Switch?

Started by JanetC, Sun 30/09/2018 22:35:12

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JanetC

People keep asking us to port Unavowed to Switch. I currently have a day job so I can't do this myself. Does anyone know of any good porting guys who will port AGS with respect for its open source status so others can use the port and we can keep it updated?

eri0o

#1
Nintendo Switch Porters I found looking around... Most of them works with percentage of the game revenues on the Switch. I know the amount asked by some, PM for details.

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Ratalaika Games

@ratalaikagames | ratalaikagames.com | github.com/ratalaika

They work on many indie titles in different engines. Github participation is little, doesn't seem very open source friendly but I think it's negotiable. Appears to be fast.

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Ethan Lee

@flibitijibibo | flibitijibibo.com | github.com/flibitijibibo

Very opensource friendly, maintains it's own engines. Huge list of ports.

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Ryan C. Gordon

@icculus | icculus.org | github.com/rcgordon


Works on a huge amount of projects including SDL2 to Switch, ported many free games but I couldn't find anyone who he has worked with - that I know. Very open source friendly.

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Hidden Trap

@Hidden_Trap | hiddentrap.com

Small publisher. Works by percentage of revenues, does console ports including Nintendo Switch - for some reason has none on the website but I've been told they do make Nintendo Switch ports by a developer. Totally not open source friendly.

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Panic Button Game

@PanicButtonGame | panicbuttongames.com

Huge studio that ports games to Nintendo Switch. I have no idea how much it asks for, and if there are pre-front costs. Totally not open source friendly.

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Nicalis

@nicalis | nicalis.com

Big publisher, but also does Nintendo Switch Ports. No idea on costs. Totally not open source friendly.

JanetC

I'm thinking that with a combo of Nick Sonneveld's implementation of AGS to SDL and Ryan C. Gordon's port of SDL to Switch, this would be highly feasible. Dave is trying to get in contact with Nintendo to see if they will let us buy a devkit.

ratalaika

Quote from: JanetC on Thu 13/12/2018 20:14:00
I'm thinking that with a combo of Nick Sonneveld's implementation of AGS to SDL and Ryan C. Gordon's port of SDL to Switch, this would be highly feasible. Dave is trying to get in contact with Nintendo to see if they will let us buy a devkit.
Sent you a private message regarding this >.<!

JanetC

I'm really thinking seriously of doing this right now. Does anyone know if having a private fork of AGS would be OK, given the license? Nintendo code can't be put into open source projects or revealed on pain of pain, so we wouldn't be able to share it.

morganw

Given that:
Quote from: License.txt
"Copyright Holder" means the copyright holders listed in the file Copyright.txt
and
Quote from: Copyright.txt
Copyright (c) 1999-2011 Chris Jones and 2011-2018 various contributors
...it doesn't seem entirely clear who be defined as 'Copyright Holder' in Artistic License 2.0. Just reading it from a layman's perspective I think you would be okay to distribute compiled versions based on the text in Distribution of Compiled Forms of the Standard Version or Modified Versions without the Source as long as you documented the differences (from an external perspective, so keep your code private) and renamed all references of AGS to something else (so you are complying with option b in section 4):
Quote4(b) ensure that installation of your Modified Version does not prevent the user installing or running the Standard Version. In addition, the Modified Version must bear a name that is different from the name of the Standard Version.
That said, I imagine the preferable solution of the original project would probably be to take changes to make the engine backend agnostic, and just declare an interface that anyone could use to add additional platform support. 'Extending' AGS this way would likely fall under Items That are Not Considered Part of a Modified Version and so you wouldn't have to comply with any of the restrictions. How feasible this approach is would be questionable; I imagine it would be significantly more work, but potentially each side of the interface could be funded separately if there was someone else with a commercial interest.

Note: the above is just my personal opinion

ratalaika

Yeah, we're also preparing things to do this, most probably starting ~Jan 2019, we're finishing getting some games licensed now to work with...
Also as @JanetC says anything console related would need to be either a private fork, or some sort of "open source" fork that only people with licenses have access to... The 2nd option is what Monogame does as far as I know.

AquaJew

As a die-hard fan of Wadget Eye since The Shivah, this would make me incredibly happy. I wish I had a way of contributing, but all I can do is throw money at the store when it's released.

JanetC

Well, we got our devkit now! Wish me luck, I'm unzipping the Switch code libraries...

Cassiebsg

There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Joseph DiPerla

Sorry for reviving an old thread. I didn't think a new thread was warranted for this topic. I wanted to know if there were any thoughts about this or even if anyone has experience porting to the Switch if they would know if this method works.. I reached out on Unity Discord and also to the developers of this asset and I have yet to hear back on both fronts.

My thought was this... Now that AGS can build to Wasm(WebAssembly), I was wondering if we could use an asset like this https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/gui/3d-webview-for-windows-and-macos-web-browser-154144 to port our games to systems that we currently do not have a compilation method for, such as the Nintendo Switch. I tried their demo online found here: https://webgldemo.vuplex.com/. I then put in this link: https://ericoporto.github.io/agsjs/single_game and also this link https://ericoporto.github.io/agsjs/single_game_example (Note: Do not put "/" at the end). Both links loaded up well. In theory, one should be able to use this asset in Unity to load a local Wasm game into the browser and compile this app into a Switch Port. Theoretically it should work just fine. However, I am not sure if the Nintendo Switch has limitations that would not allow an external browser to run on it's system or if it can if it would allow Webgl or Wasm apps to run within said browser.

For those of you with experience porting to the Switch, would you happen to be able to shed some light on this?
Joseph DiPerla--- http://www.adventurestockpile.com
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eri0o

#11
WASM is not a good path.

I am going to say things by using information from Switch homebrew and publicly available information. Currently a Switch port requires:


  • Joystick input Support
  • Touch input Support (maybe can get away with what we have if Joystick is well handled)
  • Not use AGS save system or implement buffered writing in AGS Savesystem as is or a new API for async save - or perhaps just a new event to inform the save has completed.

I think everything else kinda works, the read only filesystem there appears to be able to work with regular file operations so it should not be a problem. If it requires a Stream read then it can possibly be implemented similar to what we use for the read-only android assets that are not readable through regular filesystem operations and instead require a special stream API to use.

Overall the biggest hurdle is the NDA that makes it hard to share or discuss the source, and also condemns whoever is maintaining it to offline rebase and sync to AGS open codebase.

So with all that, probably tackling those two points above and then people can figure their own port as needed is the best at current time that would be feasible unless I am missing something. :/

(I imagine there's also certification requirements (things that the game dev should adapt in their own game) and integrations for the online systems for things like achievements which I have no idea how it would work)

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