VNDS-LOVE Switch

VNDS-LOVE
VNDS-LOVE
General
Author	ajusa
Type	Other Games
Version	0.0.13
License	Mixed
Last Updated	2023/02/12
Links
	Download
	Website
	Source
	Support Author

VNDS-LOVE is a program that allows you to play Visual Novel Dual Screen (VNDS) formatted novels on multiple platforms. Many famous visual novels have been ported to this format, which was designed for the Nintendo DS.

VNDS is a specification designed for visual novels in order to run them on the Nintendo DS. Many of the original sources for the project no longer exist, but you can find further information on it at this wiki page.

VNDS novels only have a few commands. As such, they don't have any support for animations, videos, or other fancier graphical capabilites of newer visual novels. They support basic audio and image based storytelling.

Installation

The following instructions are from VNDS-LOVE Install Guide.

First, make sure that your Nintendo Switch has CFW on it. This program is only tested on Atmosphere, here is a link to a guide that will show you how to set it up.

Once you have CFW, go to the release page and download the Nintendo Switch file. Unzip the file and place it into your SD card under /switch. So, the final path should look like sdmc:/switch/VNDS-LOVE.nro.

After that, open the homebrew menu by holding R down when launching a game. VNDS-LOVE cannot run in applet mode (where you just open the album). You should see a program titled VNDS-LOVE, click on it to start playing a visual novel.

User guide

VNDS-LOVE only supports playing through VNDS visual novels. These are novels that were converted to this format to be played either on the original Nintendo DS or on Android. This means that the number of novels this project can play through is fairly limited.

What you can do, is learn how to port visual novels over to VNDS, or write a program that does that.

Novel structure

After downloading and unzipping a VNDS novel, you should end up with a directory structure looking something like this:

├── background.zip
├── default.bcfnt
├── default.ttf
├── foreground.zip
├── GLOBAL.SAV
├── icon-high.png
├── icon.png
├── img.ini
├── info.txt
├── instructions.txt
├── prologue.xml
├── script.zip
├── sound.zip
├── thumbnail-high.jpg
├── thumbnail.png
└── title.mp3

There are a few important files to make sure to have here. You will need to have:

background.zip
foreground.zip
script.zip
sound.zip

If any of the zip files are unzipped and are folders, that is fine as well. VNDS-LOVE first checks the folder before trying to use a zip file.

Save format

VNDS-LOVE does support saving, although it is currently limited to one save slot.

The save file is located at .../novels/NOVEL_NAME/save.json

If you see a .SAV file or anything else, you can ignore that. Those save files are for a different VNDS player.

How to install a novel

VNDS-LOVE searches for one directory when trying to look for a novel.

It looks at SAVE_DIR/novels/NOVEL_NAME

So an example path would look something like SAVE_DIR/novels/fsn where fsn has img.ini, background.zip, etc...

Where is SAVE_DIR

The directory that VNDS-LOVE outputs when starting is where it looks for novels. Adapted from https://love2d.org/wiki/love.filesystem

The path for Nintendo Switch is DIRECTORY_WITH_NRO/save/VNDS-LOVE

Again, a novel would go under SAVE_DIR/novels/NOVEL_NAME

Controls

D-Pad - Select a choice

B - Close menu

A - Go forward

Start - Open a menu

In older releases there wasn't a menu, so you would hit X to save.

Media

Demo video.

Known issues

Please see this issues.

Changelog

v0.0.13

Fixes a bug (#37) related to font resizing when drawing the option menu (thank you @snuk182 for reporting and fixing the issue).

v0.0.12

Fixes a bug (#35) related to text interpolation that was used in certain novels.
Fixed an issue with loading zipped folders on the 3DS platform, thanks @TurtleP for helping me debug that.

v0.0.11

Fixed an issue reported by Mishima on Discord that was causing listbox to fail.
Better error handling for when a file isn't found.
Might fix #33 (comment), haven't testing on Switch personally yet.

v0.0.10

Tried to fix audio crashing bug in #31.
Changed default rescaling to use linear as suggested in #32.
Trying to make sure that the font can't be nil at runtime to fix #33.

v0.0.9

Added a settings menu
- You can change values by using the left/right buttons, such as the audio/music percent.
Can change the audio settings for both music and sounds, closing #22.
Tries to use the default.ttf if it is provided in a novel, closing #25.
- This can be overidden in the settings.
Fixed an issue with being able to close the save menu.

v0.0.8

Added a menu. Access it by hitting the start button on a gamepad, or m(enu) with a keyboard. Close by hitting b (also b on keyboard).
Save slot support. You can now save and load from up to 10 slots per novel. This number is subject to increase in the future.
Ability to quit from within VNDS-LOVE! Open menu and then select quit.

v0.0.7

Use the mime type of a file to decide how to open it (fixes Kanon).

Release notes.

External links