ;)
Bye
Michoko
#151853 - Markzilla - Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:23 am
Excellent. I'd just like to note one bug. It is possible to get the skill enhancement for any weapon by simply disabling and reenabling it until you get the number you wanted, and since it shows what the weapon is, you can pick whichever weapon you want.
In other words, I wanted to be good with the axe from the very beginning, so I just picked numbers until Axe came up.
#151861 - nanou - Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:43 am
| Markzilla wrote: |
Excellent. I'd just like to note one bug. It is possible to get the skill enhancement for any weapon by simply disabling and reenabling it until you get the number you wanted, and since it shows what the weapon is, you can pick whichever weapon you want.
In other words, I wanted to be good with the axe from the very beginning, so I just picked numbers until Axe came up. |
I noticed that too. I also noticed that I like being able to select and deselect skills though, so maybe it's best if the weapon is selected after the skills are finalized... OTOH maybe that would be an annoying complication in the code.
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#151919 - Michoko - Thu Mar 06, 2008 5:47 pm
To be honest I was aware of this, but left it as some kind of "feature" to let the player reroll if he didn't like the weapon he was specialized in.
But maybe you're right, I should prevent this behaviour ;)
#152211 - Michoko - Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:10 pm
Version 1.0 is now available!
Please see the changelog in the first message.
Have fun!
Michoko
#152923 - Michoko - Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:58 pm
Hi!
A new version (1.1) is now available, and should fix the compatibility problems with M3 Real and G6 linkers (and maybe others!).
| Code: |
Changelog:
2008/03/22: Version 1.1
- LoneWolfDS should now work properly on M3 Real and G6 linkers (many thanks to all the testers!)
- Fixed a small issue on section #33 were gold was not increased properly.
|
On a side note, LoneWolfDS has now officially entered the NeoFlash Competition 2008! So if you want to support this project or just
check all the great entries, click here: http://www.neoflash.com/forum/index.php/board,98.0.html
Have fun!
Michoko
#152931 - another world - Sat Mar 22, 2008 11:00 pm
great project. i did email you about the m3 lite i hope you can find a fix for it. as of now the homebrew won't launch on the m3 lite.
i found some typos but only wrote one down =/. sorry i'll try to write more later.
on page 217 it says "sign above it that says: ____" and you didn't enter the name here. later on a different page the sign of the INN (i think it was) is named.
Also somewhere early on I remember there was a line the refered to the prince of the relm as a "her." I'll try to track that down and let you know.
keep up the good work!
-another world
Last edited by another world on Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:49 am; edited 1 time in total
#152938 - Tassu - Sun Mar 23, 2008 1:04 am
I never heard of these gamebooks before but I love this game! More games like this, please! :D
And good luck with the competition!
#152953 - antiaverage - Sun Mar 23, 2008 8:56 am
Great job, I'm loving this!
Just for the next update:
page 349, "blond-haired" should read "blonde-haired"
#152966 - Romaap - Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:20 pm
I love this great game!!!
I hope you have enough time to make some more
#153795 - Michoko - Sun Apr 06, 2008 2:45 pm
Hi,
Version 1.2 is now available!
The biggest addition is a left-handed mode! :)
Here is the full changelog:
| Code: |
- Added a left-handed mode finally! I recoded many things to support this new mode, so if you find a bug, please tell me! :)
- Now you throw the dice manually during combats, to make them more enjoyable and add a bit of suspense.
- Fixed a screen brightness bug occuring sometimes after flashing the screen.
- Fixed a combat skill bonus bug when you had taken "MindBlast" discipline.
- Added a "Close" button to the map. Also you can now display the map by pressing START/SELECT.
- Other small fixes and improvements. |
Now that the game engine is stabilized, I'll begin to work on book II.
Have fun!
Michoko
#154274 - Markzilla - Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:42 pm
Congratulations for winning the Neo Spring Competition!
#154297 - medisyn - Mon Apr 14, 2008 6:59 am
I just beat this the otherday, what a fun game! I really want to play more of the story. You did a great job on this port.
#154303 - Darkflame - Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:55 pm
This is pretty cool.
A long shot...but might it be possible for the engine to support mp3 sounds as well as text-to-speach?
Obviously not for the majority of the text, but letting you have specific sounds at certain points could potentialy open the door for audio-based puzzles. (not to mention ambient/sound effects)
Just a random idea, probably tricky to impliment.
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#154304 - Michoko - Mon Apr 14, 2008 1:03 pm
Hmm, it might be tricky indeed. Especially since I try to respect the original books as much as possible, so the original author didn't include any audio puzzle of course :)
About text-to-speech, there is a full audio implementation of the book called Hyena though (but it's not exactly the same concept as what you described, I suppose).
Cheers
Michoko
#154348 - Darkflame - Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:16 am
Well, naturely, I meant for hypophetical new adventures people might want to develope ;)
The idea of audio-only games i find quite appealing.
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#154454 - MechaBouncer - Wed Apr 16, 2008 5:28 pm
I finally gave this a proper play through and must say I found it to be excellent. The way the game played took me back to similar "make your own adventure" books I used to read, but with a flair reminiscent of D&D games. I must say I had never heard of this book series until this port, and frankly, I wouldn't want to play it any other way now. Not having to worry about having paper, pencils, dice or whatever to play it makes things so much easier to pick up. Not only that, but the graphics and sound really set the mood for the story, pulling you in all the more.
The only thing that really bugged me is that you can't choose your weapon proficiency. It seems rather odd to just have it arbitrarily assigned to you, but that's coming from my D&D preference and I'm sure the original books were like that. I can't fault you for sticking true to the original work.
One question I have is why do you still include the page numbers when there aren't really any pages anymore? You mentioned that it was ported from Project Aon's HTML port. I'm guessing they still referenced the page numbers? Are they referenced internally by those numbers or to have some kind of connection with the original books? Or was it just faster to leave the numbers in from the HTML port? Well, I suppose there are probably more reasons to leave them in than to remove them. I just found it a little humorous to have page references in a video game. :)
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#154461 - Michoko - Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:33 pm
Hehe yes, the Project Aon had the sections numbers included in the texts. And if I had removed the "Turn to XXX" statements, then it would have required to recreate the links on another portion of the sentence, which coulb be quite tedious in the end.
Moreover, I thought that keeping the sections numbers gave a bit of a nostalgic touch to it, and from the mails I receive, I think many people like to play it the old-school way :)
Sweet memories... ;)
#155294 - Michoko - Sun Apr 27, 2008 10:13 pm
Hi everybody!
I'm pleased to announce a new release of LoneWolfDS v1.4. And the biggest addition is nothing less than a Spanish version! :D
Yeah, I know, I had said that I would not do any translated version yet, but a guy called NewKuato contacted me some weeks ago, by providing all the book texts already translated. Moreover I must admit I was a bit euphoric because of the LoneWolfDS first place at the NEO compo, so I thought it would be worth a try. ;)
My original concern was that it may take a lot of time to make a localized version, and hell, I was right! Without the amazing help from NewKuato and Urbatain El Cl?rigo, this project would have never seen the light. Those guys spent hours and hours testing the new translated engine, and I'm still impressed by the huge efforts they put into providing all translations and test reports. With such a great support, this translation has been really a positive experience!
But the second most important aspect is that with all those tests, a lot of bugs and events errors were detected and fixed, both in the Spanish and English version. Hence the new releases in both languages. Moreover, it has also helped stabilizing the engine for the second book (I've already started working on volume 2 too).
So here is the changelog:
| Code: |
2008/04/27: version 1.4 (Recommended update!)
- Fixed a memory leak during random rolls, making the numbers disappear after many rolls.
- Fixed some vicious inventory bugs.
- Fixed many sections.
- Updated the events handling engine so future books will be easier to port.
- Spanish version! (thanks A LOT to NewKuato and El Cl?rigo Urbatain!!!) |
Before I get spammed with translations requests in all the languages of the world, let me say that I WON'T do any other language adaptations right now! It requires too much work and I prefer focusing on the second book now (so many things to do, so little time). Moreover, only the english and spanish versions are available for free on the net, so I'll stick to them right now.
Have fun!! :)
Michoko
PS: Please, don't upload the ROM files on any other site, since the Project Aon license requires me to host all projects based on their work on the Project Aon site itself. So please give the following download URL instead: http://www.projectaon.org/staff/frederic/index.php
Thank you! :)
Last edited by Michoko on Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:39 am; edited 1 time in total
#155301 - tepples - Sun Apr 27, 2008 11:21 pm
http://"http//www.projectaon.org/staff/frederic/index.php%22
Broken link. Did you mean this URL?
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#155323 - Michoko - Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:39 am
Yup, thanks tepples, I fixed it! ;)
#155359 - Michoko - Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:19 pm
Ouch, I just found a rather fatal bug in the latest builds (both English and Spanish). I just posted a hotfix on the site.
| Code: |
Changelog:
2008/04/28: version 1.41 English/1.01 Spanish
- Hotfix which fixes a bug when saving a game without having the weaponskill discipline. |
Sorry for the inconvenience, now it should work fine :blush:
Take care!
Michoko