Moving into a new era!

[Afflict]

Hey all just wanted to get your opinion on something.. think about it the year is 2005 and all in the land of ags is working on desktop adventures! dun dun! DUN!

The year is 2010 and all in the land of ags is still going on on on.... on desktops...

What do you guys think about designing mobile adventures! java and symbian software even pda ect.
Mabe we sud talk to the great AGS MASTER ... DUN DUN DUN <drum roll...>

CHRIS JONES

what do you guys think about THAT !!??

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I think you should search the forums before posting. Mobile adventures have been the subject of recent discussion; AGS ports have had even MORE discussion, to the point of exhaustion.

[Phemar]

I think if you really want to make mobile games, learn some Java.

[Scummbuddy]

then i wonder how well indiana java would fair being construed to a mobile phone.

[Afflict]

will check the forums "YAWN" just after my nap..
Well then Where is the thread under what wil it fall? Category wise?
And did anybody have a great response to it?

[scotch]

To save you the bother, the response is always along the lines of, no, adventures on mobiles does not appeal to many people, and AGS is written in C/++ with dependancies on a few external libraries, a port would be impossible, an embedded Java version would be an entirely different engine.

[Pumaman]

When I travelled to 2010 with eric in his time machine, strangely enough people were still using desktops, and not fiddling around on PDA's with 2x2 inch screens.

[MillsJROSS]

Are you sure you actually travelled? Because sometimes eric just makes beeping noises and pretends like the time machine worked, so he can limit his plutonium intake.

-MillsJROSS

[Andail]

Yeah, sometimes he just likes to show off.
I remember during mittens when he said "Welcome, my friends, welcome to the year 2027!"
And then somebody spotted a calender and called his bluff.

[Kinoko]

Just my 2 cents...

Games on mobiles - BLECH! It's like taking a beautiful woman and turning her into a nose stud. It's ugly, you can't have sex with her anymore and you only did it because it's the current, stupid trend.

[RickJ]

IMHO, Fmarais's post points out the broader issue of portability to future platforms.  Nobody knows for sure what the future holds; about the only thing one could be certain about is that it will be different from the present and that we will all be older.   When I look into my crystal ball I don't see M$ having a lock on 95% of desktop (or other) computers.   

I'm just musing mind you but what if there were an option in the AGS editor to build to an intermediate game description language (perhaps ans XMLish thing), in additon to DOS and Windows?   Third party developers could then make runtime engine thingies that could consume the game description language and either render the game or an executable for whatever platform they wished.   

Of course the problem is which should come first the chicken or the egg?  Presummably it would be a lot of work to output to an intermediate language, so one would probably not want to do such a thing unless there were dedicated developers willing to create runtime engines.   An of course they wouldn't want to do this unless their engines had something to run. 

As I was writting this I wondered if there were any such languages out there and when I googled I found a couple of interesting links.

XMLish Things
http://questml.com/

Mobil Game Development
http://developer.mophun.com/
http://www.synergenix.se/index.php
http://pocketinsanity.sourceforge.net/

Other Game Development
http://www.openrpg.com/
http://vz4.sourceforge.net/
http://gamedev.sourceforge.net/

This isn't a serious suggestion, just some interestesting thoughts I thought to share with you.  I hope you find them amusing and/or interesting.   


"The future ain't what it used to be!" Yogi Bera 

[edmundito]

Games for mobiles are a thing of the past... I'm thinking more about adventure games for your car! I sure get bored with driving, looking at the road for hours on end. For the first five years, controlling the mouse while driving can be a bit tedious, but once you get it you'll finally end up wrecking with another car.

[Afflict]

"What do you guys think about designing mobile adventures! java and symbian software even pda ect."
Like I said ect. Well if you think about it mobile gaming consoles are still in circulation and like us they have
die hard fans aswell. The fact of ags being c++ is fine you get c++ to java converters they rock! very accurate!
Iam sure if CJ checks this out he can dump the source code to some java coders and there are probably in this size of a community... Any volunteers? My point being that Ags java could open up more doors for us.. we might even get the ags engine to drop image files that can be opened and executed by the java engine? like 5days.ags compiled by the c++ version and playable through the java one. Never the less a intresting topic. With the mobile generation going wap< this being dead> now replaced with the 3g thing but lets face it on my 6600 i have an rpg game and i can play this game online with alot of other players 24 7 wherever i am. and all at the costs of gprs. its nothing with all the stuff on your phone already... imagin posting on the forums from your phone. lovely isnt it... if you have a pda or a smartphone its way easier. mobile games are smaller and way cool. And just like dos once was I will always be a die hard fan of mobile technology and software... what about the fact of playing those multiplayer adventures we where thinking off and you can participate on you way to timbuktoo in the back of the car just because you have the mobile version... eat that game boy!

[scotch]

"The fact of ags being c++ is fine you get c++ to java converters they rock! very accurate!", no I'm afraid that is not true, or even possible, except for basic "Hello World" type programs.

Nobody has made multiplayer AGS adventures on the desktop, even though we could, I don't think people would for mobiles.  I know people who have mobiles capable of running java games, none of them use that feature, playing games on your phone is something you do when extremely bored and unable to find a proper games system.

"imagin posting on the forums from your phone. lovely isnt it..." No, it's not.
Use mobiles for calling people, they are not games machines or web browsers and never will be.

A PDA or Sony PSP port sounds less silly, and remotely possible, but I very much doubt we'll see either of those.

[TheYak]

Many apologies for a worthless post, but I found myself unable to read that last one (not Scotch's, he slipped that in while I was typing).

The primary reason for this is that I am functionally illiterate.  The secondary reason is that it seems to have been written by a hyperglycemic teenage girl with ADHD.  After finding a starting point and reading a number of phrases, I found my intestines to be raging with an unholy fire. 

The gist of the post seems to be that c++ to java conversion ought to be simple.  However, there aren't many conversions that don't suffer from some sort of data loss/corruption.  The many operations needed to import and modify sounds, images and existing script would be too offputting for converting current games and many creators would probably feel too limited by the lack of space, screen size, and craptacular audio portable devices use. 

The idea of adventure gaming on portable devices is a good one, it's just that it would probably have to be another project and not AGS.  PDA-gaming seems a worthwhile goal but mentioning cellphones seems like fantasy at this point, perhaps when they go from a very common status to an ubiquitous one.

[Haddas]

How did you think I was able to be on #ags and in a internetless, waterless cottage without electricity in Lapland at the same time, scotch?

[Afflict]

The idea of adventure gaming on portable devices is a good one, it's just that it would probably have to be another project and not AGS.Ã,  PDA-gaming seems a worthwhile goal but mentioning cellphones seems like fantasy at this point, perhaps when they go from a very common status to an ubiquitous one.

Well then i guess the sales figures of the n gage and ngage qd dont count the fact is that there are games being produced and sold all over the world for these consoles / phones... my 6600 runs n gage games ye sit does.. ask me how. The fact is the new 6630 has come out with even more power and will be beter equipt at that.

As for you scotch I have no time to mess around. I do what i want to through as many channels as possible " " he heh. So yeah i dont go to the bank i do internet banking. I dont go buy the new gta game i go online. the fact remains i am not always by my desktop. i use my phone thats why i bought a  smart one. Pda's are also getting phone features and you can make and receive calls on them check your email and surf the net. more pricey than phones however and i cant wait to get 1. now i didnt want anybody to convert their games I just wanted to develope for it and yes playing multiplayer on the phone is not farfar away guys cause you can already more complex games than any adventure could dream to be! so when you guys wake up from never never land then its all over and some russian crew decided to take the world by storm and ... no really where the hell did i put that gaint laser?

[TheYak]

Those games are produced by companies that acquire a license to proprietary software.  Sure, a PDA running Windows CE might be able to handle AGS (haven't tried) but the fact remains that outside of a PC OS, it's just not practical without a re-writing.   

I'm sure that the amateur adventure scene will eventually branch out into portable devices but it's not likely to be anytime soon.  This particular crowd isn't exactly well known for jumping to the latest and greatest thing.

[Scummbuddy]

I use my tapwave zodiac 2 to browse these forums and post when im in class.

[Afflict]

well i am putting it on the top of my wish list! and sumwhere near the top on my project list juggle it between web site design and studies work ags forums and the rest of it. Just rememba people can be unpredictable at times you never know! well i am glad to see there are some other people that actually utilise some form of technology to do things they love! and keep in touch with the real world! The MOBILE generation i Guess!