Hey there. For admin/mod’s sake, I do realize that putting any info about a not-supported game at present won’t boost any chances, but given the relative ease of supporting the game at all, I figured I’d give as much info as I can about it to aid.
Due to being during Pokemon’s “let’s throw stuff at the dart board” mobile game approach era, checking in to game servers (and the extra data in storage that comes with it) is pretty much necessary for the game to be fun. And thankfully, the response from the server (on paper) seems pretty simple.
The game has operated on an event cycle with set dates since 2018 (0), meaning that the game can be mostly preserved as intended. In addition, checking in once is what’s necessary for the game to start the cycle, it might be handled almost entirely client side!
This isn’t to say that sending back an expected Check-In packet to devices and providing the Extra Data when queried would make the game fully functional, though. Several of the Mega Stone challenges had global leaderboards that determined whether or not you’d get one, and handling those is trickier. (1) This support would be nice eventually, but honestly Check In being functional would be enough for a long time.
A mod presently exists (2) that injects the extra data from the time the game was live into the rom of the game itself, which may be helpful for determining the format in which the game expects packets for extra data to be downloaded.
It’s not a whole lot, but as a fellow programmer I understand the scope of this project and how little can be done when there’s next to no information. I’d provide more myself but I similarly don’t have a lot of time to go digging into the binary or packet sniffing to figure out what it’s looking for… 3DS architecture isn’t exactly my expertise. But at least for one of your many games to worry about, making it semi-functional could be pretty easy. Thanks for your time.
(sources:
0: Pokémon Shuffle - Event Distributions & Daily Challenges
1: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/114531-pokemon-shuffle/80792893
2: https://gbatemp.net/threads/pokemon-shuffle-preservation-mod-v1-1.630664/)