Skeetendo

You actually described the "cp" functionality instead of "xor" there. You should really look up tutorials on learning gameboy z80 assembly, since without that, you won't be able to really understand the code at all. here is a document that describes the instructions in more detail. However, I think there are a few differences in syntax in some places between the way this document presents them and the way the RGBDS compiler expects them to be written.

also, "dw" is not really a cpu instruction. "dw" means you're placing a word, "db" means you're placing a byte. Often times, you'll see "dw LabelNameHere" used, which means it places the address of routine whose name you wrote there (so you don't have to worry about calculating pointers). Similarly, you'll often see things like "db BULBASAUR" so that you don't have to remember what Bulbasaur's internal ID number is. Expanding on this, pokered includes some macros with similar names derived from those. "dbw" for example is one that lets you put a byte followed by a word on the same line, to make things more clear. "dba" is used as a short-hand for putting a "3 byte pointer" or "far pointer" to something. Think of is as "declare bank, address". So "dba Mon001_EvosMoves" would put the bank that label is in, followed by the address where it is stored.

Thanks for the replies !

Here is an example from text\maps\oaks_lab.asm

_OaksLabText_1d340:: ; 9526b (25:526b)
    text "PROF.OAK is the"
    line "authority on"
    cont "#MON!"

    para "Many #MON"
    line "trainers hold him"
    cont "in high regard!"
    done

So from my understanding :
"text" starts the dialog
"line" writes the dialog on a new line (like hitting return in MS Word)
"cont" seems to do the same as line ?
"para" does not seems to break the dialog, but just starts a new sentence.
"done" ends the dialog

Do correct me if I am wrong or rather elaborate on these terms.

Now, I tried to search for where this lines up in scripts\oakslab.asm

OaksLabText9: ; 1d336 (7:5336)
    db $08 ; asm
    ld hl, OaksLabText_1d340
    call PrintText
    jp TextScriptEnd

OaksLabText_1d340: ; 1d340 (7:5340)
    TX_FAR _OaksLabText_1d340
    db "@"

This is where I get a bit lost...can you explain what each line is doing ?

* thanks in advance *

text = starts the text
line = new line, right after "text" or "para"
cont = pushes the old text up a line, to show a new one
para = starts a new paragraph

The line that looks like:

db $08 ; asm

is technically outdated. I know why you have it, though. I told you to grab the "compatible" branch of Red++ instead of Master, and that branch is missing a lot of vanilla pokered updates that Master has (but that branch also is still supported by GlitchMap and doesn't have halfway-finished updates and such). Anyways, modern pokered replaced that with

TX_ASM

to make it more obvious its an in-text code that means what follows is an ASM routine instead of normal text.

As for *why* it uses the ASM routine just to print some other text without doing anything useful, not sure. But that's all it's doing.

ld hl, OaksLabText_1d340

just loads the hl register with the address for that text

call PrintText

calls the routine PrintText, which prints out a textbox with whatever text hl is pointing to

jp TextScriptEnd

jumps to the common routine for finishing up after a text script such as this one. Then, of course, OaksLabText_1d340 does nothing except

TX_FAR _OaksLabText_1d340
db "@"

TX_FAR just means it is calling text from another bank. 90% of the text in the game is grouped together into a few banks of its own instead of being in with the scripts that reference it, so you see TX_FAR a lot. The db "@" just marks the end of the text.

-----

To answer the question about where Gary walks to, I'd have to look into that a bit more to see what all you've already done. Oak's Lab has a lot of connected scripts for the different parts, so I can see why it's a mess for you to figure out. But without knowing exactly what you've done it's hard to say what went wrong. If you project is on github that would make it a lot easier to get help from me or others, since we can see exactly what you did, and therefore tell you what you did wrong and how to fix it.

Last edited by Mateo (2017-07-17 02:39:07)

No, he did in fact describe an xor operation.

Thanks friends, after a little problem solving on my end, I now have the "Cygwin64 Terminal" up and running now.

* just had to upgrade from 32 to 64 bit *

Followed the "INSTALL.md" instructions and got "rgbds" setup correctly. 

The cloning process went great and even the "make" command worked fine. 

Now that I have the files, I am going to start looking into editing the starting dialog.

@Mateo

Ah, that is a helpful note !

I tested out the "make" red file up to the rival battle.

Red++ has a lot going on  ^_^"

After editing most of the pallet town dialog, I would like to look into the splash screens and title screen programs.

Hmm, but for now I will read through the oaks lab code and see if I can make changes.