NDS Homebrew X-Mas Present: NetHackDS

Every homebrew capable DS owning geek rejoice! There is finally a usable port of Nethack available.

The game is called NetHackDS and is optimized to be played with the DS controls.

The D-Pad is used for walking and the most important actions 'open', 'pickup', 'search' and 'kick' are mapped to the X, A, B and Y buttons. More commands can be picked from a list when holding the left shoulder button. Additionally you can execute actions by tapping on the map. Eg. tapping on the ground will tell your hero to move there and tapping a door will open it.

Just one thing you need to remember: always choose 'save' from the command list before switching the DS off or your game will be lost. Maybe some autosaving feature could be implemented in a future version.

Tags:: nds,; games,; homebrew,; nethack

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Posted on Saturday December the 22nd, 2007 (10 months ago).

Comments

(The author, here) Just on the topic of auto-save, I don't see that ever happening. The problem is that auto-saving allows people to easily "undo" mistakes if they mess up (just turn the DS off). Heck, even in the PC version, if you were to just shut your computer off while a game was in progress (or if the power went out, or the machine crashed, etc), your game would be lost, as well. It's the NetHack way. :)

As it happens, there's also a technical reason for not implementing auto-save. If you progress far enough in the game, you'll discover that saving and restoring a game can take a fair bit of time (why this is, I don't know). On the order of a few seconds, in fact. So auto-saving, purely from a technical standpoint, is a bit of a non-starter right now.

So, just remember, when playing NetHackDS, don't turn the DS off by hand! Just pick save. And the DS will happily shut itself off for you.

2007-12-22 18:51:55

Abcd1234

Ah okay. Maybe save+quit could be mapped to the start button. Mhh wait... hitting the start button to switch off - where have I seen this before? ;-)

2007-12-22 19:36:18

Andi

Actually, the key bindings being as flexible as you are, you're free to bind whichever key you like to save. Of course, it'll still ask you to confirm, but that's probably not a bad thing...

2007-12-23 21:09:15

Abcd1234