Wii Internet Channel and Nintendo DS/DSi Browser Homebrew

The real-time / playable version of also available at http://dsipaint.com.

When I created DSiPaint, I thought I'd port the old Wii chatroom on http://hullbreachonline.com to the DSi (sort of as an after-thought) so that DSi and Wii members of HB Online, TWiiter, and DSOperaSDK, could interact. Little did I know that the chatroom would explode in popularity to where about 20 people chat each night with more coming all the time. Thus, I took it upon myself to completely redesign the chatroom with more features:

• Optimized for Nintendo DS/DSi Browser
  
• Numerous IRC-style commands
  
• More than 50 avatars (and growing)
  
• More than 20 smilies
  
• Several colors for post displays
  
• Administrative enhancements
  

You can visit it now at http://dsoperasdk.com.

HullBreach Online, the first MMO RPG for the Wii’s Internet Channel, has been scaled down to run on the Nintendo DSi Browser to play while on-the-go. Even though the graphics have been shrunk, don’t think that means the gameplay has. HB Online Lite boasts all the sectors, planets, missions, tradeable goods, ships, upgrades, asteroids, NPCs, chat functions, and player stats, that its older brother has. In fact, both the game universe and player accounts are shared, so players can seemlessly jump between versions of the game at any time.

HB Online Lite has a completely new interface that favors lower resolution, lower bandwidth, and an all touchscreen interface. Communication with the server has been accelerated, and the backend generates content using the newest technologies, something that dates the older HB Online.

HB Online Lite also contains a few features not present in HB Online. The first is real-time Twiiter feeds. Now players can see posts to the Wii/DS rapid blogging website appear instantly in the communication pane during gameplay. Also shops and shipyards now have NPC dialogs that ensue when selecting purchases or making sales.

Is the mobile version not your style? Don’t worry: Both versions will continue to gain massive amounts of content over the next few weeks. Players may visit the game one day to find Sector Theta Eta empty, and a visit the next day could reveal planets with several missions and goods to trade. New content will be dropped into both versions, becoming available in real-time.

To try HB Online Lite or HB Online now, visit http://hullbreachonline.com . Remember that accounts are shared between games, but Twiiter (http://twiiter.wiioperasdk.com) and DS Opera SDK (http://dsoperasdk.com) accounts are the same as well. Join the other 4800 players today!

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Screenshots are available at http://hullbreachonline.com

With the release of the Nintendo DSi and its Opera Web browser, I felt it best to take one of my first projects for the Wii's Internet Channel, HullBreach Online, and scale it to the dual screens to let gamers play on-the-go. This project would become HullBreach Online Lite.

While running tests on the Nintendo DSi Browser, I found that although there is support for the canvas object, it seems to be fairly crippled when concerning image data. Apparently this was meant to save RAM on the handheld by not caching off-screen data. Thus, I began working with ways to re-create HullBreach Online's mobile cousin by using nothing but image placement, background scrolling, and other standard DHTML features. From that comes a game that should for all intents and purposes be compatible with the older Nintendo DS Browsers as well.

To save on memory, images have been scaled and colors reduced. Players cannot see one another's ships, yet they can still chat with each other - even between both versions of HullBreach Online. Due to the lack of useful button input, the entire game is touchscreen-controlled. Moving between locations and travelling through hyperspace are both achieved by on-screen button clicks, which are accompanied by appropriate animations of the ship and motion of the map cursor.

With the exception of space combat (which would be difficult with button clicks), everything that was present in HullBreach Online is also present in HullBreach Online Lite: Missions, mining, scanning, trading, ship upgrades, etc.

HullBreach Online Lite is nearing completion, so get ready to join the close to 5000 members now! In the meantime, you can create an account to play the full HullBreach Online, message members through Twiiter on your Wii or Nintendo DS/DSi, or visit the chatroom at http:/dsoperasdk.com.