QJ Interviews LiraNuna

I had the pleasure to ask LiraNuna a few questions regarding both DS and PSP Homebrew development after having heard that he was leaving the DS scene, and joining the PSP scene. This departure of the DS scene came after making a “discovery”, something of which LiraNuna will still not share with us.  The issue is not our business anyways, whether it be a personal reason or not – every person deserves his/her own privacy.

Recently, another website interviewed the coding giant, and you can read all about that interview here. It covers several crucial questions relating to the PSP scene and LiraNuna’s future involvement. I tried to cover most of those questions that were not answered in e-MSC’s interview to prevent from repetition. You can view the entire interview after the jump where LiraNuna talks about how he got into developing, and his future plans!

I had the pleasure to ask LiraNuna a few questions regarding both DS and PSP Homebrew development after having heard that he was leaving the DS scene, and joining the PSP scene. This departure of the DS scene came after making a “discovery”, something of which LiraNuna will still not share with us.  The issue is not our business anyways, whether it be a personal reason or not – every person deserves his/her own privacy.

Recently, another website interviewed the coding giant, and you can read all about that interview here. It covers several crucial questions relating to the PSP scene and LiraNuna’s future involvement. I tried to cover most of those questions that were not answered in e-MSC’s interview to prevent from repetition. So, here’s the entire interview from start to finish –

I’m aware that you started developing homebrew for the GBA, what made you start developing for this handheld?

When the GBASP first came out, my father was visiting the USA, so I asked him to get me one.

While he was still staying there, I searched the Internet what the GBA is capable of. While browsing, I found the wonderful site of www.gbadev.com and saw that the GBA is programmable (I thought that the games are made directly into cartridges…). I didn’t know how to program, and always wanted to know “How new programs/games comes to the world?”.

Did you obtain your flashcart with the intent to run and develop homebrew code on it or was it more of different reasons?

While I was developing for the GBA, I didn’t had flashcarts. Infect, I’ve never tested any of my GBA projects on real GBA. I used VisualBoyAdvance for development and if I encountered problems, I asked people to test for me on a real GBA.

Do you think that the homebrew “scene” for the DS and GBA are overshadowed by the piracy of games?

GBA and DS homebrew scenes are different for each other. On the GBA, there was no encryptions on the cartridges, and the homebrewers were pretty much dependent on the piracy part for carts.

On the other hand, That’s not the case for the DS homebrew scene, the DS carts are encrypted, and some other way had to be found to run unsigned code – the PassMe. Later on the DS carts encryption was cracked, allowing for the creation of ‘NoPass’ devices, but it also leaded to more piracy…

What do you think of other DS developers and their programs?

As far as I see it, the DS homebrew scene isn’t as active as the PSP scene. Sure, there are some great applications and some fun homebrew games, but most developers won’t use the full potential of it.

Be it using frame buffer modes or PA lib…

Do you have any favorite DS programs/games?

There are a lot of nice DS homebrew, I’m mostly using DSOrganize (hey DragonMinded!), Beup, and one of my favorite games ExplosiveGas.

You were looking for a story for Tales of Dagur II – Did you ever find/receive a good one?

Unfortunately, no one sent me a full/partial story, so some friends got to the rescue.

They were working on a full story line and sub stories (ToD II will not feature linear gameplay).

Some of the crew are: Lynx, Nikolas (Which also was a level designer for the first ToD), StonerBoy, Andrew67 and some ideas which was thrown out by myself.

You’re working on a project for EVOKE 2006, can you tell us more about it?

The ‘Project’ for EVOKE is actually a demo. Demos are usually coded either to squeeze the hell out of the machine it’s running on, or as an art. The demo for EVOKE (Which doesn’t have a name yet), will try to combine both artistic tenses while pushing the DS to it’s limits. We got some fabulous scenes which are using almost anything the DS has to offer for developers.

After EVOKE, you plan to work on the PSP – What projects do you have planned?

First I will start with some simple techdemos, to get to know the PSP a little better – to see what i can or cannot do with it. After I will feel confident enough, I will (try) to remake Tales of Dagur for the PSP. After that, I want to start working on other game genres such as bird view racing games, Fighting games and maybe an RTS.

Is Tales of Dagur II coming out for the PSP besides a possible Tales of Dagur port/remake?

This is a pretty tough call… First, I don’t want to insult DS’s ToD fans by releasing a sequel for the DS’s “arch enemy”, but second, I got loads and loads planned for it.

My view is, that if I will find new people who are whiling to work with me on ToD II (Music makers, Level designers etc) and a new story line (or get permission to use the original DS story), I might actually do it.

Do you have any favorite PSP homebrew applications/games right now?

Oh yeah… a hell lot of them!

devHook – I don’t see a reason to tell you why.

Callisto – one of the BEST space shooters I have ever played. Including commercial ones.

If I will continue, 56k users will complain 😉

Do you think you will enjoy working on a Sony handheld rather than a Nintendo one?

It’s not a Sony vs. Nintendo fight… I enjoyed working on the DS since it’s a low level machine. As far as I saw it, the PSP is a higher level handheld – PSP is based on Firmware calls rather then register ‘poking’ like on the DS.

Since I am used to low level coding (This is what actually makes my coding time be more fun and creative), I think I will miss the DS, unless the PSP offers secret lower level stuff to play with.

 

Now you are probably wondering why I did not ask about him leaving the DS scene and what that latest discovery was. However, I feel that this question is just best left unknown and told LiraNuna that he didnÂ’t have to answer if he didnÂ’t want to.