Latest build

Built automatically from main (ccb7557).

Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times, recompiled for PC. No game data is included: choose your own ROM (USA) on the
start screen and the game is built from it once.

Getting started: extract the zip somewhere you can write to and run MagiciansQuest.exe. Pick the Enhanced
preset for the recommended setup (one 16:9 picture, 60 fps, smoothed text and textures). F1 opens the settings.

What's in it

• One screen (16:9): the DS's two screens are two halves of one view, so they are joined into one wide picture.
  Where only the bottom screen has 3D (classrooms, shops, rooms) it fills the window, with the top screen in a corner
  (F3 or the right stick: small, large, hidden). Menus show both screens side by side. Empty far sides that the game
  never built are filled from the scene beside them (Settings > Video > Fill empty edges).
• Zoom (widescreen): where one screen fills the window (rooms, shops, classrooms), the camera comes in just
  enough that the picture is filled with what the game really draws, not empty sides (Settings > Video > Zoom).
• PC view (in testing, Settings > Video > Layout: PC view, OpenGL): one picture of the world from one camera
  instead of two DS screens: the town as one wide view with the sky above (one continuous scene: the near walls,
  planters and ledges now carry on past where the two DS screens met, with no line across the picture, under one
  fog, and no tear there while the camera moves: both parts are always of the same moment, at 60 fps; the sky's colour bands reach the window's edges, in town and in the beach, forest and Lovers Point; the forest by Charlie's Noodles no longer shows black wedges at the wide sides (the trees fade out softly); no band in a student's hair
  colours running to the window's edge when someone stands at the side of the view, as while fishing by the bookshop), rooms and shops filling the window, the
  bag and hand in the window's corners (only while the game shows them: not while fishing), the text box (with its choices and lists, however tall) at a sharp
  whole-number scale at the bottom (and so are menus with no text box under them, such as the post office's "Other
  player / Classmate / Exit", clickable there), and menus (the bag, the Start menu's pages: map, info, telegrams,
  friends, magic; the shops' catalogues and lists: Harrows' CD orders, The Emporium's sell list, Mon Paris'
  hairstyles; the telegram's recipients, the bell's composer, character creation) as a centred panel of both screens
  over the scene from before them (no longer with a curtain or a text box caught in it). While the game's keyboard is
  up (your name at enrolment, a telegram's text) you can type on your PC's keyboard: letters, digits, space,
  Backspace, Enter for OK. At the school bell's composer, your keyboard's home row plays its piano. Saving's "Please wait..." box shows
  alone where the text box is; your chanted words appear above your student; a click on the world (an insect with
  the net, a classmate) goes where you click, across the whole wide picture; the tournament's word panel sits over
  the auditorium; speech balloons beside the bag stay where they are. The scene dimmed behind a menu no longer shows the bag and hand icons;
  rooms' far sides past the room's own walls (the bookshop) fade softly into the dark instead of smeared streaks; a
  click just beside a speech balloon or a label goes to the world, not to it.
• 60 fps 3D on both screens, high resolution (up to 16x), widescreen (16:9 to 32:9) in every layout.
• Smooth 2D: text, menus and sprites upscaled with smooth diagonals instead of blocks.
• Upscale textures: the game's textures enlarged 4x with a pixel-art filter (crisp edges, smooth diagonals).
• Texture packs: Settings > Video > Dump textures saves the game's textures to textures\dump in the data
  folder; put edited or redrawn ones (1, 2 or 4 times the size, same names) in textures\load.
• Walk speed (only your character), text speed, quick transitions, fast forward (hold Tab).
• Your PC's clock is the game's: days, hours and seasons pass with real time.
• Pause in background (the game waits while you're in another window; not while connected to another player),
  and the mouse pointer hides while you play.
• Co-op from a new game: the game's own multiplayer (visiting each other's towns) over a LAN or the internet,
  from the first day. Settings > Network > Co-op between PCs: one player Hosts, the others Join (the host is found by
  itself on the same network; over the internet, type its address and forward UDP port 49251 to it). Start your
  games, go upstairs to the Gateway in the dorm, communications room, Multi-Card Play: the host picks "Come and play
  with me!", the others "Can we play together?". While connected, the first day's holds are lifted, so you can walk
  out into the host's town together right away, walk to the school (south past the shops, then up the slope to the
  striped gate). Walking into the school together starts the principal's welcome for both of you (the speech,
  the introduction to the class, the wand and hat), which ends the first day in each player's own save; the
  principal and teachers are there while you're connected, so you can take classes together. The café, the
  insect and fish books and the shops' CDs, part-time work and berry seedlings are open to visitors too. Two copies of the game on one PC find each other too. Details in
  docs/COOP.md.
• Co-op: one town, and each other. While connected, everyone plays in the same town: what one player changes in
  the host's town (its flags, its people's state) reaches the others within a second, over a channel of our own beside
  the game's link. And the players can talk to each other: face the other student and press A for a chat (it raises
  your friendship once a day; at a point you become friends, and both see it) or to ask how you're getting along. The
  friendship is kept beside each player's save. One talk at a time: if you both press A at each other, the host's
  talk goes on and the guest sees " is talking to you." once (no more pile of "came over to talk" boxes).
• Co-op: every incantation. While connected, the summons and transforms (World Tree, Candyman, Werewolf,
  Homunculus, Familiar, Golem, Charm) and Connect doors, Sweet dreams, Make peace, Sit by me, Honor student and
  Mushroom work as they do alone, instead of "cannot be used during wireless communications", and so does Phantasm
  in the dorm's washroom: the fortune-teller comes to the one who called her (a visitor's first meeting leaves the
  host's town as it was). The other player sees it: " cast the Golem incantation!", with the sparkle at you when you're
  together. What an incantation changes in the town (a mystery's step, the mushrooms) is decided by the host's town,
  so a guest's cast reaches everyone. Rainbow, Flower rain and Rainmaking are cast together as the game does it.
• Co-op: the same insects. While connected and in the same place, both players see the host's insects: the same
  bugs in the same spots, resting, crawling and flying off together (they fly off when either player comes close).
  A bug is caught once: if you both swing at it, the host's game decides who got it, and the other sees it vanish
  into the partner's net. A butterfly a visitor swings at in the open is no longer lost to both players over the
  internet (the partner's net swing no longer catches it on the other console), and a visitor who leaves "You caught
  ...!" open no longer crashes. Mushrooms are the host's town's too.
• Co-op: the same fish. While connected and in the same place, both players have the host's fish: the same
  ripples in the same spots of the river and the sea. A fish that goes for one player's lure swims to that lure on
  both screens, and a fish is hooked by one lure only (if you both fish for it, the first lure it was asked for gets
  it). What you catch is yours: it goes into your bag, and the fish swims off to another spot on both screens (a
  visitor's catch used to leave it where it was).
• Co-op: best friends, or a couple. Casting Friendship or Declare love together (the game's own two-player
  incantations) now brings the two of you closer, as it would with a classmate. Once you're close enough, talking to
  the other student offers an invitation to Lovers Point at a time you pick; they answer Yes or No on their own
  screen. Be there together at that hour and a scene of your own plays on both screens: one of you speaks from the
  heart, the other chooses "Let's be a couple!", "Let's be best friends!" or "Can we wait a little?" (the players
  decide, not the game). Best friends and couples can hang out (a couple's moments are a little warmer), and there's
  a gentle "Go back to being friends" with a confirm. Both PCs keep the same record.
• Co-op: give each other items. Talk to the other student and choose "Give an item": your bag opens, pick
  something, and it goes into their bag ("You gave the Beige Wardrobe to Bea!" / "Bea gave you the Beige
  Wardrobe!"). It's an exchange: if their bag is full you keep it, and if anything goes wrong on the way it comes
  back to you; if the connection drops on the way, it's sorted out the next time you meet. Items the game won't let you give away stay yours, and the first
  gift of the day brings you a little closer.
• Co-op: shopping as a guest. Shopkeepers can be talked to across their counters while you're connected, so a
  guest can order and pick up CDs at Harrows, buy berry seedlings at Daisy's and take on part-time work at The
  Emporium, with their own money, into their own bag.
• Co-op: connect at once. Settings > Network > Connect automatically (As host / As guest): as soon as you're
  free to move after loading, the visit starts by itself, wherever you are: no walk to the Gateway, no menus (the
  game saves first, as the communications room does). A guest keeps searching until the host is there. Or press F9
  (Co-op: connect now) at any time. You both arrive in the host's dorm by the Gateway.
• Co-op: through the night into the next day. A visit lasts until one of you chooses Disconnect (Select): the
  evening, the night and midnight don't end it. The game can't turn the day while connected, so when the new day
  comes (around 3:30 in the morning, by season) the visit ends by itself: each of you saves, the day turns in each
  town, and you connect again by yourselves, the guests arriving in the host's new day. A box or menu left open
  then no longer splits the visit: the guest's game closes it first (and over the internet, if the two still end up
  in different visits, the guest's game notices, shows the game's "disconnected" messages and joins the host again).
• Co-op: class together. Pick your lessons from Principal Sol (each your own, the same or different) and walk
  in: whoever is first waits for the other (" is on the way"), then class starts for both at once, with the
  other student sitting at the desk beside yours, and classmates at the desks in front. Each answers its own questions
  and is graded on its own record. Homeroom's farewell to a classmate no longer freezes the game while connected,
  and it is the same classmate who says goodbye on both screens (the host's story).
  Homeroom waits for the other student like a lesson, and so does class when the other student is still on the way
  to Principal Sol in the school. Talking to Principal Sol (and to any classmate, teacher or townsperson within reach)
  works while connected again: pressing A by them did nothing.
• Co-op: more classmates in town. While connected the town now draws up to three classmates around you at once
  (it was one), using the character slots of the players who haven't joined; your partner's character is never
  touched.
• Co-op: mysteries together. When one of you stumbles on the week's mystery (a creature appears, something
  strange happens in town), the other is brought into the same scene: right away when standing nearby, otherwise
  with a question on their screen ("Bea has found something mysterious! Go and help Bea?") that takes them there on
  Yes. Nobody is pulled out of a conversation or a menu, and the scene never waits for anyone. Each of you gets the
  scene's rewards, and the mystery moves on in the host's town for both, whichever of you found it (a guest's
  discovery counts too). Taken across town to the other's scene, your town now shows the buildings there (the school
  was missing, so the top screen showed only sky). The host's town now starts the calendar's mystery of the week while
  connected, as it does alone: before, a connected session never started one, and leaving a building could drop the
  week's mystery for good (and the dated events that hang on it: Halloween, Christmas).
• Co-op: festivals and holidays together. When one of you joins in a school festival or a holiday (Miss
  Strawe's spring tea party, Mr. Vlad's test of courage, Mr. Oakley's mushroom hotpot cookoff, Principal Sol's
  rainbow snow festival, the New Year at Lovers Point), the other is asked "Bea is at the spring tea party! Go along
  with Bea?" and, on Yes, taken right beside them to take part too: each of you talks to the teacher, does your own
  part and gets your own judging and presents. (A festival's announcement before class is skipped while connected
  for now: you hear it when you play alone.) Christmas (Santa) and Halloween are mysteries: they are shared the mysteries' way. The
  town's festival records stay the host's. On New Year's Eve Principal Sol now stands at Lovers Point's bell for both
  of you (he was invisible while connected, so his countdown talk could not be started). On Halloween night the
  Jack-o'-Lantern who roams the town is now there for both of you too (he was invisible while connected, so his
  "Trick or treat?" could not be reached); the other is asked to go and help and joins the scene. He now appears
  for both of you on the same day (from the day after Halloween's mystery begins, as alone; before, only the visitor
  saw him on the first day, and he could not be talked to), and after his trick he is gone for both until one of you
  talks to a classmate, as alone (before, he still walked the host's town).
• Co-op: the evaluation and the magic tournament together. When one of you goes to Principal Sol's evaluation
  in the auditorium or enters Mr. Graves' magic tournament, the other is asked to go along and is taken there: each
  of you is graded on your own record, side by side. When you're both in the tournament, the first round is a real
  duel between the two of you: the same incantation, started together, each casting with your own magic words, and
  whoever finishes first wins (the host's console judges the two times); the winner goes on against classmates. The
  staff roll that comes with a new rank can't play while connected (the DS keeps its wireless code where the roll
  would load): you get the rank and hat at once, and the roll plays in the auditorium once you're back home.
• Co-op: your own lessons, the host's story. While connected each player picks and attends their own lesson
  (the lesson you chose, "done for today" and the after-class story stay yours; a guest arrives with its own), and
  the town's story (the week's mystery and its stages, the festivals, a classmate's transfer) moves on only on the
  host's console, so a guest can no longer advance or finish the host's mystery unseen.
• Co-op: through the Gateway together. While connected, the Gateway of the Beginning and End upstairs in the dorm
  offers its destinations again: Anywhere on the days it opens, and The other world during that mystery (no Save in
  a visit, and Mystery time stays a single-player trip: it moves the town's week). Whoever uses it picks; the other
  player is asked "Go with ?" and arrives right beside them, and when they head back, "Go back with ?"
  (from the other world, which has no way out of its own, you go back together).
• Co-op: a partner's game closing or crashing no longer freezes yours. If the other player's game is closed,
  crashes or loses its network in a visit, your game gets the DS's own message within a few seconds ("Unable to
  receive data.", "...disconnected due to a communication error.", or over the internet "The person you were playing
  with has disconnected." / " is going home.") and you play on alone at home or in your town. Before, a guest
  playing beside its host on one PC (and every player over the internet if a hidden stand-in crashed) waited for ever.
  The other player can start their game again and connect again; a crashed stand-in is started again by itself.
• Co-op: no toilet cleaning for a visit. Closing the game while a visit ends, after a lost connection ("Unable to
  receive data") or while the visit reconnects for the new day no longer counts as turning off without saving. Turning
  off without saving outside a visit still does.
• Co-op: the tatami room off the dorm hall opens to visitors on its days.
• Co-op: the town on the top screen. While connected the DS shows a pattern on the top screen; now the town (and
  the scenes' and buildings' top views) is on both screens, as when playing alone. Settings > Network > Top screen in
  co-op: The town (default) or Pattern (DS); it takes effect from the next visit. With the town on top, the bag's
  item name and a talk menu's title (Principal Sol's "Introduction") are on the bottom screen in their bars again,
  and a catch's FISH panel shows the student putting the catch away on the bottom screen as alone (it was sky). Your
  partner's student now has their own hair colour on your screen right after connecting (it showed yours until the
  first door). Upstairs in the dorm by the Gateway, where every visit starts, the top screen was black (the game's
  top camera looks one floor up, at nothing, as when playing alone); it now shows the corridor's wall, its doors and
  the Gateway above you. Rooms without a view above (the café, the post office, the bank, Mon Paris, a dorm room, the
  auditorium, Sol's office...) show the DS's light blue diamond pattern on the top screen while connected, as on a DS,
  instead of black; leaving them brings the town back on top.
• Co-op: the bank and the trash can. A visitor can deposit and withdraw Ritch at the bank (its own money and
  savings) and use its own safe deposit while visiting: George opens the visitor's own safe deposit from its own
  town (never the host's), and what it puts in or takes out is saved with its student when the visit ends, so its
  bag and its safe deposit always agree (a visit that drops before then leaves both as they were). The host's safe
  deposit works while connected, as alone. Both of you can use the dorm's trash
  can, one at a time (it is the host's town's), and the school's Organ Man (the bell's tune goes to the host's town).
• Co-op: a late "Yes" to the other's tournament or evaluation now hears that it has already begun (and that you
  can still enter the tournament with Mr. Graves), not the mysteries' "has already worked it out".
• Co-op: one sky. A visitor's sky follows the host's town at once (its weekly weather), not only at the next
  door.
• Co-op over the internet. Far apart (any internet link, where the game's own exchange slows to a crawl or
  breaks), both players set Settings > Network > Over the internet: On, beside Co-op between PCs. Each PC then
  also runs a hidden copy of the game standing in for the other player (started from their save, which is sent when
  the game starts; it never saves anything), so the game's radio exchange stays on each PC and only game data crosses
  the internet. Your game keeps its full frame rate; the other student is shown as their packets arrive. Two players;
  the window's title shows the link (round trip, the stand-in, "playing together"). Details in docs/COOP_INTERNET.md.
  A guest's Disconnect over the internet now ends its visit cleanly (it failed with "Unable to disconnect"), and the
  host sees " is going home." and plays on. The host's own Disconnect over the internet now leaves the guest at
  home, saved and free to play (it went back to the communications room and searched for a town again, and again
  with "Connect automatically"); only the new day's end of a visit connects both again.
• Co-op: the town's dated list no longer gets an entry twice on the guest after a scene played on both consoles
  (the other world's return scene): the guest keeps the host's list.
• Co-op: the classmates' moods the same for both players. What a classmate feels after its pastimes (the eight
  needs the game keeps for each, which its talk picks from) is moved by the player whose game is running that
  classmate, and now reaches the other player at once; a guest's copy no longer keeps its own values for minutes.
  A week of co-op played this way: docs/COOP_PLAYTEST.md.
• Co-op: what classmates have to talk about is the same for both players. The recent happenings each classmate
  keeps (what it brings up in a talk) and the town's turn through them are made by the player whose game runs that
  classmate and now reach the host's town; before, a guest's stayed on the guest for the whole visit.
• Co-op: what your partner does stays on your partner's side. Your game plays the partner's moves with the game's
  own code; every action (the tools, the rod, picking things up, doors, the wizard form, talking) was checked for
  effects on your side, and the ones it had are now undone there: the partner picking up a mushroom while your bag
  is full and you are choosing what to make room for no longer cuts your choice short (one of your items was put on
  the ground by itself). Your partner's moves no longer change your town, your bag or your messages.
• Fixed a crash when a Multi-Card Play session started (a loop in the game's code was translated as calls).
• Fixed a crash when the incantation's words (Y) were closed with OK or X, alone or connected ("jump from 0211e91c
  to 00000000"); it was in every earlier build.
• Fixed menus while connected with the town on the top screen: the talk menu, the Gateway's menu and others showed
  the communications room's options (Yes / No / friend code / Exit) instead of their own.
• F12 saves a screenshot to screenshots in the data folder.
• Keyboard, mouse (the stylus) and gamepads, all rebindable; layouts: one screen, stacked, side by side, main + side,
  single screen with picture-in-picture, two windows (F10 cycles them).

Saves, settings and logs live in %APPDATA%\MagiciansQuest-Recomp\MysteriousTimes.