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GBA Minish Cap Coding

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Kami:
If were programming GBA, would we have to keep in mind the file size limit, or since it being on the computer, it wouldn't matter.

4Sword:
I have not really thought about the file size limit of the GBA, but I know that graphics take up the bulk of the file size limit of any game. The GBA is able to do image flipping and palette shifting so if I was doing just Link movement on Game Maker I would need sprites for both facing left and right, and if I wanted to do all the tunics I would have to have redundant copies. The actual Minish Cap game appears to be about 16,384 KB and right now I am only at 10 KB so I should be fine.

That all being said, the GBA is really old so while it may be possible to run the stuff I am doing on an actual GBA - if it only works on an emulator that is fine too.

DaSpirit:
Wouldn't it be better to simply use SDL and compile a game rather than running it as a GBA game? I can see trouble when pirates start putting the ROM on cartridges and start selling it on eBay. Plus, doesn't it go slower because the ROM is interpreted rather than being a standalone executable?

thestig:
Right on all points, Spirit. He could use anything other than <x>. But I don't know, I guess it's the novelty's sake for writing games on the GBA. Either way, it would be interesting to see what comes of this.

4Sword:
It would probably run faster if I did it with SDL (I have some knowledge of that or am familiar enough with the lazyfoo tutorials to where I could adapt what I had to use that too without the things like the 8x8 image piece restrictions), but that is mainly because computers that would run it have more resources available to them compared to the GBA. Heck, the reason I had to do treat 1.000 and 1.414 as something like 1000 and 1414 and then convert those numbers to hex was to get around the fact that the GBA can't handle floating point numbers nearly at all and I wanted to keep the precision (this is to say that the GBA can't do floating point stuff well like modern computers can).

But yeah, I don't think it is interpretted too much? Before it is compiled the code is very close to the Assembler level, and after it gets compiled it is in binary that the GBA understands. I guess it has to be interpreted by the emulator because it is not the actual hardware, but even so then the emulator takes advantage of the computer's processing ability. Speed-wise, it should be fine or comparable/better than Game Maker speed (which slows down based on the more you have).

I like programming on the GBA because it is a good way to have to constantly think about not making the program bloated by managing resources poorly. It also has built in sprite rotation and palette shifting which Game Maker either doesn't have or requires the professional edition. As for pirates, I plan on just releasing my code as an engine.

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