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Bandai WonderSwan (and WonderSwan Color)

Overview

The WonderSwan application is an emulator for the WonderSwan and WonderSwan Color game consoles.

Wondersnake 2 by Dox & Kojote

Controls

The emulator supports one controller. The keyboard and gamepad mappings are listed in the tables below.

Keyboard

Keyboard controls for the standard orientation are listed below:

Name
Keys
 Comments
X Buttons
Y4
Y2
B or
A or
Start
Rotate Toggles between standard and rotated orientations (The Right Shift Key).
Show Pause Screen

Keyboard controls for the rotated orientation are listed below:

Name
Keys
 Comments
Y Buttons
X1
X2
X3
X4
A
B
Start
Rotate Toggles between standard and rotated orientations (The Right Shift Key).
Show Pause Screen

Gamepad

Gamepad mappings for the standard orientation are listed below:

Name
Gamepad
 Comments
X Buttons  or 
Y1
Y2
Y3
Y4
B or
A or
Start Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate)

Press the Menu (Start) Button.
Start
(Alternate)		  and  Hold down the Right Trigger and click (press down) on the Right Thumbstick.
Rotate Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate)

Press the View (Back) Button.
Rotate
(Alternate)		  and  Hold down the Right Trigger and click (press down) on the Left Thumbstick.
Show Pause Screen  and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the Left Trigger and press the Menu (Start) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate)		  and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the Left Trigger and press the View (Back) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 2)		  and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the X Button and press the View (Back) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 3)		  and  Hold down the Left Trigger and click (press down) on the Left Thumbstick.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 4)		  and  Hold down the Left Trigger and click (press down) on the Right Thumbstick.

Gamepad mappings for the rotated orientation are listed below:

Name
Gamepad
 Comments
Y Buttons  or 
X1  or  Right Analog left.
X2  or  Right Analog up.
X3  or  Right Analog right.
X4  or  Right Analog down.
A
B
Start Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate)

Press the Menu (Start) Button.
Start
(Alternate)		  and  Hold down the Right Trigger and click (press down) on the Right Thumbstick.
Rotate Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate)

Press the View (Back) Button.
Rotate
(Alternate)		  and  Hold down the Right Trigger and click (press down) on the Left Thumbstick.
Show Pause Screen  and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the Left Trigger and press the Menu (Start) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate)		  and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the Left Trigger and press the View (Back) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 2)		  and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the X Button and press the View (Back) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 3)		  and  Hold down the Left Trigger and click (press down) on the Left Thumbstick.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 4)		  and  Hold down the Left Trigger and click (press down) on the Right Thumbstick.

Battery-backed SRAM

Some WonderSwan cartridges include battery-backed SRAM as a means of preserving state between sessions. The WonderSwan application supports persisting this SRAM state into the browser's local storage or optionally to cloud-based storage. The SRAM contents will be persisted to storage whenever the pause screen is displayed (or the game is exited). Therefore, the menu should be displayed periodically for games that support battery-backed SRAM to ensure the state is properly persisted.

Feed

This section details how WonderSwan application instances can be added to feeds.

Type

The type names for the WonderSwan application are listed below:

  • WonderSwan: mednafen-ws
  • WonderSwan Color: mednafen-wsc

Note

The aliases ws and wsc also currently map to the WonderSwan and WonderSwan Color applications respectively. In the future, these aliases may be mapped to different applications (different emulator implementations) if it is determined that there are more appropriate defaults.

Properties

The table below contains the properties that are specific to the WonderSwan application. These properties are specified in the props object of a feed item.

Property Type Required Details
rom URL Yes URL to a WonderSwan (or Color) ROM file or a zip file containing a ROM file.
rotated Boolean No Whether to rotate the screen and controls (defaults to false).
language Numeric No The language to use for displaying game text (if applicable) (defaults to English).
  • 0 : English
  • 1 : Japanese
    zoomLevel Numeric No A numeric value indicating how much the display image should be zoomed in (0-40).

    This property is typically used to hide the black borders that are present on some games.

    Example

    The following is an example of a complete feed that consists of a single WonderSwan Color application instance (type value of wsc). The rom property value is a URL that points to a Dropbox location that contains the excellent homebrew game Wondersnake 2 by Dox & Kojote.

    {
  "title": "WonderSwan Color Feed",
  "longTitle": "WonderSwan Color Example Feed",
  "categories": [
    {
      "title": "WonderSwan Games",
      "items": [
        {
          "title": "Wondersnake 2",
          "type": "wsc",
          "props": {
            "rom": "https://www.dropbox.com/s/ucjwx2wpjgcpdgn/wsnake2.wsc?dl=0"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

    This example can be tested by adding a feed with the following URL within thewebЯcade player:

    https://tinyurl.com/sample-wsc-feed

    References

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