Level Up Your Creativity: A Comprehensive Guide to Making Your Own Nintendo DS Games

The Nintendo DS, with its dual screens and unique touchscreen interface, holds a special place in the hearts of many gamers. Beyond simply playing the classics, have you ever dreamt of creating your own games for this iconic handheld? While the process might seem daunting at first, it’s surprisingly achievable with the right tools and a good understanding of the development process. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the necessary steps to embark on your game-making journey for the Nintendo DS.

Why Make Your Own DS Games?

Before we dive into the technicalities, let’s explore why creating your own DS games can be an incredibly rewarding experience:

• Creative Outlet: It allows you to bring your unique game ideas to life, unrestricted by the confines of commercial game development.
• Learning Experience: You’ll gain invaluable knowledge about programming, game design principles, and asset creation, which are transferable skills in various fields.
• Personal Satisfaction: The feeling of seeing your game running on a real DS is truly fulfilling.
• Community Engagement: Share your creations with other enthusiasts and contribute to the vibrant DS homebrew scene.
• A Unique Hobby: It’s an engaging and challenging hobby that will keep your mind sharp and creative.

Tools of the Trade: What You’ll Need

To begin, you’ll need to gather a few essential tools:

1. A Nintendo DS or DS Lite (or Emulator)

While you can develop and test your games on an emulator (which we’ll cover shortly), having a physical DS console is crucial for experiencing your creations on the actual hardware. The original DS or DS Lite are ideal as they are more compatible with homebrew development.

2. A Flashcart (Optional, but Recommended)

A flashcart is a device that allows you to load and run homebrew software, including your games, on your DS. While emulators are sufficient for initial testing, using a flashcart on your DS provides the most accurate representation of how your game will perform on the actual hardware. Popular options include the R4i Gold series.

3. A Development Environment (devkitPro)

devkitPro is a suite of tools that provides everything you need to develop software for Nintendo consoles, including the DS. It includes a compiler, libraries, and other essential components.

Installation:

The installation process for devkitPro can be different depending on your operating system. Here’s a general overview:

• Windows: Download the Windows installer from the devkitPro website (devkitpro.org). Follow the on-screen instructions to install the suite. This usually includes selecting your target platform (Nintendo DS in our case) and installing the necessary libraries and tools.
• macOS: You can install devkitPro on macOS using a package manager like Homebrew. Run the following commands in your terminal:

  brew tap devkitPro/devkitPro
  brew install devkitpro
  

  After this, you need to run dkp-pacman -S nds-dev to install the necessary tools for Nintendo DS development.

• Linux: The installation process on Linux is similar to macOS, using a package manager like APT or Pacman, followed by the dkp-pacman command to install the Nintendo DS development tools. Consult the devkitPro documentation for your specific Linux distribution.

4. An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) or Text Editor

An IDE or text editor is where you’ll write your code. While a basic text editor like Notepad (Windows), TextEdit (macOS) or Nano (Linux) will work, an IDE with features like syntax highlighting, code completion and debugging tools will greatly enhance your development process. Popular choices include:

• Visual Studio Code (VS Code): A free, open-source, and highly customizable code editor with many extensions to aid game development.
• Atom: Another free and open-source text editor, highly extensible and customizable.
• Sublime Text: A popular text editor, available for a free trial but requires a license for continued use.

5. Graphics Software

You’ll need a graphics editor to create the images (sprites, backgrounds, etc.) for your game. Consider these options:

• GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program): A free and open-source raster graphics editor, offering features similar to Photoshop.
• Krita: Another free and open-source option, excellent for drawing and painting.
• Aseprite: A paid pixel art editor, beloved by many pixel artists for its dedicated features.

6. Sound Editing Software

If you plan to include sound effects and music in your game, you’ll need a sound editor. Some popular choices include:

• Audacity: A free and open-source audio editor, excellent for recording and editing sound effects.
• LMMS (Linux MultiMedia Studio): A free and open-source digital audio workstation (DAW), used for music composition and sound design.
• GarageBand (macOS): A user-friendly DAW included with macOS, suitable for composing basic music.

7. An Emulator (Optional, but Recommended)

An emulator lets you run DS games on your computer, making testing and debugging significantly faster. Popular options include:

• DeSmuME: A very popular and accurate Nintendo DS emulator.
• melonDS: Another accurate and actively developed emulator.

Game Development Fundamentals

Before we start coding, it’s important to grasp a few fundamental concepts of game development:

1. Programming Languages

The primary language used for DS homebrew development is C (and to a lesser extent, C++). Familiarizing yourself with the basics of C programming is essential. There are numerous online resources and tutorials to help you learn C.

2. Game Loop

The game loop is the core of any game. It continuously performs the following actions:

• Input Processing: Reads user input (button presses, touchscreen touches).
• Game Logic: Updates game states, such as player position, enemy AI, etc.
• Rendering: Draws graphics to the screen.

3. Sprites and Tiles

Sprites are individual images that are used to represent moving objects in the game (e.g., the player, enemies, projectiles). Tiles are smaller images that are put together to make up backgrounds. Understanding how to work with sprites and tiles is fundamental to 2D game development.

4. Memory Management

The Nintendo DS has limited resources, so managing memory efficiently is crucial. You need to be mindful of how you store and access game data.

Step-by-Step Guide to Making a Basic DS Game

Now, let’s walk through the steps of creating a very simple game to demonstrate the process. We’ll aim for a project where a sprite moves around the screen based on user input.

Step 1: Set up the Development Environment

Ensure you have successfully installed devkitPro and an IDE/text editor. Create a new project folder for your game (e.g., ‘my_ds_game’).

Step 2: Create a Basic Project Structure

Inside your ‘my_ds_game’ folder, create the following directories:

• src: This will contain your C source code files.
• gfx: This will store graphics resources, such as sprites.
• sound: This will hold audio files.

Step 3: Create a Simple Sprite

Using your chosen graphics software (GIMP, Aseprite, etc.), create a small sprite image. For simplicity, start with a 16×16 or 32×32 pixel image. Export it as a PNG file and save it in the ‘gfx’ folder. You may choose to name it `player.png` for our purposes.

Step 4: Convert the Sprite

We need to convert our image into a format the DS can use. devkitPro provides a tool called `grit`. Open your terminal or command prompt, navigate to your game’s root directory (`my_ds_game`), and run the following command:

grit gfx/player.png -gt -gb -gB -o gfx/player.bin

This command does the following:

• gfx/player.png: specifies the input image
• -gt: Generates tile data
• -gb: Generates palette data
• -gB: Generates a separate palette file
• -o gfx/player.bin: specifies the output binary file

This command will produce a binary file (`player.bin`) in the gfx folder which can be read by our game. It may also produce a palette file in `.pal` format, it’s name will match the input image’s name by default (e.g. player.pal).

Step 5: Write the C Code (main.c)

Create a new file named `main.c` inside the `src` folder, and add the following code:

#include <nds.h>
#include <stdio.h>

// Include binary resources that we compiled earlier.
extern const unsigned char player_bin[];
extern const unsigned short player_bin_size;
extern const unsigned char player_pal[];
extern const unsigned short player_pal_size;

int main(void) {

  // Initialize the DS
  videoSetMode(MODE_0_2D | DISPLAY_BG0_ACTIVE);
  vramSetBankA(VRAM_A_MAIN_BG);
  consoleDemoInit();

  // Load sprite palette.
  // This sets up the colors to use in our sprites
  BG_PALETTE[0] = RGB15(31, 0, 31); // First color is magenta by default.
  memcpy(BG_PALETTE, player_pal, player_pal_size);

  //Load sprite data
  // This sets up the actual image of the sprite
  int spriteId = 0;
  oamMain.oamMemory[spriteId].attribute[0] = ATTR0_NORMAL | ATTR0_8BPP | ATTR0_SQUARE;
  oamMain.oamMemory[spriteId].attribute[1] = ATTR1_SIZE_32 | 0; // Size of the sprite
  oamMain.oamMemory[spriteId].attribute[2] = 0 | ATTR2_PALETTE(0);
  dmaCopy(player_bin, oamGetGfxPtr(spriteId), player_bin_size);


  // Initial sprite position
  int spriteX = 100;
  int spriteY = 100;

  while (1) {
    scanKeys();
    int held = keysHeld();

    // Move the sprite based on input
    if (held & KEY_UP)    spriteY -= 2;
    if (held & KEY_DOWN)  spriteY += 2;
    if (held & KEY_LEFT)  spriteX -= 2;
    if (held & KEY_RIGHT) spriteX += 2;
    
    //Keep the sprite inside the screen borders
    if (spriteX < 0) spriteX = 0; if (spriteX > 256 - 32) spriteX = 256 - 32;
    if (spriteY < 0) spriteY = 0; if (spriteY > 192 - 32) spriteY = 192 - 32;

    // Update the sprite's position
    oamSetXY( &oamMain, spriteId, spriteX, spriteY );
    swiWaitForVBlank();
    oamUpdate(&oamMain);
    
  }

  return 0;
}

This code does the following:

• Includes required libraries (nds.h for DS-specific functions).
• Initializes the DS video system and text console.
• Loads the sprite data from `player.bin` into OAM memory, which handles the graphics on screen.
• Initializes a sprite at starting position `(100,100)`.
• Enters an infinite game loop.
• Handles player input using the d-pad and moves the sprite based on the input.
• Updates the sprite’s position on the screen.
• Waits for vertical blank period to update the display to avoid screen tearing.

Step 6: Create a Makefile

Create a file named `Makefile` in the root folder (`my_ds_game`) and add the following code:

ARM9_BIN = my_ds_game.nds

# include devkitARM makefiles
include $(DEVKITPRO)/devkitARM/arm-none-eabi/include/nds.mk

# Set source files for our project
SRC = src/main.c

# Specify all object files by their source counterparts. 
OBJ = $(SRC:.c=.o)

# Link libraries
LIBS = -lnds9


all: $(ARM9_BIN)


$(ARM9_BIN): $(OBJ)
	$(ARM9_CC) $(ARM9_CFLAGS) $(OBJ) $(LIBS) -o $@


clean:
	rm -f $(OBJ) $(ARM9_BIN)

This makefile does the following:

• Defines the name of the output file (NDS file).
• Includes the devkitPro makefile for DS development.
• Specifies the source file.
• Creates a rule to compile the source files and generate an NDS file.
• Creates a clean rule to remove generated files.

Step 7: Compile and Run the Game

Open your terminal or command prompt, navigate to your project’s root directory (`my_ds_game`), and run the command:

make

This command will compile your source code and create an NDS file (`my_ds_game.nds`) in your root directory. This is the file that can run on your Nintendo DS or emulator. If compilation is successful, you may choose to run it on an emulator or copy it to your flashcart to run on an actual Nintendo DS.

If everything was set up correctly, you should now be able to see a square sprite moving on your screen based on the direction pressed on the directional pad.

Expanding Your Game: Beyond the Basics

The game we just created is extremely basic, but it serves as a foundation for more advanced projects. Here are some ideas for expanding your game:

1. Adding More Sprites

To add more sprites, you’ll need to load more sprite data into the OAM memory and keep track of which sprite data is associated with a specific sprite id. You will need to define more variables for each sprite to manage their movement, position, etc. As you add more sprites, you should consider abstracting your code to manage sprites more easily.

2. Collision Detection

To implement interactions between sprites (e.g., a player colliding with an enemy or an item), you’ll need to write collision detection algorithms. Simple bounding box collision is a common starting point.

3. Backgrounds

To add a more complex backdrop to your game, you’ll need to work with the background layers of the Nintendo DS. You can set up static backgrounds or tile-based backgrounds that move with the camera.

4. Sound Effects and Music

To add sound effects and background music to your game, you’ll need to convert your audio files to a format the DS can read. There are libraries like libnds that provide functions for playing audio.

5. Menus and User Interfaces

Implementing menus and user interfaces will make your game more polished. You’ll need to use text rendering libraries to display information and respond to user input in the menus.

6. Game States

To manage different stages of your game (e.g., main menu, gameplay, game over), you’ll need to create a game state management system. This will help to better organize your code and avoid unnecessary processing.

7. Game Logic and AI

Writing the game logic will be crucial for defining the game’s rules, interactions, and goals. Implementing basic AI will enable you to create interesting challenges for the player.

Resources for Further Learning

The world of Nintendo DS homebrew development is vast. Here are some excellent resources to help you continue your learning journey:

• devkitPro Website: The official documentation and tools for DS development. devkitpro.org
• gbadev.org: A general site for Game Boy and Nintendo DS homebrew with many resources. gbadev.org
• DS Homebrew Forums: Online forums where you can ask questions, share your creations, and connect with other developers.
• YouTube Tutorials: There are numerous tutorials available on YouTube that cover various aspects of DS game development.
• Online C Programming Tutorials: Learn C by following free online tutorials and courses.

Tips for Success

• Start Simple: Begin with small projects and gradually increase the complexity.
• Break Down Problems: Divide complex tasks into smaller, more manageable steps.
• Comment Your Code: This will make it easier to understand and debug your code.
• Test Frequently: Test your code regularly on your emulator or flashcart to catch errors early.
• Seek Help: Don’t hesitate to ask for help on forums or online communities.
• Be Patient: Game development takes time and effort. Don’t get discouraged by setbacks.
• Have Fun!: The most important thing is to enjoy the process of creating your own games.

Conclusion

Making your own Nintendo DS games is a challenging but incredibly rewarding experience. It provides an excellent way to develop new skills, express your creativity, and be part of a vibrant homebrew community. By following the steps in this guide and utilizing the resources available, you can embark on your journey into game development and bring your unique gaming ideas to life on the beloved Nintendo DS. So, grab your tools, start coding, and let your creativity take over!