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Moonpod Homepage Starscape Information Mr. Robot Information Free Game Downloads Starscape Highscore Table
Moonpod Now Official Nintendo DS Developers.
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:18 am    Post subject: Moonpod Now Official Nintendo DS Developers.

Moonpod has passed Nintendo DS developer certification.
This means we now have access to all the developer documentation and resources that Nintendo have available, and most importantly means we can obtain DS devkits.

Whilst we don't expect to be making any DS project announcements in the coming months, this has given us a great opportunity to investigate some new possibilities for Moonpod and we fully intend to look into any options that may be available to us.
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Weeble
Starscape Jedi
Starscape Jedi


Joined: 25 Apr 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Congratulations. Looking forward to whatever may come of it. (Assuming, that is, that I get a DS at some point.)
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Tssha



Joined: 31 Jul 2005
Posts: 7
Location: SW Ontario, Canada



PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hmm, I've always been interested in the Nintendo DS, but I've never considered buying one until now.

If you do make a game for it, I'll definately consider a Nintendo DS. For your game, and that Warioware game. That game was fun. Smile
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Patriarch



Joined: 01 Feb 2005
Posts: 6



PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 1:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh sweet Jesus, you guys just made my day. If you make an NDS game, I will be the first to buy it, even if that means staying at the store til midnight. Wow. Just....wow. I already own an NDS and it is extremely entertaining, but the advent of such good news? I would buy a second NDS if I had to if only to get your game. Thank you, Moonpod, and I hope you make a masterpiece.
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starscape junkie



Joined: 15 Jun 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 2:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yay! Congratulations. Hopefully you guys come up with an awesome DS game. Very Happy
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postman



Joined: 03 Mar 2005
Posts: 13
Location: New Jersey, USA



PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 6:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow! That's great news. I vote for a shooter, since I just got to play Nanostray and it's an awesome game. The DS in the hands of Moonpod can surely craft one amazing game on that system, if you guys decide to pursue that path.............
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Konedima
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 7:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

yay i have a ds and i'm sure starscape or mr. robot ds would be cool (though i'm not sure about battlescape, even with the touch screen control i think an rts would be hard to control - although maybe i should wait till advance wars ds with its real time mode to make that decision)
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Fost
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 7:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think Mr. Robot would be the more difficult of the two to convert as it really needs a lot of screen area to work well from a purely gameplay perspective. That's one thing no handhelds can supply.

Starscape, on the other hand, has a lot going for it - the game would work slightly cropped and half res from 640X480 with the lower screen acting as the radar map. We could also add some nifty DS specific features like touch screen drag and drop ship construction and jump in to help out, wirelessly networked co-operative multiplayer. I can see the potential there if it could be pulled off.

Hmm, not sure how we could use the mic though Smile
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Lazy Perfectionist



Joined: 31 Aug 2003
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 2:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't have any actual hands on experience with the DS, even playing it. Is it possible to do voice commands with the mic? or is it more of a camera or drawing gimmick useful only in a niche? Nintendo has had its hits and misses in sheer usefulness. Given a limited amount of buttons, I could imagine calling the mothership, or calling to the current position. Eh, aside from any possible programming difficulties, I suppose you could, given the overview on the official site. I'd probably get laryngitis if I had to shout fire tube one every time I wanted to use a missile, though.

It could be used on the map screen. Not to go from node to node, but to enter a node, or go to that alternate space. Now, if I wanted to come up with a useful way to use a microphone... It would work well for the theoretical co-op multiplayer for the theoretical Starscape port, which I just might and only might buy. It depends on whether there's enough other titles to make me buy the unit and whatever accessories I'll probably invariably need.

Here's a crazy idea: instead of co-op, a "tag" competitive version. Each person has a preconfigured Mothership and three fighters taken from a save. However, only one person is 'it' and gets to use them. Everybody else in the potential 16-capacity wireless network plays one of those enemy fighters that swarms and swarms the person who is it. I don't think I need to point out the flaws in this idea, but it's an interesting concept.

Voice communication, if not made irrelevant by being in the same room, might be very useful in a co-op boss battle for co-ordination (it being occasionally hard to see the boss even on the PC). If you want people to pay twice, it wouldn't hurt to design some new coordination based challenges for a co-op mode.

And here's a somewhat retarded idea, user sound effects! I remember this friend who took sound-effects from Age of Empires and switched it into their AIM client (GAIM?). When someone logged in it produced the sound of a sheep, and when someone logged out it produced I don't quite remember. Since this was a college network,, and quite spotty, these sound effects tended to go off one after another, and it sounded like someone was doing something fairly unmentionable to a sheep. Naturally, her mother stopped by the dorm right then. Not a good idea, but the results can be hilarious.

Since the game pauses when you're docked, I could see even an awkward microphone could be used without any undue haste to hyperspace out. One feature I never was perfectly happy with was the call the Aegis to the current position feature. I'd love a variety of voice commands. 1). Always follow. 2). Stop right there, I'm heading into a minefield. 3). Duck out into hyper like in a boss battle. 4). Head to this position (Does not update with your movement). 5). Stop before I ram you in a fit of asteroid induced bad driving.
Possibly, hold fire command for the aegis. THere's times in those unstable worm-nodes where you don't want to shoot everything, thats for certain. Or, jettision minerals to make room for cargo. Or, a pointless self-destruct command. Even if there was a 'boss screen' nobody would believe an excel spreadsheet on a DS.

Another theory, perhaps a more general idea. where voice commands could be used even in Diablo (obviously an unrelated note). There's often certain weapon configurations (wing commander) or equipment setups (Sacred) that can just be plain awkward to switch during battle. Or 50 spells, only four of which would be available at a time (Nox had a very interesting and effective wizard spell selection system). I could see the utility of voice commands in such a situation. An interesting idea would be a voice driven variation of Sid Mier's Pirates. Obviously pirate captains didn't command with keyboard, they did just fine with their voice. Certain rare space tactical games (or hardcore submarine warfare sims, I suppose) put you in a captains position, where you may have to depend on underlings.

Possibly a programmer's easter egg?

Back on track, I could see a starscapish sequel or expansion or even a top-scrolling tank game using the touch screen very effectively with turreted weapons controlled by stylus, and motion by a gamepad, or possibly using one screen to fly the fighter and the touchscreen to control the Aegis in a minimal fashion. Alternately, locking on to a target with intelligent missiles is a somewhat time consuming and at least in the movies challenging process, I could see that as an effective gameplay mechanic. Or fly by wire missiles, to get some very interesting and somewhat unique boss mechanics where you're flying a ship one way and guiding the bomb past defenses.

Because its an interesting challenge, I'll try to come up with one more way to use a mic, practical or not. Other than speed controls or power management, how about a rather simple idea. I can't come up with one. Ah, no... I'm sure there's been moments in many a game where play has gotten so intense, you can't take afford the downtime while hunt for an unfamiliar pause key. I'm sure an unspecific scream could be recognized as a signal to pause. Or simply one universal help command for when you can't remember the controls to a new game. Or speech recognition- once the player starts swearing the game intelligently ridicules their gameplay. "You fly slower than my grandma!" "You couldn't hit the broadside of a battleship!"
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Konedima
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 8:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fost wrote:
Hmm, not sure how we could use the mic though Smile
Answer: you don't have to. 2 of the 3 ds games i have (mario 64 ds and need for speed underground 2 ds) don't use it at all and the other game i have (bomberman ds) only uses it as a slight gimmick (in a certain multiplayer map, you have to make noise into the mic to drop a bomb... thats it)
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Fost
Pod Team
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

konedima wrote:
Answer: you don't have to.

Yes, there's no point forcing something into a game that doesn't need it. Starscape is pretty good, because it would benefit from the touchpad and dual screens if we put the effort in.

I quite like some of Lazy Perfectionist's ideas - changing the sound effects would be a really funny idea! You are limited with available flash memory though - not sure what the maximum you can get is, plus I think it balloons the cost of the cart. You'd probably only want to do that if you had a really cool feature.

Nintendo have done work on voice recognition sdk's but it's still a bit too early to rely on I think. Also, they are targeted at Japanese right at the moment. Sounds like a localisation nightmare, but I bet there will be some cool games coming out that use it. At least Nintendo seem to be putting the work in on behalf of the developers which is cool.

I really like the promise of eyetoy's EYE|Dentify trailer for PS3, although it will probably be difficult for it to live up to that (plus I've heard it may already have been canned). Something like that on DS would be really amazing (although potentially embarassing to play on the bus or train!).
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Code_Crank_Call



Joined: 22 Dec 2005
Posts: 16



PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 3:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, i know this is way out of date and I'm pretty slow to this. But I'm pretty frickin enthused about this sort of news (I treat my DS like a temple Razz)
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icarus
Troll
Troll


Joined: 01 Mar 2004

Location: Olympia Washington



PostPosted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 1:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Perhaps the Mic can be used to call the aegis.

If the call function is done with the touchpad than people would have to take out the stylis and take there hands off the boutons, a bad idea in a space shooter.

Maby you could set it to recognise your voice and respond to comands like. "HELP!", "Pick me up", "go away", "RUN!", and "go mine"
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ewerybody



Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 165
Location: Berlin



PostPosted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 7:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

icarus wrote:
Perhaps the Mic can be used to call the aegis.
This is a cool idea!!

And Hey Fost! Congratulations! Welcome to the club. ;] We also have some Nitros here.
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babbisha



Joined: 08 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How can I play my Nintendo through my computer? I have an adapter called Dazzle, the Dazzle has the audio and video connections (red, yellow, and white) that plugs into a USB port. I can play the Nintendo using the video capture programs on my computer, but the screens are to small. Does anyone know a program or any other way to play full screen? Thanks for the help.
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