The Wonderland Board

Guess what? That's right, another update!
Sadly it doesn't do very much. Here's a list:
- Make Stinky bob up and down every second or so
- Fixed his hitbox so he doesn't sink into walls any more
- Two buttons/gates per level

EDIT:
- Oh yes, there's a silly animation when you pock up the star too. Forgot about that.

I have run into a problem:
If the D-pad is used to move Stinky, how do I use magic and control Wee Stinkers?
Should there be a button I can use to activate a pointer?
Oh, I should mention that the SELECT button will most likely open the inventory, and the START button will be for the pause menu (Resume, Load, Save, Exit, etc.)

What do you think about pressing the A button to switch the D-pad to controlling the Wee Stinkers instead of Stinky? (I'd put an arrow or something over their heads so you know which character will move.)

Got any better suggestions?

cloudrac3r wrote:I have run into a problem:
If the D-pad is used to move Stinky, how do I use magic and control Wee Stinkers?
Should there be a button I can use to activate a pointer?
Oh, I should mention that the SELECT button will most likely open the inventory, and the START button will be for the pause menu (Resume, Load, Save, Exit, etc.)

What do you think about pressing the A button to switch the D-pad to controlling the Wee Stinkers instead of Stinky? (I'd put an arrow or something over their heads so you know which character will move.)

Got any better suggestions?

An idea: As you said, Select is for the inventory, Start is for the pause menu. Let's say B is to switch to the "cursor mode" or to the "movement mode". Alternatively, B will be a "live" switch, in other words, as long as you press it, it will act as a cursor. A is to initiate dialogs, etc. while in cursor mode. For magic however, I suggest either having to select the gloves from the inventory or changing the function of Select while in cursor. Of course, the D-pad is to move the player or cursor.

Another idea I've got is to remove the cursor mode and only dedicate it to use of magic. That means you have to assign A to interact with people (almost like an RPG), and assign B to turn on/off the magic mode.

Of course, the GB has an incredibly weak button layout, so making something for it would be a pain. And of course, I have no idea what you're doing from a development perspective, so I'm just giving out my ideas.

Ah, here's an idea. The B button can be dedicated to magic, like you said. You can hold it down to bring up a target, use the D-pad to move it, and release B to throw.
Pressing and releasing the A button will initiate a dialog (yes, I forgot about that one!), and holding down A and using left/right on the D-pad will switch characters to you or a wee stinker. When you select a wee stinker, the D-pad will move them instead of Stinky. That would also make it a lot easier to contol the wee stinkers as opposed to the original where you have to make them pathfind somewhere and hope they don't slip on ice, fall in water, etc.
In fact, since wee stinkers can't talk to people, you could even push and release the A button to switch back to Stinky faster. Aha! How does that sound?

I love the idea of Wonderland on a Nintendo platform. I really wish WA would be made for the 3DS or Wii U. Anyway, can you play this on a VisualBoyAdvance emulator?

Celebi543 wrote:I love the idea of Wonderland on a Nintendo platform. I really wish WA would be made for the 3DS or Wii U. Anyway, can you play this on a VisualBoyAdvance emulator?

Yes, I tried it on VBA-M (an "upgrade" to VBA) and it works just fine.

Um, hi. Just joined the fourm and this looks really good!

Welcome to the fourm! (It'san inside joke don't worry).

keifman21 wrote:Um, hi. Just joined the fourm and this looks really good!

Why thank you!

To everyone: what should I try to add next? Should it be enemies, or magic, or something else? Go ahead and leave a reply, or email wonderlandgbbugs@gmail.com to let me know faster!

garirry wrote:Let's say B is to switch to the "cursor mode" or to the "movement mode". Alternatively, B will be a "live" switch, in other words, as long as you press it, it will act as a cursor. A is to initiate dialogs, etc. while in cursor mode. For magic however, I suggest either having to select the gloves from the inventory or changing the function of Select while in cursor. Of course, the D-pad is to move the player or cursor.

Not entirely needed and quite late response: I don't really feel like doing a cursor mode to move, but I'll use one for aiming magic. Since Stinky doesn't move in blocks like in the original (what is your opinion on that? Should he move in blocks instead?) it would be more difficult to implement a pathfinding system because there is no specific route. First I have no idea how to program pathfinding in the first place, second the game boy is quite limited, and since I am using a high-level language - C - instead of assembly, multiplying and dividing have to be emulated by the CPU, which slows down the game quite a bit. This means the game may be very very slow while pathfinding.
I guess I could cheat with enemies by making them walk in Stinky's general direction instead of pathfinding properly. Or I can make the enemies use a grid system which could make it easier.
I wish I was programming for the DS.

A grid movement system is much better than how he is now in the GB game. It just kills it in a block-puzzle game.

Excellent point there! Looks like the next update will switch to a grid system, and I might add Blink magic too

EDIT so I don't fill up 5 pages with just my posts:
Version 1.0.0 will contain a title screen, a menu, a level select, the grid system, and credits which say Midnight Synergy made Wonderland and this is a fan game. Once I have added those things, it will be named 1.0.0.
AND MORE ON CUSTOM LEVELS
In order to make custom levels for this game, its source code will need to be recompiled. I don't think the LCC compiler which I use is free (as in freedom) software, and so I can't distribute it with the game. This could make custom levels difficult to add. Of course, you could just download your own copy of LCC if you want to make levels.

Ooh! Ooh! Update!

This version (0.0.5) includes:
- Grid mode movement, to help with those block puzzles (which don't exist yet)
- You can switch to free mode and back by pressing START+SELECT
- Magic! Not really, just a cursor.
- To use magic, push B to bring up the cursor, use the D-pad to move it to an empty square, and push B again to teleport there!

After using the teleport feature, you will realise that it needs a LOT of work, especially because you can go into and through walls. I only added it for fun, I guess as a proof of concept that the cursor can do stuff.

The next update will most likely fix the teleporting, and add some menus which do things.

says not found.

Caton wrote:says not found.

Are you using this link? It works for me... http://cloudrac3r.ddns.net/data/wdla.gb

garirry wrote:

Celebi543 wrote:I love the idea of Wonderland on a Nintendo platform. I really wish WA would be made for the 3DS or Wii U. Anyway, can you play this on a VisualBoyAdvance emulator?

Yes, I tried it on VBA-M (an "upgrade" to VBA) and it works just fine.

How do you make it play, though?

Celebi543 wrote:

garirry wrote:

Celebi543 wrote:I love the idea of Wonderland on a Nintendo platform. I really wish WA would be made for the 3DS or Wii U. Anyway, can you play this on a VisualBoyAdvance emulator?

Yes, I tried it on VBA-M (an "upgrade" to VBA) and it works just fine.

How do you make it play, though?

What do you mean?

Here is a tutorial on how to play the game on Windows. If you use a Mac, why are you in the forums for a PC game? If you use Linux, it's tricky. Hopefully you are smart enough to work it out.

Download required software:
The Wonderland ROM: http://cloudrac3r.ddns.net/wdla
BGB, the best Game Boy/Game Boy Color emulator: http://bgb.bircd.org/

Install software:
Put the executable in a folder - it creates some files when it is run.
Run the bgb.exe file. If a green window opens, it doesn't need to be installed. Otherwise, follow the steps to install it and then run it from the start menu.
If a "load rom" box pops up, close it.

Configure controls:
In the BGB window, right click and choose options. Find the controls tab and set up the player 1 gamepad to whatever you want.

Play the game:
Right click the BGB window and pick "choose rom". Use the dialog box to navigate to the folder where you put wdla.gb, then select and open it.
The game should immediately start playing. Use the controls you configured earlier to play the game.

Game controls:
up/down/right/left - move Stinky
B - cursor mode
select + start - switch movement mode

cloudrac3r wrote:If you use a Mac, why are you in the forums for a PC game?

Because if we have a Mac, it doesn't mean that we can't play the game one way or another, or at least played it in the past, duh Besides, I could say the same for you for using Linux. Anyway, if you have a Mac, just download OpenEmu, and that's it. Literally, nothing else is needed other than the ROM and import it.

garirry wrote:

Celebi543 wrote:

garirry wrote:

Celebi543 wrote:I love the idea of Wonderland on a Nintendo platform. I really wish WA would be made for the 3DS or Wii U. Anyway, can you play this on a VisualBoyAdvance emulator?

Yes, I tried it on VBA-M (an "upgrade" to VBA) and it works just fine.

How do you make it play, though?

What do you mean?

How do you convert the code so you can play it on a VBA?

Celebi543 wrote:

garirry wrote:

Celebi543 wrote:

garirry wrote:

Celebi543 wrote:I love the idea of Wonderland on a Nintendo platform. I really wish WA would be made for the 3DS or Wii U. Anyway, can you play this on a VisualBoyAdvance emulator?

Yes, I tried it on VBA-M (an "upgrade" to VBA) and it works just fine.

How do you make it play, though?

What do you mean?

How do you convert the code so you can play it on a VBA?

Never mind. The .gb file is already listed.

garirry wrote:Besides, I could say the same for you for using Linux.

Ouch, I suppose I asked for that one!

Nothing much has happened recently. Sorry. If I have free time, I'll try get an update out tomorrow, or at the very least make some progress towards making wee stinkers work.

If you need the retro level music, I can get it for u!

StinkyFTW wrote:If you need the retro level music, I can get it for u!

Tell me more?

do you mean the game's original music files .it? or from the soundtrack of midnight synergy collection disc.

The .it's could be exported as MIDI files, but then you'd have to convert them into a format designed for the GB sound chip. I know the NES has NSFs, and you could use Famitracker to write music in that format, but I know nothing about the GB on the other hand. It wouldn't help however because the gameboy supports only four channels, two squares, a wave, and noise, so you'd have to actually recreate the music entirely into said format in order to be played on an actual console.

It's not super-easy. Sure, if you're dedicated and/or you know musical stuff, it wouldn't be too hard, but it's still a lot of effort and its worth has to be questioned. Though it's 4 or 6 tracks depending on if you add the RTWD songs, so it's not much.

I don't think you can retain the samples used in the .it file in the midi file.

There's a tool for Game Boy called LSDJ. Basically it's a game which lets you create music on the Game Boy itself. It's quite easy to use once you get the hang of it, and if you are comfortable with music and hexadecimal (which I am). On the other hand, programming music into a game would not be easy because of the ridiculous format that you have to write to hardware registers to get a sound, and lack of documentation. I could do it, but it would take a while.

I've added this to the Midnight Post 27 ideas list - just thought you'd want to know.