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DreamBox

A Y2K-nostalgia-inspired 3D Fantasy Console · By Crit Chance Studios

Usage Instructions

A topic by mhtraylor created Oct 18, 2023 Views: 274 Replies: 2
Viewing posts 1 to 2

This is an excellent concept, and I was very pleasantly surprised at the nostalgic system menu screen and startup sound -- it's perfect. I'm excited to start coding on this.

However, I'm ashamed to say I cannot figure out how to operate the thing. Are there usage instructions anywhere? Passing a freshly built ISO (following the `Getting Started` section) to the dreambox executable at the terminal (e.g. `./dreambox ~/foo/build/debug.iso`, for instance) still gives "No disc inserted" in the debug log, and on the device while I can somewhat navigate the menu with the arrow keys and L & P (I think), I cannot find any way to load a disc or view any key bindings. I don't see anything in the documentation; perhaps I've missed them somewhere?

Thank you for creating this interesting fantasy console.

Developer (1 edit)

No you're not missing anything, usage docs are still lacking right now & in dire need of some attention (I've just been really busy with other stuff, so I haven't been able to dedicate as much time as I'd like to projects like this)

For what it's worth you have three ways of loading an ISO into Dreambox:

  1. You can drop the ISO onto the window
  2. You can use the `--startcd [path/to/iso]` (or `-s [path/to/iso]`) commandline option
  3. You can use the `--faststartcd [path/to/iso]` (or `-f [path/to/iso]`) commandline option, which is similar to startcd but also skips the boot animation

Additionally, for keybinds, they are stored in a config JSON file created when you first start Dreambox. On Windows, that will be located at `C:\Users\[username]\Documents\SavedGames\dreambox\dreambox-savedata\AllPlayers\config.json`. On Linux, I *think* that would be something like `~/.local/share/dreambox/dreambox-savedata/AllPlayers/config.json`? I can verify on my laptop in a bit.

FWIW the default keybinds are:

Gamepad Button/ControlKeyboard Mapping
AL
BP
XK
YO
D-PadArrow Keys
L1Q
L2Left Shift
L3Left Control
R1E
R2Right Shift
R3Right Control
StartEnter
SelectSpace
Left StickW/A/S/D
Right StickT/F/G/H

Also, for what it's worth, a few useful hotkeys you may want to know:

  • F1 ejects the CD and restarts the console
  • F2 restarts the console, but does not eject the CD
  • F3 ejects the CD, but does not restart the console
  • F4 dumps loaded audio samples to WAV files for debugging

Awesome, thank you for that info. I can confirm that on Linux the file with settings including keybindings is indeed at `~/.local/share/dreambox/dreambox-savedata/AllPlayers/config.json`. Thanks!