@dolphindepot/bnr-cli

CLI tool to create and inspect Nintendo GameCube opening.bnr files.

Every GameCube disc contains an opening.bnr file with a 96x32 banner image and text metadata (game title, developer, description) shown by the system menu. Two formats exist:

• BNR1 - US/JP region, single language
• BNR2 - Europe (PAL), six languages (EN, DE, FR, ES, IT, NL)

Install

npm install -g @dolphindepot/bnr-cli

Or run without installing:

npx --yes @dolphindepot/bnr-cli <command>

Usage

Decode a .bnr file

Extract the banner image as PNG and text metadata as JSON:

bnr decode opening.bnr
# writes opening.png + opening.json

bnr decode opening.bnr -o output/
# writes output/opening.png + output/opening.json

Output JSON for BNR1:

{
    "type": "BNR1",
    "text": {
        "gameNameShort": "My Game",
        "developerNameShort": "Dev",
        "gameTitle": "My Game: Full Title",
        "developerName": "Developer Studio",
        "description": "A short game description."
    }
}

Output JSON for BNR2:

{
    "type": "BNR2",
    "texts": [
        { "gameTitle": "My Game", "description": "English description", "..." : "..." },
        { "gameTitle": "Mein Spiel", "description": "Deutsche Beschreibung", "...": "..." },
        "... (FR, ES, IT, NL)"
    ]
}

Encode a .bnr file

From CLI arguments

bnr encode \
  --image banner.png \
  --title "My Game" \
  --short-title "MyGame" \
  --developer "Dev Studio" \
  --short-developer "Dev" \
  --description "A cool homebrew game." \
  -o opening.bnr

From a JSON file

bnr encode --meta game.json -o opening.bnr

Where game.json looks like:

{
    "type": "BNR1",
    "image": "banner.png",
    "text": {
        "gameTitle": "My Game",
        "gameNameShort": "MyGame",
        "developerName": "Dev Studio",
        "developerNameShort": "Dev",
        "description": "A cool homebrew game."
    }
}

CLI arguments override JSON values:

bnr encode --meta game.json --title "New Title" -o opening.bnr

BNR2 with per-language text

Use language-suffixed flags (-en, -de, -fr, -es, -it, -nl) to set text per language. Unsuffixed flags set the base for all languages:

bnr encode --type BNR2 --image banner.png \
  --title "My Game" \
  --developer "Dev Studio" \
  --description "English description" \
  --description-de "Deutsche Beschreibung" \
  --description-fr "Description en francais" \
  -o opening.bnr

Or provide all translations in JSON:

{
    "type": "BNR2",
    "image": "banner.png",
    "texts": [
        { "gameTitle": "My Game", "description": "English", "...": "..." },
        { "gameTitle": "Mein Spiel", "description": "Deutsch", "...": "..." },
        { "gameTitle": "Mon Jeu", "description": "Francais", "...": "..." },
        { "gameTitle": "Mi Juego", "description": "Espanol", "...": "..." },
        { "gameTitle": "Il Mio Gioco", "description": "Italiano", "...": "..." },
        { "gameTitle": "Mijn Spel", "description": "Nederlands", "...": "..." }
    ]
}

Newlines

Use \n in CLI arguments for line breaks:

bnr encode --description "Line one\nLine two" --image banner.png -o opening.bnr

In JSON files, standard JSON escaping works as expected.

CI usage

Generate opening.bnr as part of your build pipeline:

- run: npx --yes @dolphindepot/bnr-cli encode --meta game.json -o opening.bnr