#163283 - tepples - Sun Sep 28, 2008 6:43 pm
Colors! is on iPhone and iPod Touch now. Does this signal an exodus of DS developers to iPod Touch, just as there was a mass exodus of GBA developers to the DS during 2005? Will I become irrelevant if I do not buy a doing-business-as form[1], a Mac mini, a KVM switch, an iPod Touch[2], and a developer certificate?
[1] Apple Developer Connection did not allow me to create an account because I left the Company field blank.
[2] I currently pay less than $6 per month for mobile phone service from Virgin Mobile and cannot afford the $70 per month that AT&T charges for iPhone service.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#163287 - nanou - Sun Sep 28, 2008 8:19 pm
It's still too early to worry about that. I doubt there will be any exodus at all, at least until the DS has gone end-of-life. The influx of fresh blood could be expected to taper off, though.
I have to admit I felt a bit jealous when I read the same news, but Jesse develops for everything and the iPhone/iPod Touch is a great platform for Colors!, so there's no translating the news into a portent with regards to the community.
_________________
- nanou
#163289 - Quirky - Sun Sep 28, 2008 8:46 pm
| tepples wrote: |
[1] Apple Developer Connection did not allow me to create an account because I left the Company field blank.
[2] I currently pay less than $6 per month for mobile phone service from Virgin Mobile and cannot afford the $70 per month that AT&T charges for iPhone service. |
You could always develop for the Android platform.
#163300 - gauauu - Mon Sep 29, 2008 3:10 am
Heh...I considered porting Anguna to the iPhone when I finished the DS version. Until I realized those same issues you brought up: I'd have to code on my mac (shudder...I hate that thing), and have to pay good money to even distribute it.
#163308 - masscat - Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:53 pm
I have not done any DS development for a while now.
One reason is the lack of mature development tools and environment. I use desmume and its gdb stub for most of my development. If I want to use a DS feature not implemented or buggy in desmume it either means fixing desmume or working round or not using the feature.
In contrast, I have been playing around with XNA on Windows/Xbox and you get an IDE with debugger. You do have a fee (for Xbox distribution) and you have to work within the framework that Mircosoft provide but you can spend more time developing and less time playing with the development tools.
The DS is a really fun platform to play around on though. Maybe Nintendo will do something similar to XNA for the next DS and embrace the homebrew community.
#163309 - tepples - Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:03 pm
| masscat wrote: |
| In contrast, I have been playing around with XNA on Windows/Xbox and you get an IDE with debugger. You do have a fee (for Xbox distribution) |
And I would still need to buy a new PC. My PC's CPU speed (866 MHz) is half the minimum requirement for Visual Studio 2008, and I don't think anyone makes upgrades for motherboards from 2000 anymore.
| Quote: |
| and you have to work within the framework that Mircosoft provide but you can spend more time developing and less time playing with the development tools. |
XNA requires managed code. I'm used to writing different front ends for different platforms (see Lockjaw build process), but that works only if all platforms can run back-end game logic written in the same language. In what language should I write my game logic if I need to publish on one platform that runs only C# (XNA), one platform that runs only Java (J2ME phones), and one platform to which no managed language has been ported (DS)? Or would I need to write my own managed language interpreter, which would run on top of another managed language interpreter?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#163319 - gauauu - Mon Sep 29, 2008 3:29 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| And I would still need to buy a new PC. My PC's CPU speed (866 MHz) is half the minimum requirement for Visual Studio 2008, and I don't think anyone makes upgrades for motherboards from 2000 anymore. |
I think at that point, most people would say that it's time to get better tools. Unfortunately for those of us with budgets, computer-land (and thus software development) is a fast-moving treadmill of upgrades, and that's just a fact we have to live with if we want our projects to stay relevant.
| tepples wrote: |
XNA requires managed code. I'm used to writing different front ends for different platforms (see Lockjaw build process), but that works only if all platforms can run back-end game logic written in the same language. |
And there's the rub. Microsoft wants you to be locked into their way of doing things, unfortunately. Unless you want to completely rewrite your game for multiple platforms, or be Microsoft only, then yeah, you are better off doing what you do now. Back to the iPhone discussion -- that was another thing that dissuaded me from doing iPhone development....I don't WANT to use a new, different language (objective-C).
#163332 - ingramb - Mon Sep 29, 2008 6:55 pm
| Quote: |
| XNA requires managed code. I'm used to writing different front ends for different platforms (see Lockjaw build process), but that works only if all platforms can run back-end game logic written in the same language. |
If you build your own framework on top of XNA, you could maybe port your game to something like mono on non-ms platforms. Or maybe write the bulk of your game in something like lua or squirrel. Then you could have a C# XNA driver for ms, and a fast C++ driver for other platforms.
#163334 - tepples - Mon Sep 29, 2008 7:29 pm
| ingramb wrote: |
| If you build your own framework on top of XNA, you could maybe port your game to something like mono on non-ms platforms. |
But how would I port Mono to iPhone and Nintendo DS?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#163337 - Sweater Fish Deluxe - Mon Sep 29, 2008 10:41 pm
| gauauu wrote: |
| I think at that point, most people would say that it's time to get better tools. Unfortunately for those of us with budgets, computer-land (and thus software development) is a fast-moving treadmill of upgrades, and that's just a fact we have to live with if we want our projects to stay relevant. |
Are most homebrewers really concerned that their projects be "relevant"?
Personally, I plan to continue working on DS projects well beyond the system's lifetime. In fact, now that I've gotten a little more experience with coding thanks to the DS, I've been thinking about returning to the Dreamcast and Neo Geo Pocket and some projects I started on those systems when I was first getting into homebrew coding.
I've always thought of homebrew as existing in a world quite separate from the usual succession of console (or handheld) generations. In fact, that's one of the things I like most about it. There's at least three new commercial homebrew projects coming out on the Dreamcast this year alone (though I'll be pretty surprised if at least one of them doesn't end up getting delayed into 2009--or possibly all three).
...word is bondage...
#163341 - gauauu - Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:20 am
| Sweater Fish Deluxe wrote: |
Are most homebrewers really concerned that their projects be "relevant"?
|
Great question. I understand where you are coming from, but the mass migration from GBA to DS development seems to indicate that people would rather develop for the new platform with its new users. Whether that is because of the technical abilities of the DS, or because of the number of users, is another question.
| Quote: |
| I've been thinking about returning to the Dreamcast |
Slightly offtopic, but are there good resources and documentation for learning Dreamcast development? When I looked a couple years ago, it was pretty sparse.
#163345 - elwing - Tue Sep 30, 2008 6:29 am
it's time to get a pandora?
#163366 - tepples - Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:02 pm
| Sweater Fish Deluxe wrote: |
| gauauu wrote: | | Unfortunately for those of us with budgets, computer-land (and thus software development) is a fast-moving treadmill of upgrades, and that's just a fact we have to live with if we want our projects to stay relevant. |
Are most homebrewers really concerned that their projects be "relevant"? |
If a program bigger than a tech demo has no users, why would I develop and polish it?
| Quote: |
| I've always thought of homebrew as existing in a world quite separate from the usual succession of console (or handheld) generations. In fact, that's one of the things I like most about it. There's at least three new commercial homebrew projects coming out on the Dreamcast this year alone (though I'll be pretty surprised if at least one of them doesn't end up getting delayed into 2009--or possibly all three). |
Dreamcast is different: there's enough of a customer base and distribution is easy enough (CD-R) that one can actually sell copies to recoup some of the investment into developing homebrew.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#163382 - elwing - Wed Oct 01, 2008 6:07 am
luckily as this question arise the pandora preorders just opened...
#163401 - Sweater Fish Deluxe - Wed Oct 01, 2008 6:55 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| If a program bigger than a tech demo has no users, why would I develop and polish it? |
Maybe I'm alone on this, but I make homebrew pretty much entirely for myself. I like the creative thinking and problem solving that it takes to do something complicated with a limited set of tools. It's like any other kind of puzzle. A crossword puzzle for instance. I don't think people do crossword puzzles so that they can show off the completed puzzle when they're done, they just do it because their mind wants a workout. For me it's the same with homebrew. The puzzle is "can I make the game that I picture in mind's eye a reality?"
Having something that I can play and enjoy for the rest of my life is almost just like a nice side effect. It's true that being able to show off the game to other people is nice as well, but I get a lot more satisfaction when showing it to friends or family in person than I do from random strangers on the Internet playing it anyway.
| Quote: |
| Dreamcast is different: there's enough of a customer base and distribution is easy enough (CD-R) that one can actually sell copies to recoup some of the investment into developing homebrew. |
I don't think anyone has sold homebrew Dreamcast games on CDR, the commercial releases have always been on pressed CDs and (because of that) as far as I know none of them has ever made a profit. Last Hope may have since they sold it for $40.
With DS flash cards available for as little as $12 now, there's no reason someone couldn't do the same thing (i.e. lose a little money or break even, but have a really cool commercial quality product to put on their shelves and sell to people and feel big about) on the DS at this point and with a lot less money needed up front since you wouldn't have to have a 1000+ unit production run.
...word is bondage...
#163406 - nanou - Wed Oct 01, 2008 8:35 pm
| Sweater Fish Deluxe wrote: |
| Maybe I'm alone on this, but I make homebrew pretty much entirely for myself. |
A bit OT, but you're not alone. I've written quite a bit of stuff for the DS that I haven't released (I haven't released anything.) Partly for want of polish, but mostly because I don't think anyone else would be into it (with the exception of one app that I'm still toying with.)
Back on topic: Would I prefer to port these to another platform if it were available to me? Most of them, yes. In fact, my best work is poorly suited for the DS's relatively low processing power (but actually does stunningly well on the DS, considering.) It turns out, however, that the ones that I think would be most appealing to others are either best suited to the DS or else no better suited to anything else.
_________________
- nanou
#163407 - zzo38computer - Wed Oct 01, 2008 8:44 pm
Of course, Nintendo DS, GameBoy Advance, iPhone, Pandora, Android, etc, can also be used to have emulators for various virtual machines and then you can program games and other applications for the virtual machine. Some virtual machines to emulate could be:
- Java
- Z-machine
- GameBoy emulator
- XY-MINI
- Forth
- etc.
- And, on systems more powerful than Nintendo DS you can emulate GameBoy Advance homebrew games as well, on Nintendo DS that isn't necessary because it can run it directly.
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#163414 - gauauu - Wed Oct 01, 2008 10:30 pm
| Sweater Fish Deluxe wrote: |
| Maybe I'm alone on this, but I make homebrew pretty much entirely for myself. |
I understand what you are saying, because I mostly write homebrew for the fun of writing it. But an additional part of the fun for me is the hope of making something that people will play and enjoy. Having people actually PLAYING Anguna is almost as fun as writing it.
I'd still enjoy writing something for a platform that wouldn't get played as much (I'd like to try writing a NES or Atari 2600 game), but I don't think I'd ever enjoy making a game that I knew would never get played at all (like for some theoretical system that only I have).
#163418 - Sweater Fish Deluxe - Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:40 pm
| gauauu wrote: |
| but I don't think I'd ever enjoy making a game that I knew would never get played at all (like for some theoretical system that only I have). |
I've already made a few tests for what I hope will eventually be a pretty involved game that will require both a DS Motion Card and Taito Paddle simultaneously. That'll be about the smallest potential audience for a game that I can think of.
Though *ANYTHING* for the Neo Geo Pocket comes pretty close, too.
...word is bondage...