POWDER for Windows Mobile: New build!
Ilyak
I'm proud to announce a new build of POWDER for Pocket PC/WIndows
Mobile devices!
You can get it from here:
http://wrar.name/upload/powder.CAB - installer, upload to PDA and
run,
or install via ActiveSync, it would be Games/POWDER in menu.
- OR -
http://wrar.name/upload/powder.zip - for power users or geeks, just
unzip in some directory and run from there.
Changes in this release:
- It actually works on 320x240 devices!
- It no longer crashes when you change tileset or whatever! Testing
this involved save-overwriting my second best character ever, so
remember him while you would play POWDER on your handheld.
- It no longer does weird things when screen orientation isn't
portrait! Fixing this involved sacrificing a chicken and a lot of
cargo cult programming.
So, now it works more often than not.
Release notes:
- It saves save files, character and postmortem dumps into \, that is,
root directory. I know, this is ridiculous, but Windows CE doesn't
have the concept of the current directory, that's why.
- It can use an external tile set! Including Ibson the Grey's! In
order to use one, place its folder as \gfx into a root directory of
your device (see above).
- You might have hardware keys on your devices which don't do anything
or do weird things. Get in touch with me, I'll send in a special debug
version which will help us to figure that out and map them
appropriately.
- Some devices might have keyboards. I'm not sure whenever they are of
any use with POWDER for many reasons, and their arrow keys wouldn't
behave correctly atm. We'll see how it would be.
Features coming soon:
- Better mappings for hardware keys
- A 20x20 tileset to utilize all the screen real estate available
- More reasonable filesystem handling.
- Bug fixes
It is debatable whenever Ibson the Grey's tile set will be compiled in/
supplied with POWDER for Windows CE because it is going to crash
320x240 devices when they'll try to utilize it, and on 640x480 it
doesn't employ the whole screen and subtle detailings are too subtle
for my liking. All our hopes are set on 20x20 tiles.
Ilyak
> - It can use an external tile set! Including Ibson the Grey's! In
> order to use one, place its folder as \gfx into a root directory of
> your device (see above).
Just found out that Ibson the Grey's tileset doesn't really work.
Stylus input becomes broken. Sorry, guys, I hope to figure it out
once.
hotpoo
productivity, and allowing me to finally give my dying GBA a well
deserved retirement. :-)
Seriously, though, this is great stuff. There really isn't much in the
way of good roguelikes for the CE devices (or any games that don't
involve popping bubbles, for that matter). This has opened up a whole
new world of gaming for those of us that have these devices. Once the
keyboard issues are resolved, it should also work properly on a wide
variety of the Windows smartphones (i.e. simiar os, but with no
touchscreen).
Jeff, if you read this, you should be proud of your creation. Find
someone that can port this over to the Iphone (if such a thing is even
possible), and you'll have one of the few true cross platform games
available. Certainly, the best of its class... as far as I am
concerned.
Bill
Ilyak
> Jeff, if you read this, you should be proud of your creation. Find
> someone that can port this over to the Iphone (if such a thing is even
> possible), and you'll have one of the few true cross platform games
> available. Certainly, the best of its class... as far as I am
> concerned.
they actually deliver that SDK.
I could probably do that if I had one, so I think it will be done at
some point.
Porting POWDER to Symbian is a different matter (Symbian phones is a
huge market).
I've heard unpleasant things about Symbian development in general,
about compatibility between different vendors, etc.
Maybe sometimes, when they really unite this platform, somebody would
do that.
Nickedy Pod
> > Jeff, if you read this, you should be proud of your creation. Find
> > someone that can port this over to the Iphone (if such a thing is even
> > possible), and you'll have one of the few true cross platform games
> > available. Certainly, the best of its class... as far as I am
> > concerned.
>
> they actually deliver that SDK.
> I could probably do that if I had one, so I think it will be done at
> some point.
I actually think there are better ways of porting it to the iphone
than the SDK (which has been delivered). Considering that powder was
originally (as far as I'm aware) a homebrew gba/ds game and is now on
things like the psp as well, it would seem somewhat fitting for it to
be released as an app to the 'jailbreak community' for the iphone.
I have been waiting for an iphone-native roguelike ever since I got my
phone. My search for a roguelike playable on my phone is what first
brought me to POWDER. I've been playing it on my iphone since just
about the start of the year, through gba emulation software that's
been released to the same jailbreak community. Doing so has worked
well enough, despite the inherent awkwardness.
While releasing the game only through the apple-vetted appstore via
the wonders of the half-baked SDK might appeal to some (and would
certainly drive distribution absolutely through the roof), a release
to the world of jailbroken iphones seems much more in line with what
we've seen from both POWDER and the roguelike world in general. Of
course, that's not to mention the odd performance differences between
SDK and jailbreak apps (odd that the SDK slows things down decently
noticeably).
>
> PortingPOWDERto Symbian is a different matter (Symbian phones is a
> huge market).
> I've heard unpleasant things about Symbian development in general,
> about compatibility between different vendors, etc.
> Maybe sometimes, when they really unite this platform, somebody would
> do that.
Warning: A further plug for getting an iPhone version:
Symbian is a huge market, but just the same many of the phones running
Symbian aren't particularly well suited for a game like Powder. On the
other hand, the iPhone is a platform growing ridiculously fast with
really just one (now two, but essentially the same) phone to worry
about. It's young appstore has proven the viability of selling apps
for it (you mentioned symbian being a big 'market' rather than
audience, so I'll play along), as well as the ability to freely
distribute the program should you use the SDK approach to developing
for the iPhone.
In summary:
I don't have the expertise to do it myself, but if there are any
iPhone owners out there who'd port POWDER (or any good roguelike, but
this is a POWDER thread) to the iPhone .... I'd be incredibly
grateful, and I know of many other iPhone owners who feel the same
way. This thread shows that POWDER is spreading to phones, and I'll
take that as a reason to cling to hope that I'll be able to play
POWDER natively on my iPhone sometime in the near(ish) future.
Ilyak
> > PortingPOWDERto iPhone should be pretty straightforward, provided
> > they actually deliver that SDK.
> > I could probably do that if I had one, so I think it will be done at
> > some point.
> I actually think there are better ways of porting it to the iphone
> than the SDK (which has been delivered). Considering that powder was
> originally (as far as I'm aware) a homebrew gba/ds game and is now on
> things like the psp as well, it would seem somewhat fitting for it to
> be released as an app to the 'jailbreak community' for the iphone.
> While releasing the game only through the apple-vetted appstore via
> the wonders of the half-baked SDK might appeal to some (and would
> certainly drive distribution absolutely through the roof), a release
> to the world of jailbroken iphones seems much more in line with what
> we've seen from both POWDER and the roguelike world in general. Of
> course, that's not to mention the odd performance differences between
> SDK and jailbreak apps (odd that the SDK slows things down decently
> noticeably).
I don't understand why one can't make two releases: push one to the
app-store, and make the download of the other as a jail-break app.
To be fair, I don't understand how SDK might slow down things.
It either contains C runtime and some core libraries to link to, in
which case it should be just as fast as homebrew cross-build
environment, or it doesn't contains either C runtime or core libraries
suitable for use by SDL, in which case using it (for porting anything)
is unfeasible.
> > PortingPOWDERto Symbian is a different matter (Symbian phones is a
> > huge market).
> > I've heard unpleasant things about Symbian development in general,
> > about compatibility between different vendors, etc.
> > Maybe sometimes, when they really unite this platform, somebody would
> > do that.
> Warning: A further plug for getting an iPhone version:
> Symbian is a huge market, but just the same many of the phones running
> Symbian aren't particularly well suited for a game like Powder. On the
> other hand, the iPhone is a platform growing ridiculously fast with
> really just one (now two, but essentially the same) phone to worry
> about.
That's all good, but: symbian isn't going away in the nearest 3 years,
and iPhone is still not universally available, not to mention locked
by default.
> It's young appstore has proven the viability of selling apps
> for it (you mentioned symbian being a big 'market' rather than
> audience, so I'll play along), as well as the ability to freely
> distribute the program should you use the SDK approach to developing
> for the iPhone.
Well, one can distribute an app for free via appstore, right?
> In summary:
> I don't have the expertise to do it myself, but if there are any
> iPhone owners out there who'd port POWDER (or any good roguelike, but
> this is a POWDER thread) to the iPhone .... I'd be incredibly
> grateful, and I know of many other iPhone owners who feel the same
> way. This thread shows that POWDER is spreading to phones, and I'll
> take that as a reason to cling to hope that I'll be able to play
> POWDER natively on my iPhone sometime in the near(ish) future.
I hope that is going to happen, too.
Jeff Lait
> > > PortingPOWDERto iPhone should be pretty straightforward, provided
> > > they actually deliver that SDK.
> > > I could probably do that if I had one, so I think it will be done at
> > > some point.
>
> > I actually think there are better ways of porting it to the iphone
> > than the SDK (which has been delivered). Considering that powder was
> > originally (as far as I'm aware) a homebrew gba/ds game and is now on
> > things like the psp as well, it would seem somewhat fitting for it to
> > be released as an app to the 'jailbreak community' for the iphone.
> > While releasing the game only through the apple-vetted appstore via
> > the wonders of the half-baked SDK might appeal to some (and would
> > certainly drive distribution absolutely through the roof), a release
> > to the world of jailbroken iphones seems much more in line with what
> > we've seen from both POWDER and the roguelike world in general. Of
> > course, that's not to mention the odd performance differences between
> > SDK and jailbreak apps (odd that the SDK slows things down decently
> > noticeably).
>
> I don't understand why one can't make two releases: push one to the
> app-store, and make the download of the other as a jail-break app.
That is my tentative plan for POWDER on the iPhone. (Don't hold your
breath, however :>) Build a jail-break version which is distributed,
of course, for free. And an app-store which costs $10. Locked
proprietary platforms are evil, and if I'm going to support such a
platform, I'm going to get my pound of flesh.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
Nickedy Pod
*has a party*
Wonderful! I'll plan on offering Jeff a pound of my flesh when it
comes out, yet still probably playing the jailbroken version anyway.
After all, nobody likes looking through their filesystem to find the
folder named "2DB0B3C9-07BD-49EF-9E6A-617303825935" rather than
"POWDER.app" It makes perfect sense that the appstore version would
carry a price seeing as to even distribute apps freely would cost $99
to enroll in the developers program (necessary to distribute via
appstore) in the first place, and it is of course a horribly
proprietary locked platform.
As for my comments about performance differences, ignore those. I had
forgotten that they only applied to applications that insisted on
using javascript.
Hal Rottenberg (halr9000)
PPC-6700) with one exception. The screen orientation is backwards 180
deg. with respect to my keyboard. Ideally, the game would allow me to
rotate ad-hoc so that this would not be a problem.
I'd be happy to run debug builds. My contact info is here:
http://halr9000.com/contact-me
Keep up the great work.
-hal