About the preparations:
1. How to play the game in CD-i Emulator?
Download the game here. Download CD-i Emulator here. Also download the 910 BIOS ROM file here. Put the game files in the 'disc' directory, put the BIOS ROM file in the 'rom' directory, open CD-i Emulator and open the game file. The Play CD-i button will appear . Now you can start playing. You can control the game with either [space] and the cursor buttons or the mouse and its buttons.
2. How to play the game on a real CD-i player?
For this, youĺl need to download the game and burn the image on a CDR. Do not use CD-RW discs, the CD-i player has difficulties with these. Verbatim CDR's (still available in 2021) seem to work fine. We recommend to use a burning program like Imgburn - With this software you can easily burn the image on a blanc CDR. This CDR will be recognized in your CD-i player.
About the requirements:
3. Does it need a Digital Video Cartridge?
No, it is a base-case CD-i title, you don't need the Digital Video Cartridge.
4. I don't have a CD-i player, can I still play it?
Yes, you can download CD-i Emulator and play it from there (see above for explanation)
5. Does it play on all CD-i players?
In principle yes, it runs on PAL and most NTSC CD-i players, one mobile player seemed to have an issue. CD-i member Rosewood reported graphical issues on the NTSC/60Hz mode (350, 605T, 660, DVS VE-200). There are some compatibility issues (like stuttering sound) which are being investigated.
6. What version of CD-i Emulator is required?
CD-i Emulator 0.52 works fine, also the beta versions of CD-i Emulator 0.53 work OK. The upcoming CD-i Emulator 0.6 will perform probably the same.
7. What controller do you recommend?
As you control the main character yourself, a d-pad as present on the gamepad or touchpad are recommended.
About the gameplay:
8. How do the buttons function in the game?
You use the arrow buttons (Up/Down/Left/Right to move your character. In CD-i Emulator, the mouse functions the same way. It seems tricky, but it works all right. Button 1 (left mouse button/space bar on a PC) does the following:
About the gameplay:
8. How do the buttons function in the game?
You use the arrow buttons (Up/Down/Left/Right to move your character. In CD-i Emulator, the mouse functions the same way. It seems tricky, but it works all right. Button 1 (left mouse button/space bar on a PC) does the following:
Button 1
- Start game on titlescreen
- Place bomb (tile in front of you needs to be empty)
- Activate chests/switches
- Restart level after death
- Detonate remote bombs (when you have this power up)
- Resurrect after death (debug option)
Yes, you can upgrade your bombs two times. The first power-up can be found in level 1, so your bomb is more powerful. In the 3rd level, you can upgrade it to a remote bomb, so you can detonate it whenever you like.
10. Is there a multiplayer part available?
No, this game is single player only. It plays a bit like Bomberman, in a Zelda like setting. It feels more like a single player experience. It will stay a single player game in the final release later this year.
11. Is there a high score system?
No, not at this moment. No plans of introducing this now.
12. Is there a save function?
Not yet, but it will be implemented in the future. Next to that, the function to resurrect after dying will be removed in the final version, but there will be no thing like limited lives. You'll have infinite lives, but after dying you have to restart the level again.
13. What other functions/options are being planned?
The final version will see an exit function so you can return to the player shell. A level select function might be added, it depends how many levels will be built in the future.
14. How many levels are there?
4 levels in the first demo v0.1. Let's check them out.
Level 1: Try to reach the switch and don't forget to open the treaure chest to upgrade your bombs:![]()
Level 2: Avoid the canons and try to activate the switch to find the escape:
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Level 3: In this level you can find the remote bomb, which allows you to detonate the bomb whenever you like it (and you can hide away more easily)
![]()
Level 4. By far the most difficult, try to avoid the flames and reach again the switch. What would be behind the southern exit?
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After level 4, the intro screen is started again.
15. Is there a debug mode?
actually, the version Jeffrey released is a debug version: When you push button 2, you will resurrect when you have died from a bomb, so you can keep continuing.
About game development:
16. Who is the developer?
15. Is there a debug mode?
actually, the version Jeffrey released is a debug version: When you push button 2, you will resurrect when you have died from a bomb, so you can keep continuing.
About game development:
16. Who is the developer?
TwBurn is Jeffrey Janssen from The Netherlands. This is actually his first experience in programming games or homebrew development. He had, just like us, a CD-i at home brought home by his dad who also worked at Philips. First a 180 set and after that 470 player that he still owns nowadays. Over the recent years he obtained more titles and accessories. During COVID he was looking for another hobby and after creating the USB to CD-i adapter he took the challenge to see if it was possible to code a CD-i game by himself. In the end, he did it!
17. Are there more homebrew games coming?
TwBurn indicated he wanted to do more, especially as this Nobelia demo was not the initial idea he came up with. The original idea needed scrolling but that was a tricky thing to pull of on a CD-i player, so he switched ideas and started with a more 'simple' design. Nobelia offers one-screen action at a time, which offers limited possibilities but he was capable of doing this. Now that this is done, maybe a future project will show his initial game idea after all.
18. Where does the game title 'Nobelia' come from?
Nobelia can both refer to the female main character or to the zelda-like world she finds herself in. It’s a wordplay on “Nobel” – as in Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. In the game, the dynamite plays a big role in how to solve the levels, a bit like how the classic game 'Bomberman' is played.
19. Did he design the graphics all by himself? (Who helped him?)
All assets in the game were either used from Open resources or created/adapted by Jeffrey Janssen.
Next to that, CD-i member cdifan (author of CD-i Emulator) offered quite some help to speed things up about understanding the CD-i documentation and setting up a development environment.
About the release process:
20. When was it released?
The first demo v0.1 was released on May 9th, 2021. On Discord you were able to play the demo one week earlier, so it's worth to join!
21. Will there be a physical release, just like how Frog Feast was treated with in 2005?
This is still under discussion, but it is a possibility. If there is demand, he might do a physical boxed CDR release. For now, it's unclear what the future will bring: How many levels will be added, what kind of gimmicks will be implemented. It looks like TwBurn will expand the game further before a true release will happen. First he needs to solve all the compatibility issues.
22. What was the most difficult aspect of developing homebrew on CD-i?
Just like what Charles Doty mentioned about the developing process of Frog Feast, TwBurn mentioned that getting a development environment running and setting up the code to boot into a game is the most difficult thing. CD-i projects like CD-IzI or CD-i Base would be helpful, but these are not available (yet), so you have to find out everything yourself. Thankfully, the CD-i Community is full of great people available to offer help. On top of that, all the tools which are available to develop CD-i are very outdated, so you have to perform various tricks to get it running. They don run on modern PC's. Once the development environment is all ready to go, the reat of the process is more straight forward. Getting the memory usage within the set boundaries is tricky, as well as implementing sound/music. This was also the main issue with Super Quartet and in the end developer Gameblabla was not able to get it to work. Thankfully, CD-i Emulator is a great help for testing the game, as it would be a huge drawback to burn a CDR copy every time you want to test something. Back in the day, CD-i developers had true hardware CD-i Emulators for that. (Unfortunately, all these units do not work properly anymore)
[Thanks to TwBurn, contributing on all the different CD-i websites and fora]
17. Are there more homebrew games coming?
TwBurn indicated he wanted to do more, especially as this Nobelia demo was not the initial idea he came up with. The original idea needed scrolling but that was a tricky thing to pull of on a CD-i player, so he switched ideas and started with a more 'simple' design. Nobelia offers one-screen action at a time, which offers limited possibilities but he was capable of doing this. Now that this is done, maybe a future project will show his initial game idea after all.
18. Where does the game title 'Nobelia' come from?
Nobelia can both refer to the female main character or to the zelda-like world she finds herself in. It’s a wordplay on “Nobel” – as in Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. In the game, the dynamite plays a big role in how to solve the levels, a bit like how the classic game 'Bomberman' is played.
19. Did he design the graphics all by himself? (Who helped him?)
All assets in the game were either used from Open resources or created/adapted by Jeffrey Janssen.
- Titlescreen; Image from clipart-library
- Music; Grassy World by Matthew Pablo from Opengameart
- Level sprites; from Armando Montero (ArMM1998)
- Level Music; The Traveller by Viktor Kraus
- Character Sprites from Lanea Zimmerman (Sharm), Evert, withthelove
Next to that, CD-i member cdifan (author of CD-i Emulator) offered quite some help to speed things up about understanding the CD-i documentation and setting up a development environment.
About the release process:
20. When was it released?
The first demo v0.1 was released on May 9th, 2021. On Discord you were able to play the demo one week earlier, so it's worth to join!
21. Will there be a physical release, just like how Frog Feast was treated with in 2005?
This is still under discussion, but it is a possibility. If there is demand, he might do a physical boxed CDR release. For now, it's unclear what the future will bring: How many levels will be added, what kind of gimmicks will be implemented. It looks like TwBurn will expand the game further before a true release will happen. First he needs to solve all the compatibility issues.
22. What was the most difficult aspect of developing homebrew on CD-i?
Just like what Charles Doty mentioned about the developing process of Frog Feast, TwBurn mentioned that getting a development environment running and setting up the code to boot into a game is the most difficult thing. CD-i projects like CD-IzI or CD-i Base would be helpful, but these are not available (yet), so you have to find out everything yourself. Thankfully, the CD-i Community is full of great people available to offer help. On top of that, all the tools which are available to develop CD-i are very outdated, so you have to perform various tricks to get it running. They don run on modern PC's. Once the development environment is all ready to go, the reat of the process is more straight forward. Getting the memory usage within the set boundaries is tricky, as well as implementing sound/music. This was also the main issue with Super Quartet and in the end developer Gameblabla was not able to get it to work. Thankfully, CD-i Emulator is a great help for testing the game, as it would be a huge drawback to burn a CDR copy every time you want to test something. Back in the day, CD-i developers had true hardware CD-i Emulators for that. (Unfortunately, all these units do not work properly anymore)
[Thanks to TwBurn, contributing on all the different CD-i websites and fora]