itch.io

Hmm, looks like the asset packaging step failed, the zip file in the web folder was missing the assets.js and assets.data files. Without those, it won't load. I also tried building it on my machine, and it actually worked, and seems to run correctly from what I tested:

https://mega.nz/file/HZVxVTID#H6GdyJMp5NrLTaFQZTjHluh1ZtRWOcY7BjrkRQy2rVU (Web build of the game)

Going back to why the asset packaging might have failed, someone recently sent me an email that web asset packaging fails on their machines and I was able to reproduce it on a machine I had available. As it turned out, it was related to the way Emscripten (the environment used to create Dolmexica web builds) is shipped with Dolmexica. The asset packager was checking for a config file containing paths to a compiler, did not find it, and then aborted the asset packaging. This does not make much sense, because the asset packager does not need any compiler, so I added a dummy config file to the Emscripten shipped with Dolmexica. Now, it started properly packaging the assets again. I also sent it to the person that sent me the email, but they didn't confirm if it also fixed it for them (I was a bit late in getting back to them unfortunately). After that,  I updated the Dolmexica 1.5 release by adding that file.

I noticed that the file was also not added yet in the files you sent me, so I also added it there, maybe it will work properly with this:

https://mega.nz/file/SN9CTCJQ#YW2LsQkUQnzkVoaU9fPa3XBTdH8k2S6iNMeYqf3rmxs (Dolmexica with the game assets + the web asset packaging fix applied)

I also removed the zipped characters from the assets folder, but that was just to reduce size, that shouldn't have anything to do with the fix.
Hope this also fixes the issue for you! Thanks a lot for letting me know about the issue and for helping track it down by sharing your files!

Hmm, the most likely thing be would be an error while loading a character or stage in that case, I think. Does the same set of files work when using them with the Windows version? Could you maybe share your files so I could take a look too what is crashing?

Alternatively, is there an error message in the browser's developer console (turned on with CTRL+Shift+J on Chrome and Firefox)? Sometimes it only says unhelpful stuff like "Out of bounds memory access", but occasionally, it also gives an error message which file it could not load or something, that could help tracking down what is going wrong.

Hmm, Heihachi still works for  me, not sure what could be crashing there. I don't think the VPK would be all that helpful to debug it, if you could share the files you used to make the game, your assets, that would probably be more helpful to see if I can also recreate the crash. Thanks a lot!

I'll take a look at the linked characters and will let you know what I can find, thanks!

Regarding characters that work, these are the characters I tested when I made the initial Vita port: https://pastebin.com/e4eyG4Yb

There are a couple of anime and touhou characters in there, some of my favorites would be Dio from the Capcom fighter (https://mugen.fandom.com/wiki/Dio_Brando ), RP's Mima (https://mugen.fandom.com/wiki/Mima/RicePigeon%27s_second_version , link in the pastebin died), and some Otokojuku characters like Edajima Heihachi (https://mugenarchive.com/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=106661-edajima-heihachi... ).

Adjusting the amount of characters should work by adjusting the characters available in the select.def inside the data folder. The default select.def that ships with the basic Mugen download (for example available here: https://mugenarchive.com/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=5283--official-mugen-1-... ) has an explanation on how adding characters to the file works.

Additionally, you might have to adjust the character select screen. This is done in the system.def file used, by default that will be in data/system.def. Under "[Select Info]" are a variety of options, for the character amount the most important ones are "rows" and "columns", which define the amount of characters shown at the select screen. So if some characters aren't showing up, you might have to increase these values. I think that should be enough to include any amount of characters, at the very least more than eight. Unless this was a question if there is anything special you would need to do for Dolmexica to show more than eight characters, there is nothing special there, that should work just like Mugen.

Thanks a lot again for replying again and for the links to the character links, I'll take a look!

That's unfortunate, the Mugen interpreter part of Dolmexica is the same for all platforms, so I would expect characters that work on Windows to also work on Vita. Maybe something on the hardware level went wrong? From the top of my head I can only think of memory, maybe there were so many sprites that it somehow managed to even make the Vita run out of Vram?  Are the characters you tried very complex with large sprites? The Vita kit info you posted should be correct,  especially the game crashing after choosing the character points towards an issue that occurs when the fight is loading.

Do you have a link where I could maybe download the characters and also try them for myself on Vita? Maybe I can find out why it's crashing and fix it, or maybe find some way to get around the crash.

I'm sorry the characters you tried didn't run on Vita, thanks a lot for reaching out and letting me know about the issue!

Thanks a lot for letting me know! It's most likely still a bug in Dolmexica.

Do you have a link where I could get the character selection and the characters so I could also take a look? Maybe I can find a workaround or implement a fix for the next version!

Google translate's best take on it (I did not trust DeepL's Portuguese) / A melhor opinião do Google Tradutor sobre isso (não confiei no português do DeepL):

Muito obrigado por me avisar! Provavelmente ainda é um bug no Dolmexica.

Você tem um link onde eu possa pegar a seleção dos personagens e os chars para que eu também possa dar uma olhada? Talvez eu consiga encontrar uma solução alternativa ou implementar uma correção para a próxima versão!

Thanks for the in-depth feedback!
You're right, reusing texts in that scenario kinda ruins it, it's really something that needs a lot more writing to hide the cracks. I originally planned to use this mindbreak system to replace the original questioning mechanic (to make it less boring than just asking question after question), so I would try to use it a lot, probably once per person, with a big boss at the end of the chapter. Collecting keywords in the field is a great idea, I also want to have items/evidence in there for Joe to present, maybe they can fill that role. I hadn't checked out Cyberpunk and  the Arkham series yet, but it sounds like I should take a look at the brain dance and detective mode sequences respectively. Thanks for the tip!
Regarding the last stand,  you're right, that was not the super cool climax it was supposed it to be. The whole elemental thing does not lend itself to a detective game, I think I will drop that going forward and replace it with something more fitting and cooler. Or maybe as an additional touch like you mentioned, but as the main focus it's just confusing (and not fun). I should also make it clearer that the boss is saying the text, that was a clear oversight from me in retrospect.
Again, thanks a lot for taking the time to test it and writing the in-depth comment! Lots of great ideas and suggestions in there in there, I took a lot from it!

It is unfortunately unlikely for me to try something like that, as I always try to make sure the Dolmexica mods I make also run on the Dreamcast. And in my experience, anything from 3D games and from after the Dreamcast's lifespan does not fit in the Dreamcast's limited memory. 

I am still fixing Dolmexica so it works with the Street Fighter VS Tekken mod, and the characters there seem to fit into Vita memory at first glance. Maybe someone has already made Street Fighter IV / Tekken mods for Mugen? If those don't work with Dolmexica, I would also take a look at those, but I wouldn't proactively make new ones.

The problem is that even the characters are broken in various ways, which makes even making a game using only the characters for Vita a bit of a challenge. I'll try getting the characters fixed with Dolmexica first and let you know when I have something that works on Vita.

I took a look at all the things going wrong with Street Fighter vs Tekken on Dolmexica and it's unfortunately quite a lot.

• Not relevant for the vita version, but it already fails loading the truetype fonts. For the vita version though, that will mean that those fonts will not show up since truetype fonts are not supported on there. Will be fixed for other platforms though.
• Then there's the issue that a lot of paths have \ instead of / in them, which Dolmexica does not handle gracefully, that also has to be fixed.
• There seems to be a difference in how Mugen and Dolmexica handle fight/system fonts. Dolmexica completely unloads the system fonts before loading the fight fonts, leading to the fights in Street Fighter vs Tekken missing font1 (in data/RenegadeLifebar/FightWithoutPorts.def). That will also have to be adapted to avoid a crash when loading fights.
• Characters themselves sometimes crash on Dolmexica due to various reasons. Balrog_mx has an unclosed group header that doesn't seem to be handled gracefully and causes issue. Similarly CvS_OgreTAG just crashes.
• Other characters have smaller issues, Blankaw's hitboxes don't work (probably a localcoord issue) and some characters like Kratos2 don't have any input in Dolmexica.
• There's also some characters that work, even when fighting against themselves, such as Cammy.
• There are issues in the appearance of both menus and stages. There seems to be something going wrong with the localcoord of the stages in Dolmexica. This should technically work, probably a bug there somewhere.

From what I see it's not one thing that affects all characters, but rather a range of different issues affecting different characters, unfortunately. I'll continue taking a look at and fixing the issues, I just wanted to give a first overview over the things that are going wrong as this might take a while to fix. 

I'll take a look, thanks! Will let you know when I find out what's causing the issues.

Yes, if it  works with Mugen it should also work with Dolmexica. But there might be bugs in Dolmexica causing crashes/different behavior from Mugen etc.  So if you have a link to the premade Mugen game I would be interested in taking a look. Thanks!

> it just includes one character then it just generate a small file not including all the assets.

So if you only add one character it doesn't create a proper VPK? Haven't encountered that before and can't reproduce this here, but it could be a bug that happens with certain characters, do you have a mugenarchive link for a character it happens with?

I see, then it really seems like it happens when trying to load a stage that doesn't exist. That would explain why it works vs Kung-Fu Man, as his stage, kfm.def, should be included.

Could I see your data/select.def ? There might be something there that causes a wrong stage to load.  And  a link to one of the characters you use would be helpful, just to make sure it's not also anything else going wrong. Thanks a lot!

Looks like it cannot find a stage based on that error message. Did you try adding a select.def that also contains stages? Or is a stage file referenced somewhere inside the character? Not something I've seen before, but I also could not rule it out.
Do you have a link to the character, on mugenarchive or somewhere? If I'm able to reproduce the crash, it should be easy to figure out what's going wrong. In the meanwhile I'll doublecheck how Mugen behaves when it cannot find a stage, I think Dolmexica just showing that error screen is a bit imperfect, that's something that can be improved in the next version either way.

Regarding how many characters are supported, there is no fixed upper limit. The only time the character count comes into play is when loading the character select screen, and it would probably be pretty hard to max out the Vita memory with just the portrait images. Loading might take a while though, I assume the point where loading is just too annoying is reached earlier than any memory concerns. The highest character count I have tried is roughly 100 characters, but there I got around that loading annoyance by just not including the portrait images on the select screen. But yeah, long story short, not really a limit that should cause crashes there. 

If it crashes it might again be some file it can't find, or a problem with file names it can't parse, that's what often causes issues there. If you know what characters or stages cause issue, I'd be interested in checking them out just to see what might be causing crashes there.

Thanks a lot for letting me know about these issues! 

Hi, thanks for trying it out!

There are two things that I can imagine going wrong. Maybe it's somehow breaking based on the path you are running the executable in. Is there maybe something like Unicode in there? It should be able to handle whitespaces, but I haven't tested with much else, so if it just doesn't show up, that could be one thing to try, running it from a folder without special characters.

Another thing could be that the executables aren't working on your machine (the ones packaging the game in /vita/external/vita-sdk/). I got a report by someone that they weren't working for him in 1.4, so I replaced them in 1.5, maybe that could be causing issues? Does the 1.4 version work for you? (From here, there's a Dolmexica Infinite Version 1 4 Make-your-own-game kit for Vita download, it's the third one, their names seem to be cut off: https://captaindreamcast.itch.io/dolmexica-infinite-archive) That way I could at least rule out that it's the changes to the packaging that broke anything. Of course it could also be related to them not working on your machine in either 1.4 or 1.5. Is there an error message when you just click on \vita\external\vita-sdk\vita-mksfoex.exe and vita-pack-vpk.exe? Something like "Can't run on this architecture"? I would assume it also pops up when trying to run it from the script, but just to be sure.

Final question would be if it only happens when you try packaging after adding your custom character. Does it also not show up if you just try to package it with the asset folder that comes when you download Dolmexica? If it's that, it might again be some strange filename interfering with the packaging process.

If it's not any of that, my final suggestion would be to open the script (make_vita.bat) and try running the steps of the VPK creation in that script step-by-step on the windows terminal, to check if there are errors popping up there. Although I think if you already tried running the script, it would look similar to how it looked there. 

Those are the things I can imagine could still be causing issues, please let me know if none of them work out, I'll also let you know if I come up with anything else. Thanks!

Thanks a lot!

Answers to questions that often pop up. Will extend this as stuff comes in, right now it seems most questions are centered around how to actually get it running on consoles / in browsers. Please let me know if anything is still unclear or doesn't work. Thanks!

Running on Windows:

Extract the download and open Dolmexica Infinite for Windows.exe.

Modding the game:

Extract the Dolmexica Infinite download. Change the files in the assets folder as you would with regular M.U.G.E.N to add characters and stages (documentation is here: https://www.elecbyte.com/mugendocs-11b1/mugen.html). Differences between Dolmexica and M.U.G.E.N are documented here: https://captaindreamcast.github.io/DolmexicaInfinite/differences.html

Creating a .CDI disc image for the Dreamcast:

Extract the Dolmexica Infinite download. Modify the assets folder to include the characters/stages you want. Open "Dolmexica Infinite Make-your-own-game kit for Dreamcast.exe" and follow the instructions to generate the .cdi file. A more in-depth explanation is here: https://captaindreamcast.github.io/DolmexicaInfinite/makeyourowngamedreamcast.ht...

Burn the .cdi file to a CD-R using Padus Discjuggler 6.0 (https://www.afterdawn.com/software/cd_dvd/burning/padus_disc_juggler.cfm).  CD-RWs will not work. Burn at slow speeds, if possible. Put the CD-R in your Dreamcast. If it shows -Dolmexica Infinite 1.5 executable- during the Sega logo screen, you did everything correctly.

Creating a .vpk package for installation on a jailbroken Vita:

Extract the Dolmexica Infinite download. Modify the assets folder to include the characters/stages you want. Open "Dolmexica Infinite Make-your-own-game kit for Vita.exe" and follow the instructions to generate the .vpk file. A more in-depth explanation is here: https://captaindreamcast.github.io/DolmexicaInfinite/makeyourowngamevita.html

Transfer the .vpk to a Vita  and install it from VitaShell. For info on how to jailbreak your Vita, refer to the information in this guide. In addition to that, libshacccg.suprx (a Vita shader compiler needed by vitaGL) needs to be extracted on your Vita. For information on how to extract libshacccg.suprx, please follow the information provided in this guide. The Vita emulator Vita3K is not supported currently.

Creating a .zip archive for upload on sites hosting HTML5 games:

Extract the Dolmexica Infinite download. Modify the assets folder to include the characters/stages you want. Open "Dolmexica Infinite Make-your-own-game kit for Web.exe" and follow the instructions to generate the .zip file. A more in-depth explanation is here: https://captaindreamcast.github.io/DolmexicaInfinite/makeyourowngameweb.html

The batch file will output a zipped folder you can directly upload to itch.io, newgrounds, or similar sites.

If you find something not working, please post it here!

Everything that's not mentioned here (https://captaindreamcast.github.io/DolmexicaInfinite/differences.html) can be considered a bug, so don't hesitate to post about it.

The more details you post, the easier it would be to fix (e.g. which platform, which character, which stage, etc), that would help a lot! Thanks in advance if you take the time to write it down!

Full documentation is here: https://captaindreamcast.github.io/DolmexicaInfinite/makeyourowngameweb.html
The short version is that you need to download the Make-your-own-game-kit for Web, adjust the assets folder in there to contain the Mugen/Dolmexica files the web version is meant to have, and then run the Dolmexica Infinite Make-your-own-game kit for Web.exe. With that you can create a zip file you can upload to sites like itch.io or newgrounds (those are the two sites where I have uploaded Dolmexica web builds before and they worked, newgrounds has been a while ago though). 

Workflow-wise I would suggest testing the asset folder with the Windows version first to make sure the characters and stages work. You cannot run the web version to test locally (at least not very easily, you would need an Emscripten setup). To test your web build I suggest creating a private itch game page and uploading the game there (that's how I usually test my web builds before uploading them publicly). Please let me know if something doesn't work, and thanks for trying it out!

It's mostly aiming to be compatible with Winmugen. I did add compatibility to higher res characters at some point (for example the hi-res Kung Fu Man that comes with later Mugen versions), but they are a lot less tested, and unfortunately often break the memory limit of the Dreamcast (which is also why I put less focus on them). 

Only with some hacky workaround from what I can see.

I got it working by copypasting a Dolmexica for Windows executable into the assets folder of the Make-your-own-game kit (on the same level as the chars, data, font, etc folders) and selecting that as the Mugen Executable for VSelect to use. Seems like VSelect cares mostly about the relative folder structure, so editing the select.def like that works. I tried the, at the time of writing, latest version from the author, 1.3.10.4.

That's unexpected, hmm, it doesn't really depend on any runtimes, unless it was compiled wrong. I've recompiled it now under 32 bit, while making sure there's no special dependencies, does this version of the executable work for you? 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T6fk8ErxfBQhJR4Gcrlk6Jl03o3Oe5gM/view?usp=shari...

The Vita version? That does not look like a vita error, and if it is, it's not one I'm familiar with unfortunately.

If it's on Windows, the error seems to either signify that you are trying to run a 64-bit program on a 32-bit machine (which sounds unlikely), or because a .NET framework runtime is missing. Dolmexica itself does not use .NET, but the Make-your-own-game-kit GUI programs use it, does the error happen when you try to open those? 

If it is in fact the Make-Your-Own-Game-Kit gui program, there are two ways to avoid it. One would be to use the command-line batch file that comes with the program instead, you would call it like this:

make_vita.bat "[Name]" [Title ID (has to be 9 characters)] [version]

so for example:

make_vita.bat "Dolmexica Infinite" DOLM00001 01.00

The second way around it would be to install the .NET runtime for that program, which is provided here by Microsoft: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet-framework/net461

4.6.1. is a bit outdated, as the big red warning text saying "this is outdated" says, I will try to upgrade it for the next version. Maybe that's what's causing the issue.

Thanks for letting me know about the issue! Hope this helps, please let me know if you get the error from a different executable/version or if it's still not working and I'll try to find an idea how to fix it!

Thanks for checking it out and letting me know about the slow performance! Could you also let me know which version you tried? Dreamcast still runs somewhat poorly, that's unfortunately expected. Other than that, the Web version has been having issues under recent Firefox versions. For some reason they don't like how the game is (supposed to be) running at fixed 60 fps anymore, throttling it a lot and leading to poor performance. Still don't have a fix for that unfortunately, best I can do right now is to recommend trying it with another browser if possible. 

Hi!

Regarding how to run Dolmexica on the Vita:

The first thing you need to do if you haven't already is to jailbreak your vita so you can install homebrew on it. Personally I've followed this guide here: https://vita.hacks.guide/ . Afterwards you need to transfer the vpk you downloaded to the Vita. Personally I use VitaShell on the Vita to open a ftp server and then use filezilla on my windows PC with the IP provided by VitaShell to transfer over the .vpk file and then install it from VitaShell. After installing, Dolmexica Infinite should be selectable as a game from the Vita home menu.

Regarding how to add characters:

For that you have to download the "Make-your-own-game kit for Vita" above. The full documentation is here: https://captaindreamcast.github.io/DolmexicaInfinite/makeyourowngamevita.html , but the short version is that there is an assets folder in there, where you will find the Dolmexica/Mugen files, that's where characters are added. Adding characters works like it would with Mugen.  For the full info, I would refer to the Mugen documentation here: https://www.elecbyte.com/mugendocs-11b1/mugen.html . But the short version is that you add the character files to the chars folder, then edit the data/select.def file to add that character to the character select menu. Then it should show up. 

So once your assets folder is in order, you can run "Dolmexica Infinite Make-your-own-game kit for Vita.exe" to set the game name and Title ID, and then after running it should output a .vpk that you can transfer to the Vita like you would with the standard Dolmexica version.

Hope it works! Please let me know if you encounter any issues. Thanks for trying it out!

Thank you very much!

Yeah, I think that was the old football stuff conversation at the helmet where I took the aboot reference from. Looking forward to the world map, the world building throughout the acts is a great point too, I hadn't touched upon that yet. We got glimpses from the more cybernetic world in the form of for example the android doctor in the previous acts, but act 3 really paid it off by showing what life is like in the big city. I think that is also a great draw for your game, it makes you want to see more of that interesting world.

Regarding Dream Team, I think you tried both versions that include the characters, the Gamescom one and the prison one (thanks again for that!). I think I might have written in one of the descriptions that I based the characters on the characters from my Ludum Dare game "Inside", it might be that (but it's just very loosely the apathetic main character, incompetent bossy sidekick dynamic).

Finished Act 3, still great stuff!

Found two places at the motel where I could leave the path:

Balancing still felt very fair (did the level 17 run), only the wolf boss was a bit of a  longer roadblock. All of the encounters made me feel like I could beat them as long as I use a proper strategy (working with status buffs/debuffs with the party, sword of damocles strats with Firestarter Sarah).

Music is still absolutely gorgeus. Liked the remixes and interpretations of music from previous acts, for example the fleshrite remixes during the bloodrites backstory explanation part. Everything is still super stylish, I especially adored the Firestarter vs. intros for young adult Sarah and her enemies, those were a nice touch.

Writing was still great too. For reference, I always forced Sarah to go to work and take the Mariner classes so Joergen can return. Still masterful at setting a mood. Also still enjoyed the jokes sprinkled in, my favorite one in act 3 was the blocking box in the motel, that blocking box company is truly a menace. And of course, after two acts of dark tormentuous psychological scenarios, you go even further and introduce not only Canada, but also a Canadian. I'm man enough to admit I flinched a little when he said aboot.

Every other praise I mentioned in my acts 1/2 feedback still hold up, this is a very unique game with a very distinct voice, I think you have a great thing going here!

After reading your reply below I just noticed I could also have confused the Boss and have her attack herself

I'm still playing, but I just wanted to already post that I got the crash below on 1.4, it happened after someone attacked, unfortunately I don't really remember who, I remember the animation playing when Billy attacks, but that's unlikely as I was using Ponder All with Billy that round. 

.

Heck yeah, super fun to beat up all the enemies! When you get a combo going it feels super satisfying. Best moment for me was when the boss was trying to skateboard away but I caught him with a jump kick and then pummeled him with a nice combo. Those are the moments.

Also love the sound design of your game! All the background music is great and fits perfectly, plus listening to where the running enemy that jump kicks you comes from added a lot to the gameplay I think, I feel that is an interesting mechanic that I haven't seen used much in beat-em ups. 

All around super cool, great work!

The web version? I have this with Chrome on some machines, unfortunately I can't pin down where it's coming from, the best recommendation I can give is to try another browser or the Windows version.

My current plan is:

Dolmexica 1.3 on November 3rd - No Dream Fight or story, but I want to test some vita and other changes first before releasing Dream Fight 21

Dream Fight 21 A.D. on November 11th

Dream Fight 22 A.D. on December 31st/January 1st

Might be a week later in case something terrifically goes wrong, but right now it looks like it will work out, I'll reply here again and let you know if something changes.

Thanks again for the nice comments!