Making AGS Portable: PalmOS or PocketPC?

[ptiz_govorun]

First of all I'd ask for excuse on raising this question again, but AGS is the last hope for everyone willing to play/create games for PDAs.
Another possibility is the release of ScummC scumm engine game creation utility, but using it to create your own games will be somewhat tricky(not mentioning there is no even alpha release yet), because ScummVM guys see no reason for supporting new games on this engine.
Too bad I cannot create a poll (to admins: maybe create a poll for me?), but I'd like to ask everyone interested to reply this thread with either PocketPC or PalmOS depending on device you own.

My vote is PalmOS.

ps. I can make a try and start PalmOS porting myself.

[magintz]

This has been bought up many times before, and porting to PPC I imagine would be easier (windows environment).

[Evil]

If you want to work on the go, why not create all of the art? You can draw anywhere, whereas scripting is much harder to do on a bus or while walking. Then just compile it all at home.

[Haddas]

That would be awesome. You could go anywhere and draw bgs of every place you visit

[Evil]

Yeah, I find myself talking pictures of buildings all the time to draw.

"What are you doing?"
"I want that building in my game!"

[ptiz_govorun]

If you want to work on the go, why not create all of the art? You can draw anywhere, whereas scripting is much harder to do on a bus or while walking. Then just compile it all at home.

the idea was not to create portable editor which sounds somewhat silly to me but to port AGS engine to either or both PocketPC/PalmOS platform.

also another possibility is Indiana Java but it is compiled as applet and will not run under J2ME environment. Also use of somewhat unpopular engine is questionable.

another idea is to make AGS to SCUMM converter, it must not create a ready to play game but at least will simplify convertion process.

[Gilbert]

While I think it can be a neat idea to have the AGS engine ported to more platforms, there had been a lot of discussions about porting to many platforms already, it's not done yet for many reasons, one of them is of course, need someone to do so (but anyway, we sorta have the MAC port now).

If you're interested, you can read some of the related threads I'd found from a search:
1 2 3 4

[ptiz_govorun]

While I think it can be a neat idea to have the AGS engine ported to more platforms, there had been a lot of discussions about porting to many platforms already, it's not done yet for many reasons, one of them is of course, need someone to do so (but anyway, we sorta have the MAC port now).

If you're interested, you can read some of the related threads I'd found from a search:
1 2 3 4

thanks for the threads, I already read all of them except #1.
As far as I understand everything stops at the lack of HR for porting AGS to either platform.
However the facts stands:
a. there is no adventure engine that has game editor (except for AGI) to run on PalmOS/PocketPC platform
b. the demand for such engine exists.
So maybe there is a reason to make portable engine commercial? Thats better than have no engine at all...

Also I'd like to ask everyone, is there any way to contact Chir(the Indiana Java creator)?
Indiana Java sources will be a real treasure and I think that porting them to J2ME will be not that hard.

[Pumaman]

The point is that a Palm/PocketPC port is in a completely different league to the Linux/Mac ports, because the actual hardware itself is far less advanced. The AGS engine needs more RAM and CPU than is available on palm systems, so it would probably need a special build written with various things disabled. It would in no way be a trivial task.

[Sam.]

sorry to be a little off topic, but i remember from previous discussions about this, the bringing up of "Allegro", what is that? Is it a library of some kind, if so, what kind?

[DoorKnobHandle]

Indeed, 'Allegro' is a graphics library that you can use with C++ and that works for Windows as well as Linux. It is quite comparable to the graphics engine SDL... I happen to work with SDL quite a lot.

[ptiz_govorun]

Indeed, 'Allegro' is a graphics library that you can use with C++ and that works for Windows as well as Linux. It is quite comparable to the graphics engine SDL... I happen to work with SDL quite a lot.

hmm how much efforts will be to bring AGS to SDL?
actually it seems to be possible to create AGS engine for use with ScummVM which runs on both PocketPC and PalmOS.
The question is AGS sources...

[scotch]

It would be a very large job to switch to another graphics API, probably not worth doing considering the limited demand for PocketPC adventure games.  If ScummVM downloads are anything to go by less people are playing adventures on them than on Macs.

ScummVM running AGS games sounds very unlikely too, ScummVM only supports a games they've specifically tried to support, they run on a few versions of SCUMM and two or three other engines.  AGS is updated all the time, with incremental changes to the script engine and graphics systems, things are added and removed constantly so it'd be virtually impossible to make a program to run all AGS games.

[ptiz_govorun]

probably not worth doing considering the limited demand for PocketPC adventure games.Ã, 

I think you are mistaken, the popularity of ScummVM for pocketpc/palmos is high, and add the limited list of games to it. Removing this limitation ScummVM popularity will only increase.

ScummVM running AGS games sounds very unlikely too, ScummVM only supports a games they've specifically tried to support, they run on a few versions of SCUMM and two or three other engines.Ã,  AGS is updated all the time, with incremental changes to the script engine and graphics systems, things are added and removed constantly so it'd be virtually impossible to make a program to run all AGS games.

actually there is no need to run all AGS games, but to make it POSSIBLE to create games with AGS that will run on ScummVM AGS engine, there is no need of many advanced features, actually SCUMM format itself is sufficient for portable devices, except screen resolution, but ScummC(editor) is the only project and it is far from beta.
So AGS is needed basically for its editor and popularity.

So actually the question is, will AGS give out engine sources to develop ScummVM AGS engine or not.

[SSH]

No, CJ has said that he doesn't give out source code. The SCUMMVM page has this in their FAQ, I think.

AGS is now supported for every platform that Allegro supports, so I would guess that there wont be any new ones until Allegro support improves.

However, many PDAs can run Embedded Linux: Sharp Zaurus by defautl, but iPAQs can too, which is probably a much better bet, so we just need someone to recompile allegro linux and GAS for XScale, and who knows?

[Gilbert]

actually there is no need to run all AGS games, but to make it POSSIBLE to create games with AGS that will run on ScummVM AGS engine, there is no need of many advanced features, actually SCUMM format itself is sufficient for portable devices, except screen resolution, but ScummC(editor) is the only project and it is far from beta.
So AGS is needed basically for its editor and popularity.

Just as scotch mentioned, if there're ever chances that you can play AGS game with a handheld, it's probably a separate project (standalone AGS engine) rather then being incorporated into ScummVM, the reason being, AGS was designed by CJ from scratch, and does not bear much similarities in data format with the Scumm games (remember, ScummVM runs games with similar architectures and format). If AGS game format support is ever added to ScummVM it will not be a trivial task, and certainly won't be any simpler than porting the AGS engine from scratch.

So actually the question is, will AGS give out engine sources to develop ScummVM AGS engine or not.

Like SSH mentioned and my explanations above, very unlikely, and it's not worth it. There is, however a (very) small chance that someone would help porting the engine with limited features, if only such a person and tools exist.

[Mr Flibble]

This is a little off topic, but a lot of this reminds me of Pester Quest.
"Hi CJ, you're my best friend now. So can I have the source code?"

[Afflict]

I am all for the porting to pocket pc etc. To get the best effect I think you will have to
create the game for that purpose or even just a PPC version. This will just enhance
the playability for the ppc.

On the pester quest note...
"Yeah sure buddy, its at the bottom of the bottomless
blue cup" (DUN DUN DUN) <chuckle>

[LGM]

PalmOS is dead... Didn't you get the memo..

Actually, I don't remmeber exactly, but I think companies are opting out of PalmOS now in favor of WindowsCE or Linux or something. Dunno.

[Scummbuddy]

I sure hope not. Although I could understand that happening since making games windows compatible and then just making a port to WinCE (basically just keeping within the windows environment would just be easy).

My zodiac runs on PalmOS and I'd be severly pissed if after all this time, I finally get a pda/game machine and they stop enhancing PalmOS, and companies stop producing for it.