Shane McGovern
4010857a32
Add ROM-backed contextual L/R help with article navigation and safe pause/resume. Record recent field scenes and gameplay events for the skippable Continue recap, with playback isolated from live progress. Integrate extraction and cache validation, preserve bundled script flags during import, and cover navigation, persistence, event recording, playback isolation, and both ROM revisions with tests.
2.3 KiB
FireRed Help
With OPTION → BUTTON MODE → HELP (the retail default), press Q/E (or controller L/R) to open Help. A selects, B returns, and L/R closes. Directional keys navigate; left/right page through long lists. The first-use welcome is dismissed with A. LR and L=A modes retain their existing behavior.
The importer reads all 177 question/answer entries, context lists, basic terms,
intro text, and background tiles/palette from the user's ROM. No extracted game
text or art is shipped in source. help/pack.lua is a required FireRed cache file.
The help extractor supports clean FireRed 1.0 and Rev 1; the overall game's
existing importer still requires FireRed 1.0.
The overlay intercepts input before the simulation runs and renders instead of the underlying screen while open. Field, scripts, battles, RNG, menus, and fanfare callbacks pause. BGM streams at half volume and restores on closing. The normal menu stack stays intact. Story flags gate questions, and the welcome flag persists in saves. Battle context remains active inside battle submenus. Script specials set, back up, restore, enable, and disable Help contexts.
The native 240×160 layout uses the ROM font and help background tiles. Numbered steps and type-effectiveness symbols use the font's extended glyph bank. Answers that exceed the panel can be scrolled with up/down.
Importing previously overwrote scripting/flags_table.lua with empty definitions
when a local pret checkout was absent. The importer now writes only its cache
and falls back to the bundled constants.
Verification
Run from the project root:
luajit tests/game3_help_test.lua
luajit tests/game3_flags_extract_preserve_test.lua
luajit tests/game3_help_rom_test.lua /path/to/firered.gba
The optional ROM test checks both extraction and cache serialization. Navigation and integration tests cover input ownership, pause/resume, progress filtering, context selection, persistence, script specials, scrolling, and audio restoration. Actual drawing calls were also rendered offline using the imported ROM atlases; this is not an in-game visual test.
Targeted event-flag, text-color, audio, pause/exit, save/trainer-card and cache-contract
regressions pass. game3_start_menu_cursor_test.lua and game3_main_menu_test.lua
have identical failures on the unmodified grandpas-garage commit ff18f605.