Entry 45

A new game's setup: the event's lines, name entry, and NewGame's save

2026-09-23uisavedecomptest

Filescrates/piney-demo/src/newgame.rscrates/piney-desktop/src/name_entry.rscrates/piney-desktop/src/setup.rscrates/piney-game/src/desktop.rstools/test_demo_rs.pytools/test_desktop_name_rs.py

After 44 a new game went from the title to the desktop through about a second of black. The desktop agent ported what the game shows there, the title agent ported the save New Game makes, and I put them in the runtime's setup stage.

What a new game shows

Event 1's pass at phase 0 runs while ccSetupDesktop waits:

• The screen is black. There is no loading display.
• Two lines. Messages 1 and 2 each open in a window the event makes itself: a fresh layer 242 and ccMessage, with no dim. They wait for the confirm button.
• Name entry. NameEntry_Control opens with its own messages ("Registration process for "The World" is finished.", "Reconfirming your name and character name.") and then its keyboard, the face panel and the two names.
• The desktop. It is built on the save name entry leaves.

In the runtime the setup stage draws SetupScreen (the black and the event's window) every frame. Name entry's frame replaces it while name entry runs. The bridge routes each call:

• Place::Setup message_open / message_check / message_close go to the screen;
• name_entry_start / name_entry_step / name_entry_end go to NameEntry, which writes plName and plRealName;
• SetupScreen::update runs afterwards, so later lines use the new names.

--skip-name keeps the default names. The tests use it: blind presses on the keyboard only type letters, and name entry has its own check.

NewGame's save

ccSaveData::NewGame(sw) runs twice: NewGame(1) in ccSetupDemo, then NewGame(0) on New Game. It does the following:

• copies the 18 charTbl rows from DEMO.PRG into spcParam;
• puts the names in plName and in lists outside the save;
• sets playTime to 0 and ORs the volume's default words in;
• fills the trade lists from the executable's tables.

With the parody flag set, Kite also starts at level 20.

piney-demo applies both calls itself. The tables are read from the disc at run time. Until then the face panel's HP and SP bars drew red, because spcParam was zero and the port follows the EE's divide-by-zero result. Now Kite has maxHP 63 and maxSP 13, and the bars are green and blue.

Checked

• NewGame. test_demo_rs.py's test_new_game runs the game's own NewGame from its own Init(1). The whole 0x8530-byte save and the copied names match after each call, parody off and on. A random save stays untouched where it should.
• Name entry. test_desktop_name_rs.py runs NameEntry_Control beside the port. The logic and the written names match every frame over random pad runs, and every draw call matches over a scripted pass through all its screens: 3 tests OK.
• The menu task. test_desktop_menu_rs.py runs the game's own ccThDtMenu beside the port.
• The runtime. The session and desktop tests press through the setup lines, which now take more than the 61 frames of 44. The desktop crate has 20 unit and 16 integration tests.