Check the font file.

In Death Note: The Kira Game, there's a table after the font data giving the widths of every character. If there's a similar width table in your game, you might not have to do any hacking at all to implement a VWF (or at the very least a nicer-looking FWF).

Hmm. Maybe I'm wrong.

If all the fonts are the same size, then there might not be a width table. However, depending on the width of the existing font, adding a VWF or a FWF may be easier.

If the font is an odd size already - such as the 11x11 used by Death Note - then we already have some of the infrastructure needed for a VWF in place already, since the tiles have to be shifted in order to be displayed.

If the font is a multiple of 8 in size, like 16x16, then it will be harder to implement a VWF, but in either case it should be almost trivial to implement a reasonably-sized FWF.

I'm still working on Breath of Fire 2, and I've got Death Note: The Kira Game lined up next (plus who knows how many other projects I've promised but put on the back burner), so I can't help you with programming, but I can give you hints as to how to proceed. You do have no$gba, correct?

Hmm. Is there any data in the font file that you haven't figured out? I know they individual fonts are padded with palette data, but are there any other bytes in between that seem to follow a regular pattern but aren't part of the palette or font data? The font files are the obvious place to find the width tables, but if not...

Worst-case scenario, the width might be hardcoded and there's nothing for it except ASM hacking. Thankfully, changing a single value might give you the leeway you need to at least fit a better-proportioned 6x11 font (of the variety used by Death Note and many other games).

Find where the characters get written to in VRAM, set a write breakpoint for the start of a block of text and trace through. You may have to repeat this multiple times if there are multiple print routines.

I'm currently in the middle of orchestrating the BoF2 beta and I've promised the world I'd get back to work on Death Note: The Kira Game next.

I will, however, give you another tip: if you have trouble finding space for any VWF hacks - Death Note uses the space immediately after the code as scratch space - find the end of said scratch space, expand the ARM file beyond that, and tack your hacks onto the end.

DTE is just a specific kind of dictionary compression. Of course, the first thing you'll need to find is the dictionary. :3

(It also helps matters that once you've worked out the DTE system, you can then use it to your advantage.)

If you can, figure out where the script shows up in memory and set a read breakpoint for one of the DTE codes. When it loads it, you'll be able to trace through the code and figure out where it loads the dictionary from. Mind you, that won't tell you on its own where to find the dictionary...it might, however, be stored in one of the code files, come to think of it (Death Note stores a lot of commonly-used strings there).

Youtube video showing current progress:


Still need help with the font width.

Thanks for finding that. The data is taken from the overlay files. Unfortunately, I do not have much of an idea how to write the VWF code needed. Hopefully someone who does will come up.