Messages

1

Chrono Trigger Modification / Re: Kajar Engine - An open source engine for Chrono Trigger

« on: August 24, 2023, 05:31:44 pm »

*snip*

My goodness, getting back into forums after so many years of exclusively using Discord is a blast from the past, lmao.  Your URL linking is kinda jank/oldschool.  Some of these 'insert' icons are from Windows95 era (yes, I remember) and Internet Explorer 5 or 6 specifically.

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As a modder for Chrono Trigger (a prominent bugfix patch among others), I'd like to offer a few considerations for modding and making things easier down the line.

-Modding should be built-in and easy to download; for a reference implementation look at what 'Battle for Wesnoth' does for their modding community.  Within the game itself is a full implementation that lists mods, allows for sorting/searching, and downloads/installs/restarts as necessary without requiring technical knowledge from the end-user.

-Lua is fantastic, though it has some significant limitations we need to keep in mind (no ability to create 'switches'; we have to use if/then/else (ITE) statements and nested within nested ITE statements makes code difficult to debug and patch up later on.  If you can work around this limitation NOW in the engine-development stage (via plugin or in the core engine itself) that will be amazing!

-GPLv3 is fantastic also and thanks for being liberal/freedom with such a license, however keep in mind this allows anyone to commercially exploit the work as well.  We've seen what happens with the flood of 'retro hardware' that ends up just being 'emulator boxes'.  We also have seen what happens when open source community software gets abused.

I'd strongly request/recommend that a future update be a hard-fork that changes the license to Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike.  That is much more difficult to abuse financially since it says 'Non-Commercial' as a prominent easily-seen point right there in the license name.  This would upset some Linux-based OS purists but I don't feel that catering to their niche needs is in the best interest of this project or community.  If they don't wanna put something in their repository that is 'non-commercial' license then so be it.  There's a full CC licenses list here for reference.
nevermind on this

-Finally for those who are 'purists' it may be useful to have a 'purist' mode that adheres to the original hardware limitations (be it SNES or later, but probably just SNES).

Also Hi Mauron ;)

2

Chrono Trigger Modification / Re: Temporal Flux Plugins

« on: June 02, 2021, 11:00:48 pm »

I've created a few useful rom mods and one notable bugfix that Chrono Compendium included in the community bugfix patch.

Problem is that I'm not aware of any compatibility of Temporal Flux with the Nintendo DS rom or the Steam versions of the game.  Without some kind of plugin or compatability update my stuff is stuck on the SNES version.

3

Chrono Trigger Modification / Re: How many active hackers do we have here?

« on: June 02, 2021, 10:56:48 pm »

If I remember right, Level Zero is mostly a difficulty hack, so it shouldn't collide with the others. Six letter names doesn't need any free space, so it should only be an issue with things that already alter text display.

I'm assuming Reptite Reshuffle and Johnny Jackpot both required free space, and since they were developed independently, Temporal Flux used the same free space for both. Instead of applying both patches, you'd have to apply one, then apply the other to a different ROM, and export the changes through the export system.

Pardon the necro, but this is relevant specifically to the rom mods/hacks I worked on.
I'm the creator of both Reptite Reshuffle (RR) and Johnny Jackpot (JJ).  RR and JJ are fully compatible with one another.  RR only modifies one specific map (the Reptite Lair in Prehistory/Antiquity) while JJ only modifies one specific dialog in the Future during the racing minigame.

4

Chrono Trigger Modification / Laputan Machine standing by

« on: May 18, 2020, 02:11:02 am »

Hello everyone!

I am 'Laputan Machine' aka Daedalus#6878 (on Discord) aka a lot of other names.  Romhacking net admin is not very friendly so I had to use a few different names on occasion but past is past.

The good news is that I still use the same protonmail e-mail address (and used it to register here) so the forum admin can double check that if they desire.

I'm the creator/author of the 3 fixes you all posted here (thanks for attribution btw much appreciated!).  I'm honored and humbled that Chronosplit was willing to include my Racing Fixes bugfix in their compilation bugfix/improvement patch and that's awesome!

I mainly wanted to post the following bit.
I did a combination of several patches:
-Level Zero
-Six Letter Names
-Reptite Reshuffle
-Johnny Jackpot (and presumably also affecting Racing Fixes)

I didn't remember which combination I did in which order, but it caused the game to freeze at the part where the party challenges Azala and the giant Tyrano for the first time in prehistory (the boss fight ends with the Lavos Red Star falling and the party flying away on Dactyls before it lands and destroys the area where they were).

So basically, I had been meaning to get back into Chrono Trigger, but if anyone wants to test out these bits and get in touch with me to see what works and what doesn't, let me know!  Please DO NOT use Zsnes but instead use either higan and/or SNES9X for testing (or real hardware if you have the capabilty of doing so).

I'd post my Discord link here but don't want to get mod-smacked so PM me if you're interested, or join Discord and send me a friend request.  Make sure when responding you mention you're from the Compendium.

Also Chronosplit if you happen to read this tyvm for honoring me with the inclusion in your compilation!