SUGGESTION: AGS / XNA compatibility

[Husky]

Ã,  Ã,  Ã, I hope that this is an alright place to post because this is more of a dream suggestion then a completely practical suggestion for AGS.Ã,  Although adventure games are traditionally played on computers, I can imagine that many would love to run their AGS game on a next-gen counsel like the Xbox360.Ã,  Interestingly enough, Microsoft has now given independent game developers the ability to make Xbox360 games with their XNA game development tool.
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, Even more interesting is that the Torque game engine has now reconfigured itself to be compatible with XNA.Ã,  Thus, any independent game made in Torque can now run through XNA right onto your Xbox360.Ã,  The dream suggestion is: what if AGS was also made to be compatible with XNA?Ã,  Thus, AGS games could play on the Xbox360.

XNA website
http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/default.aspx
TorqueX website
http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque/x/

Thanks for your consideration,
Husky

[lemmy101]

XNA AGS would be pretty cool! that said tho I've got *****VM on my modded XBox with M***** *****d 2 (naughty!). But have played it for all of 5 minutes despite my love of the game. I personally think it's not the platform for point-and-clicks in their traditional form.

It'd also be a quite humongous amount of work. As you say, a dream suggestion

(Or perhaps a nightmare suggestion in CJ's eyes I'd imagine )

[Monsieur OUXX]

It'd also be a quite humongous amount of work. As you say, a dream suggestion

I'm not sure what other "linuxian" libraries AGS runtime uses, but I'm pretty sure that a mad programer already ported Allegro to the Xbox360 dev-env.

And I also believe that this dev-env is very similar to VisualStudio (not only the GUI, but also the way it works), because it's all Microsoft-based.

So it *might* be easier to port AGS to the XBox than to Linux/Mac. Of course, one would need someone to do it, because CJ is already busy enough with the PC version.

Oh, and I'm not so sure that point n' clicks lose their interest on consoles, because I remember "Knights of Baphomet" being a hit on Playstation. It all depends on the GUI you choose ;-)

[scotch]

XNA is a C# language based system, and Torque X appears to be a rewrite of Torque in C# (or a completely different engine, it only properly supports 2d currently). Perhaps some people have made it possible to compile things in other .net languages and run them via XNA, but AGS is in standard C++. I can't see a port to XNA right now.

[Husky]

Ã,  Ã,  Ã, Acknowledging that this is simply a dream suggestion, please consider the following…Ã,  Many AGS users dream of finding a way to make some form of profit with their AGS games.Ã,  The distribution channels offered on Xbox Live may open new potential revenue streams.Ã,  Many wish that the genera of Adventure Games would be re-introduced to the general public in a big way.Ã,  Simple, no nonsense, downloads on Xbox Live may give AGS games exposure to such an audience.
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, The idea behind XNA development is that you can create a program once, and have it run both on windows and on Xbox360.Ã,  AGS users could continue to create for the computer - just as before.Ã,  Then with some additional considerations for the GUI and controls, simply have it run the Xbox360.
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, With Scotch's mentioning that XNA is C# based, I fully understand that creating XNA AGS would be a serious undertaking.Ã,  However, many great achievements begin with a simple dream.Ã,  And this community knows how to make dreams a reality.

[Monsieur OUXX]

XNA is a C# language based system

You mean that new-generation games that need fast 3D are written in C#?
I'm skeptical.

[scotch]

No, they generally aren't, but Microsoft wouldn't give us straight, complete access to their console now would they XNA is built on Visual Studio C# Edition, and XNA games run in the .NET virtual machine like all C# programs. Presumably this is to keep a layer of security around the system to disallow (for example) people loading commercial games via XNA, and to promote Microsoft's C# language.

C# is fast enough to make games in (it's JIT compiled), amd it's fine for the usually less demanding indie games, but it's not as fast as optimized C++ of course, which is what licensed developers use.

[lemmy101]

C# is the future I think, in terms of games, but I doubt current gen we're gonna get anything competetive in terms of 3D. No Halflife 2s or Gears of War or anything, that's for sure. People were as skeptical about C++ over C, and C over ASM. I think it'll get there eventually when the CLI can be run nippy enough...

[scotch]

The thing is, C++ is about the same speed as C. It's also pretty easy for a programmer to use, offering the majority of the language features of the semi compiled languages so there's little incentive to switch to C# or Java, when they do and always will have a speed impediment, smaller or larger. Until commercial games stop competing for bleeding edge performance compiled and optimized languages will be used. In fact, many people still use asm in physics engine cores and graphics shaders.

For most indie games C# or even vastly slower languages are fine, we have plenty of cycles to run 2d or simple 3d games with.

My personal opinion on an XNA AGS, or for other consoles and handhelds is that it's not worth doing it as a remake of AGS for CJ. Making your own from scratch and releasing it for others to use is the only realistic option.

[Pumaman]

XNA looks interesting, but as scotch says the fact that it's C# and .NET makes it unrealistic at present.

Even if AGS was ported to C#, it would mean having to maintain two different ports, since the Linux and Mac versions would be unable to run it; but a rewrite in C# is too large a job to consider for now.

[Snarky]

Hmm... and I supposed Managed C++ won't run on XNA? Otherwise that could be an easier porting solution.

[Pumaman]

I don't know, I haven't got the time to properly evaluate XNA at the moment; I'll take a look at some point.

[jkohen]

Even if AGS was ported to C#, it would mean having to maintain two different ports, since the Linux and Mac versions would be unable to run it; but a rewrite in C# is too large a job to consider for now.

Mono can run .Net applications on Windows, Linux, and reportedly also on MacOS and others. I guess that you wouldn't be able to use XNA or Microsoft/Windows-specific API, but other than that, it works great for both small and large scale applications.

[Pumaman]

I am planning to port the AGS Editor to .NET because there are large benefits of using C# for windows forms applications; I'm not so convinced about the game engine though. Also, at the moment most people don't have the .NET Framework installed, and AGS producing games that required players to download the Framework wouldn't be popular.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Would that mean that people would also need the Framework for making the games?

[Pumaman]

Yes, people would need the framework to make games. I feel that's a reasonable compromise -- in order to use AGS you'd need to have the framework installed (which more and more people are gradually doing anyway since it's on windows update), but games produced by AGS would not require the framework to ensure that you didn't alienate any players.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Oh. Well, whatever you feel would be best for the future of AGS.

[Scummbuddy]

The Historical League of Bouncy Boxing, or even that upcoming game "Phlegm/Snot" (sorry cant remember the name) would be wonderful additions to XBox Live Arcade.