Flux

Flux
General
Author	rize
Type	Puzzle
Version	2005
License	Mixed
Last Updated	2005/08/10
Links
Download
Website

Flux is an action puzzle game for Nintendo DS of the falling block variety. It is more like Tetris, but not Polarium. It is intended to be played with the Stylus in one hand, and the other hand on the D-Pad or face buttons. With each level, the minimum chain length increases as does the speed and complexity of the blocks.

This version of Flux was released for the NEO Coding Compo 2005 (GAME).

User guide

Gameplay

The objective is to create colored chains above the minimum length so that they may be destroyed with the Stylus thereby reducing the stack of tiles.

Place the falling blocks so that tiles of the same color are aligned. When you create a chain that meets or exceeds the minimum chain length, the tiles become volatile. Destroy such chains at any time by tapping them with the stylus.

Every 50 tiles cleared increases the level. The speed and complexity of the blocks increases a little, but most of all the chain length increases by one per level.

When the playing field is filled up, any chained blocks will automatically be destroyed (no points for these).

If this does not clear enough room for the next block, the game ends. Tap the screen to begin again.

You can tap the word Quit in the pause menu to return to the title screen. The hi-score will not be lost until the unit is powered off.

Scoring

The longer a chain is when it is destroyed, the more points you'll get for each tile cleared.

More point are awarded per tile, per level as well.

Custom music

The ds.gba version contains 3 songs:

• Hit start and tap the word music while playing to cycle through the songs.
• The first two songs are rather eccentric chip tunes an the last is silence.

If you are technically proficient, you can add your own music to the game using the following steps (details about using gbfs can be found here):

• Acquire tools that come with gbfs (gameboy file system) and libnds.
• Use dsbuild to convert the .nds that you download here to a ds.gba.
• Use padbin with the parameter 256 to prepare the binary for the file system.
• Use gbfs to create a .gbfs file with songs in it (see below).
• Use cat to concatenate the padded binary with the .gbfs file containing your music.
• Run the new ds.gba file.

Note: The music format must MONO .wav. It can be 8 or 16 bit but must be signed PCM. The full .wav header must be in place. Each individual music file must be no more than 3.25 MB (includes the header). Use this feature at your own risk.

Controls

Basics:

Primary controls for right-handed.

D-Pad - move active block

L - Rotate the block left

Stylus - Tap chains of blocks to destroy them

Start - Pause, Menu

Additional:

Left handed controls are mostly copied onto the right side of the unit.

Up - Rotate the block right

R - Rotates right

X - Rotates left

Screenshots

Online Emulator

Can use gamepad or customise in the control settings.

Nintendo DS	Keyboard

Compatibility

Currently runs only on the actual hardware. The plain .nds file has no music file and so is wifi capable. The ds.gba has three songs and so is significantly larger and must be run from a flash cart.

Credits

Dsdev crew at gbadev.org, everyone working on devkitpro.

Sean McDonald for various art assets and Jake Kaufman (aka virt).

External links

• Author's website - http://www.endloopstudios.com/flux (archived)
• NeoFlash - https://www.neoflash.com/forum/index.php?topic=588.0