Emulator Dev Guide


WarmFluffyUK

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GPH have released an emulator dev guide for the Wiz and Caanoo, it's basically a standardisation guide with key mappings etc:

Emulator Dev Guide

Title: Emulator Development Guide (Key)
Date: 2010.08.17


Caanoo
  • Caanoo Icon & Title
    • Main Icon to be showed - .png file / Size 26 x 26
    • Sub title to be showed – png file / Size 305 x 57
  • Key Mapping (Horizontal Games)
    • “I” Button showed under the CAANOO joystick: Start
    • “II” Button showed under the CAANOO joystick: Insert Coin
    • Home(H) Button: Call MENU (Return to game, Reset Game, Exit, three types should be showed and to SELECT “B” Button)
  • Key Mapping (Vertical Games)
    • “B” Button: Coin
    • “Y” Button: Start
    • “I” Button: Attack
    • “II” Button: Special Attack
    • Home(H) Button: Call MENU (Return to game, Reset Game, Exit, three types should be showed and to SELECT “B” Button)

Wiz
  • Key Mapping (Horizontal Games)
    • “MENU” Button: Start
    • “SELECT” Button: Insert Coin
    • “MENU+SELECT”: Call MENU (Return to game, Reset Game, Exit, three types should be showed and to SELECT “B” Button)
    • “X” Button: Attack
    • “B” Button: Special Attack or Jump
  • Wiz Key Mapping (Vertical Games)
    • “B” Button: Insert Coin
    • “Y” Button: Start
    • “MENU” Button: Attack, but when it is hold it should attack continuously
    • “R” Button: Depending on games it can be used Special Attack / Jump
    • “SELECT” Button: Call MENU (Return to game, Reset Game, Exit, three types should be showed and to SELECT “B” Button)

I am guessing this is a guide for default key mappings, obviously some emulators will have some creative thinking applied, especially when we run out of keys.

Clare.
 
Looks like some preperation for their competition to me. This only seems to refer to arcade games though?
 
I doubt any devs are going to follow this, and just keep whatever button configs they had since the GP2X/Wiz.
Actually these key configs only seem relevant to arcade games.

I don't like their idea of what the home button is for, it should bring up the emulator menu if it's not needed as an extra button.
 
I don't think they are setting down the law or anything, I'm guessing GPH are just asking if we could try and steer towards some common guidelines.

But I agree, Dev's will write their own interfaces they way they feel more comfortable with. I can't remember now, who was it that was campaigning for common interfaces in the past? I got the feeling that the idea was dismissed quite quickly.
 
^ Yeah, I remember a gp2xstandards website a few years ago. The idea never really kicked off.
 
Nice find.
This time things might be different. Maybe GPH will set certain criteria for their competition (like the ideas above). Then devs would have a motivation to meet standards.
Probably not a great idea, but if they want software to be consistant in certain areas then I guess this is the way to do it.
 
This looks more like suggestions for games (of rather limited genre selection) than emulators. You don't get to decide what an emulated button does, just what physical input it's mapping.
 
Exophase said:
This looks more like suggestions for games (of rather limited genre selection) than emulators.
WarmFluffyUK said:
Emulator Dev Guide
?

The limited genre selection that you're talking about is probably arcade games (as we've said): 'Insert Coin', etc.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I know what it's being CALLED, I'm talking about the complete mismatch in descriptions, and no, it goes way beyond "insert coin", which is medium specific (arcade games), not genre specific.

Talk about "attack" and "special attack" only makes sense if you're emulating a platform where all games have attacks and special attacks mapped to the same unique buttons. Going out to "special attack" or "jump" broadens this only slightly. "Attack, but when it is hold it should attack continuously" is a game design choice, unless it's referring to auto-turbo being forced on in an emulator, which is an incredibly bad idea.

These are game restraints, they aren't emulator restraints.
 
Oh, I thought by 'games' you meant games outside of emulators, sorry. Yes, I guess this is pretty specific to a particular genre. But then, do GPH plan to make 5+ of such lists to cover all the genres found in arcade gaming? Maybe they're thinking that each game will only use a few of the 'moves' mentioned.
 
It'd help if we know who they were directing this to, and why. For the time being I don't think we should really take it as requests for how to map keys in emulators we're releasing.
 
You know I think this may not actually be aimed at developers with open-source emulators like on the archives, but rather, emulated titles for play from FunGP, like all those Toaplan arcade games they have.
I think a better explanation would be, set standards for implementing virtual arcade titles on FunGP.

I've been having a look through the GPH Platform development guide and it looks like they simply want standards for FunGP content, totally understandable.

Regardless, not all Arcade titles have the same panels, a lot of them would have different layouts that use more than 2 action buttons.
 
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