Homebrew dev daaa57150 is moving on with other projects, no longer has time to continue development for this game, and so releases the last build of his game, DJ Drops. The game is by no means finished, but since he can't work on it anymore, this will be its final release and the source code is up for grabs to anyone who wants to work on it. More after the jump.

Download: DJ Drops - final build
Discuss: QJ.NET PSP Development Forum

Developer daaa57150 followed up on his DJ Drops demo project and is now up to demo 5,  otherwise known as the 09/19 Update. He says that this demo should be able to work now on any custom firmware above 2.00.


Download: DJ Drops demo 5 (01/19/09 Update)
Discuss: QJ.NET PSP Development Forums

DJ Drops is a music puzzle game developed by daaa57150. Akin to Tetris, you have to clear the levels by "resisting" until the end of the song" - and as it is musical, there's probably a bit of Lumines feel to it as well.

Daaa57150's homebrew puzzle game Mega Drops has been given a bit of an overhaul for this year's PSP Updates Summer Homebrew Contest. After a round of bug fixes and a brand-spanking new GUI, we now have Mega Drops 2. More in the full article.


Download: Mega Drops 2
Visit: QJ.NET PSP Development forum

The results of the PDRoms Coding Competition 3.99 have finally been released. For those who haven't been following this contest, there were quite a number of really good entries from the community but in the end one developer came out on top. To find out who took first place, head on over to the full article.

The Sony PSP homebrew scene will keep on burning as long as developers have the fire. No better way to keep that flame than rivalry. With Mega Drops, Kakuro Nichiyou PSP version 1.1 (Newspaper Edition) and BoxMan PSP version 1a, the just-ended PDRoms Coding Competition 3.9 may have also sparked something brilliant. More details after the jump.

Download and visit links at the full article!

Looking for a challenging homebrew title you can dance to? daaa57150 over at the Qj.NET PSP Development Forums has just released a demo for DJ drops, a game that combines puzzle-solving goodness with a rhythmic beat. More details available over at the full article.

Download: DJ drops demo 4.1
Visit: QJ.NET PSP Development Forums

If you're a coder, then you've probably spent some time tinkering with Daaa57150's AnimLib modifications in an attempt to animate sprites for your own purposes. Why not go back to the original, however, with this new update for Lua Animation Lib by Grimfate126?

Grimfate126 has released Lua Animation Lib version 4.5 (AnimLib v4.5), which fixes some persistent problems in the previous version. There are also a couple of changes that will definitely help coders out and speed up their work. Let's see what Grimfate126 himself has to say about the release via his changelog:

Fixed:

• Found a major flaw in sprite sheet animation blitting. The problem was, the lib calculated the width to height ratio in the blit function, when it should have been done in the loading function. It works both ways, but doing it the the blitting function meant that the lib was dividing (with is a costly calculation) every frame unnecessarily. I fixed it so that it calculates only once, in the loading function. This should provide a MASSIVE speed-up when using sprite sheets.

Changed:

• Ive gotten rid of advanceBlit, since it was just taking up stack memory, and added the loop functionality in the normal blit function. The new blit functions is like this:
• Code: function ANIM:blit(x, y, delay, numLoops)
  

          so just add the number of loops at the end. If the space is left blank, then the animation will continue
          forever.

• The anim loading function has also been modified. Just the order of arguments, since the order in v4 was rather peculiar. The loading function is now:
• Code: function ANIM.new(header, extension, frames, where)
  

Responses on our forums seem to be quite positive so give it a try, alright? Enjoy!

Download: AnimLib v4.5
Visit: PSP Development Forums

This next one should be useful for those who are just learning to code in Lua. Homebrew developer daaa57150 dropped by QJ.Net Forums and updated his own take on animlib v4. Take note that the original animation library was first coded by Grimfate126. Animlib lets users create animations based on multiple images and spritesheets.

The developer also mentioned that he is currently creating a game using this very same library. If you seriously want to learn Lua coding using Daaa's animlib v4, you better get this new version because a couple of important things have been added. The complete changelog reads:

• Added fps counter on the demo
• Corrected a bug in ANIM:blit()
• Added pixel() and save() methods so now you have all the getter methods existing on images
• Optimized spriteSheet animations (no more calculations on blit)
• Corrected a copy/paste bug in setMaxLoops() for spriteSheets
• Added frameChanged() method

Daaa's animlib v4 mod v0.3 comes with a comprehensive Readme file where you can learn about important stuff and reminders from the coder. Don't forget to browse through it first before using this.

Download: Daaa's animlib v4 mod v0.3
View: QJ PSP Development Forum

You guys remember Grimfate126's Lua animation library, animLib? Daaa (daaa57150 on our forums) has released his own mod of Grimfate's original lib over on our PSP Development forums. First of all, both this mod and the original app lets homebrew devs create animations easily using spritesheets. Perfect for those who are just starting out on Lua coding.

Here are a few examples of what daaa has added/changed in this mod:

• No more distinction between spritesheets and multiple images animations, except during creation of course. This allows you to have tables with a mix of the 2 kinds, and calling the exact same function on all items without caring anymore.
• Loops limitation and speed are set during construction, and not parameterized during blitting. This can be altered with setter methods on the object. So there is no more advancedBlit().
• Blit functions require a target, usually you'll do it on the 'screen' var but you may want to blit it on an image, so it's possible now.
• I removed garbage collection from the library, you'll have to call it when appropriate. This is so it's not called multiple times in a freeing loop for example.
• Images used in animations are buffered, so if you have many animations based on the same images, they won't be loaded as many times as you have animations, but will be shared amongst them. There are also some memory functions to allow you to prebuffer the images you'll need, and ask them to stay in memory even if no more animation uses them. This will allow you to create an animation based on them later, without loading. By default, they are shared but will be unloaded once no animation need them anymore.
• Animations don't start automatically, you'll have to call the start method.

This is the first release. As such, there are still a few bugs here and there. To report them, discuss this release on our PSP Development forums by clicking on the "visit" link below. Also, don't forget to read the extensive readme included in the download. You'll get a lot of answers there as it contains explanations for pretty much everything in this app.

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Daaa's just released a new version of his animLib mod on our forums. This version, 0.2, now includes two more helpful functions: width() and height(). According to daaa, these new functions will help you "smoothly replace your images in your code." You can download v0.2 below.

Download: Daaa's animLib v4 mod v0.2
Download: Daaa's animLib v4 mod v0.1
Visit: PSP Development forums