Preparing Older Titles

#1

Alright, well, whenever we are packing the older Arduboy titles into the Arduboy FX, we need to do some slight modifications to some of them in order to unify the Arduboy FX experience. I’ll include some of these things we need to test for and fix on older titles.

  1. A / B Button Labels: Sometimes, people refer to the A/B buttons backwards a la Gameboy. We need to ensure that all titles reference them correctly.
  2. Boot Logo: We need to ensure that the Arduboy logo is either displayed in all of the games or none of them. We also need to make sure that the games respect the global boot logo display setting if we end up wanting to show the logo.
  3. Sound Enabling/Disabling: Some games do not respect the global sound on/off setting in the Arduboy2 library. We need to make sure this is either incorporated or some alternative code is thrown in for games not built off of the library to respect that setting.
  4. Jump To Bootloader: We need a way to jump back to the main menu by a certain krypress. Up + Down?

There’s some other small things that I simply cannot remember at the moment, so please feel free to suggest them and I’ll add them to the list!

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Universal Utilities Block Idea
#2

If we do an audio out library we might consider modding games to have that support a swell as mute.

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#3

What I was wondering was that of we should have a FX logo displayed when it’s a FX enhanced game… maybe taking the place of the original Arduboy logo?

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#4

100% for sure. Maybe need an ArduboyFX library to hold everything that builds off of Arduboy2.

#5

Some games need a ‘drop to bootloader’ key sequence if they have removed the USB stack. I think we should standardize this across the FX range.

Is there an existing convention? I have added ‘hold the down button for five three seconds’ on my splash screens. What are others doing?

Secondly, I am wondering if there is a convention that will allow us to develop games for both old and new (FX) arduboy that uses compiler #defines to add / remove features that allow it to be compiled for both platforms.

Something like:

#define ARDUBOY_FX

#ifdef ARDUBOY_FX
... do stuff for FX using all of the memory
#else
... do stuff for the original platform.
#endif

Or, can you detect the library version somehow and make a choice that way?

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#6

Uisng custom wiring.c or build with a custom core (like the HomeMadePackage)

Edit:

With using a custom core with Arduino IDE all it takes is a recompile. But this would require installing a board package ofcourse.

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#7

I like this idea, too, but is it necessary? Could the user just turn the system off and back on?

#8

Frequently switching off and on will wear out the power switch much faster. So I’d say yes it is necessary.

#9

We could maybe even add a reset button to jump back to the loader?

#10

That would be my preferred choice. But drilling / cnc-ing a hole in the front case not an option If I understood @bateske correctly

#11

Ya I want a button but I don’t see any real way to do it with the current hardware config. :confused:

Turning it on and off is probably OK once you know what games you like and want to play. But I guess yah if someone gets a system for the first time and wants to quickly check out all the games switching on and off the device a bunch is probably not optimal especially with someone who doesn’t have fingernails.

Especially when you see people on these home made consoles to just push a button to bring them back into the bootloader menu instantly does look and perform very slick.

I just can’t think how to do it without changing the case.

It might be possible to make a hardware reset by pressing all buttons at the same time but that’s a bit dangerous config as it might lead to accidental resets.

#12

Is replacing the reset button with something longer not an option?
If the reset button slightly protruded from the case it would be a lot easier to press.

That said, that would only be a fix for future versions.
(Unless there was a way to easily retrofit it.)

A software button combo would be an easier solution.

#13

If it protrudes enough for it to be pressed it could either break off but also feel like yuck.

Software button combo of course would of course have to be supported in software. So I guess some games that take 100% memory space would be difficult to mod.

#14

You can always find a few bytes in a game to support this. If someone says that they are at 100% then the probably just need a third party to look at their code - maybe @pharap - there are always savings!

Anyhow, if they have more memory in the FX, then there is no excuse.

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#15

That reminds me, I never did get round to showing city41 the changes I made to Ardynia to save 400 (or so) bytes.

#16

I am starting the process of developing the master cart and their title screens. This will all be hand done by me.