Castle Paradox

NayusDante · Joined: 18 Jul 2010 Posts: 15

Developer keeps 70%, Microsoft keeps 30%. It used to be that if your game went on the featured games list, the ratio was reversed and they kept 70%, but I think they did away with that.

Ideally, the end result of the port would be a Visual Studio project template. When you open Visual C#, you make a new project with the template, drop in your *.RPG file, and compile. Then, you get the file that you submit to the marketplace for review.

I'm not sure if I like the umbrella group idea. You're not allowed to publish an unlimited number of games on one account, it's more like ten. It might work if we did some kind of "showcase" account, or an account whose proceeds go to charity, but I don't think a dedicated OHR publisher account would work well.

Also, keep in mind that we really don't need to port anything except game.exe. If you wanted to do something like Kodu and allow game sharing over XBL, I suppose a port of custom.exe would have a purpose, but that's probably not worth bothering with. Maybe a simplified version of custom with some sample content, like Enterbrain's RPG Maker series would work, but I wouldn't put that very high on the priority list.

How would we go about maintaining an XNA port? Would this be a forked project, or could we completely move everything to C# with multiple build targets?

If we go through with this and open up OHR to a commercial market, I would strongly suggest the establishment of a review council. All we need is a set of guidelines and a few reviewers to enforce a certain degree of quality. If a game completes the voluntary review process, they get something like the Nintendo gold seal, and are assigned an "approved game number." Copyright the logo, and grant permission to include it in approved games, so we have a case against anyone who fakes it.
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NayusDante · Joined: 18 Jul 2010 Posts: 15

C# isn't really all that different from C++, and there are Linux compilers for it. There's also SDL libraries for C#. If we're going to seriously think about a project like this, moving the project to C# and XNA is the best way to go, in my opinion.

As far as the Wii goes, your only real option is homebrew. That's an odd beast. The PSP scene is about the same.

PS3 was supposed to have some kind of open development library, fire-something, but I don't know what happened to it.

Porting to Android is a great idea, but I don't think it's the most secure platform if you want to profit, as I've heard a fair bit about piracy. If you just want to open your games to more people, though, THIS is the way to go. It's going to be absurd how many Android devices there will be in the next few years.
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Bob the Hamster · Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2010 11:51 am Post subject:

Was talking to TMC and Mike about this on the dev mailing list.

Of all the platforms we could port to, XNA is one of the hardest.

The first port we are likely to see is Mac OS X. TMC already did a lot of work on making freebasic stuff compile on BSD, and BSD is the core of Mac OS X. Maybe this will happen this year. We will see.

The next step in porting is to move away from FreeBasic to C++. The FreeBasic team is working on a C code generator, so that is one possibility, and TMC has plans for a freebasic-to-C++ code translate, and that is probably the most likely path to succeed. This might be a few more years, maybe?

Once a C++ version exists, That opens up the path to iPhone, Android, and others, but NOT to XNA, because XNA doesn't do C++ code.

But at least at that point we could re-evaluate it, and see if a path to .NET portability has become visible by then. From where we sound right now, an XNA port looks like it would have to be a total rewrite from scratch, and as we all know I have zero interest in that (and I think when TMC was talking about the possibility of an XNA port he didn't know about the .NET limitations.)

EDIT: no, the difference between C++ and C# can actually be really huge. For programs that don't do any crazy pointer voodoo, maybe the distance is smaller, but I have yet to see a C++ program larger than "Hello World" that failed to be chock full of crazy pointer voodoo.

I guess my point is, we are now standing at the starting line. a Mac port is a 5k fun-run. A port to C++ capable platforms is a marathon. A .NET port is swimming the English channel. Not impossible, but we should focus on the easier goals first.

TMC · Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2010 3:16 am Post subject:

Bob the Hamster · Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2010 7:22 am Post subject:

NayusDante · Joined: 18 Jul 2010 Posts: 15

Apple relaxes rules on interpreted code...

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/apple-throws-developers-a-bone-relaxes-restrictions-on-third-party-tools/38985?tag=nl.e539

It's still a bit restrictive, but it's a step in the right direction.
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Rya.Reisender · **Snippy** Joined: 18 Jan 2008 Posts: 821

chronoboy · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2010 8:06 pm Post subject:

Talk about going off topic. I came to this post to hopefully see a discussion of "Heart of OHR" and now it's a dev forum on what to port OHR to next. Kudos. Raspberry!

Regardless, I'll add to this off topicness... Are there no other FreeBasic compatible compilers out there? Or are we forever doomed in their clutches until they fix their mess?

Another idea would be to begin work on O.H.R.RPG.C.E. 2, if you know where I'm going. I'll start another post devoted to this idea... This post got off topic so much already.

I say we should rewrite OHR in Intel Assembly, but not compatible with AMD. Ha ha ha!

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Current project: Chronoboy Adventures

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TMC · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2010 2:14 am Post subject:

Camdog · Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 606

Not that I'm trying to push you on making an XNA compatible version, but I was just wondering, isn't C# just a superset of C? If we have a FreeBasic to C translator, wouldn't the resulting code be a lot easier to get to run on XNA than whatever C++ stuff you add on top?

Bob the Hamster · Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 12:18 pm Post subject:

TMC · Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2010 2:34 am Post subject:

I can't remember exactly, but I think C# running on the XBox, and some other environments, can't use pointers at all, making it just about as far from C as you can get :)

I suggested above that a working fb2c++ translator could be adapted to output C# instead (still requiring LOTS of hand editing). It would be a pretty huge task, but maybe we'll attempt it once we have accomplished everything else ;)
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NayusDante · Joined: 18 Jul 2010 Posts: 15

The deadline is really close, and I've finally got a preview release of Eternity Fragment up for review before I submit the final version.

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=71409#71409
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Rya.Reisender · **Snippy** Joined: 18 Jan 2008 Posts: 821

I know it's an old thread that already went far off-topic, but since it's related:

RPG Maker VX is now compatible with XNA, in other words, you can release RPG Maker VX games for XBox now.

Example:
http://www.gamingtruth.com/2011/09/08/doom-destiny-xbox-indie-review/

Edit: On an additional note, it's not directly compatible. I contacted the developers. You need to add some programming efforts to it.
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