Pokémon Platinum Setup Guide

Required Software

• Archipelago
• A US Pokémon Platinum Rev. 0 or Rev. 1 ROM. The Archipelago community cannot provide this.
• BizHawk version 2.10 or later

Configuring BizHawk

Once you have installed BizHawk, open EmuHawk.exe and change the following settings:

• Go to Config > Customize. On the Advanced tab, disable (if it is not already) Auto Save Ram. Having this option enabled may not allow BizHawk to properly save for NDS games.
• Under Config > Customize, check the "Run in background" option to prevent disconnecting from the client while you're tabbed out of EmuHawk.
• Open an .nds file in EmuHawk and go to Config > Controllers… to configure your inputs. If you can't click Controllers…, load any .nds ROM first.
• Consider clearing keybinds in Config > Hotkeys… if you don't intend to use them. Select the keybind and press Esc to clear it.

Generating and Patching a Game

1. Add pokemon_platinum.apworld to your custom_worlds folder in your Archipelago install. It should not be in lib/worlds.
2. Create your options file (YAML). You can make one by choosing Generate Templates from the Archipelago Launcher. From there, you can edit the .yaml in any text editor.
3. Follow the general Archipelago instructions for generating a game on your local installation. This will generate an output file for you. Your patch file will have the .applatinum file extension and will be inside the output file.
4. Open ArchipelagoLauncher.exe
5. Select "Open Patch" on the left side and select your patch file.
6. If this is your first time patching, you will be prompted to locate your vanilla ROM.
7. A patched .nds file will be created in the same place as the patch file.
8. On your first time opening a patch with BizHawk Client, you will also be asked to locate EmuHawk.exe in your BizHawk install.

If you're playing a single-player seed, and you don't care about autotracking or hints, you can stop here, close the client, and load the patched ROM in any emulator. However, for multiworlds and other Archipelago features, continue below using BizHawk as your emulator.

Connecting to a Server

By default, opening a patch file will do steps 1-5 below for you automatically. Even so, keep them in your memory just in case you have to close and reopen a window mid-game for some reason.

1. Pokémon Platinum uses Archipelago's BizHawk Client. If the client isn't still open from when you patched your game, you can re-open it from the launcher.
2. Ensure EmuHawk is running the patched ROM.
3. In EmuHawk, go to Tools > Lua Console. This window must stay open while playing.
4. In the Lua Console window, go to Script > Open Script….
5. Navigate to your Archipelago install folder and open data/lua/connector_bizhawk_generic.lua.
6. The emulator and client will eventually connect to each other. The BizHawk Client window should indicate that it connected and recognized Pokémon Platinum.
7. To connect the client to the server, enter your room's address and port (e.g. archipelago.gg:38281) into the top text field of the client and click Connect.

You should now be able to receive and send items. You'll need to do these steps every time you want to reconnect. It is perfectly safe to make progress offline; everything will re-sync when you reconnect.

Common Issues

1. Problem: "No handler was found for this game." in the client. Solution: Update to at least BizHawk version 2.10.