Games for porting to SMD

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:18 pm

From Uwol thread:

SteveMartin wrote:I hope you don't stop here, you probably can find many other great games to port :D

I'd like to hear some ideas which games could be ported to SMD. This not mean I'm going to do it immediately, but it would be nice to know the possibilites, and maybe someone else could get enough inspiration from certain game to make attempt of porting.

By porting I mean reusing of as much of the original resources as possible, including design, graphics, sound, code. Games which should be completely remade is not the option. To have the code, the games should be open source, preferably in C. Similar resolution of graphics would be nice too (color resolution is not too important). Preferably the games should not have any legal issues like using copyrighted characters or impossibility to get permission for porting from the original author.

I guess that the areas where the games could be found is old DOS projects, GBA homebrews, maybe Flash or Gamemaker games (if they are low-res raster based).

For now I can only list most of Mojon Twins games, which are in C.

Pascal · Post by **Pascal** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 8:40 am

super methane brothers would be a good candidate

http://methane.sourceforge.net/info.html

Apache software gave their blessing for the gpl version

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 10:37 am

Haven't actually played yet, from first quick run it looks nice.

One problem I see is that the game originally uses 320x256 or similar resolution, which is cut-down in the port to 320x240. For SMD version it is better to have 320x224, so at least two character rows should be removed from all the levels, and this surely will affect to the gameplay, at least on the first level.

tomaitheous · Post by **tomaitheous** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 4:52 am

I can think of two perfect candidates: SMB1 and Metriod for NES. But are disassembled with commented and sorted source code (well, SMB1 anyway. Haven't looked at the Metriod source).

Ketsuban · Post by **Ketsuban** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 9:28 am

I'm told the source code for those isn't usable as source code (i.e. it would take an unacceptable amount of work to repair them for use with an assembler).

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 10:15 am

They have to be manually translated from 6502 assembly to 68K or C anyway. However, I'd personally not take these games for the reasons: this is less legal than porting a game with permission from the author, and in case with SMB there are many clones on many platforms (with improved graphics etc). I see not much sense to spent large amount of time for porting games which are so well known and widely available.

Anyway, maybe someone else could find these games interesting to port.

koilazka · Post by **koilazka** » Fri Apr 02, 2010 10:35 pm

Apparently Black Tiger's been ported loads, but not on the mega drive.
I dont know about source files.
I loved the game, but i thought the level layout made it solid to play.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tiger_(video_game)

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Fri Apr 02, 2010 11:51 pm

Black Tiger was rereleased by Capcom in 2006 on three major platforms of the time. This means that of course there is no source code, and no way to get permission from the developer.

It better to think about some indie and freeware games.

koilazka · Post by **koilazka** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 12:51 am

Abuse.
Released to the Public Domain.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/linux/abu ... otId,2671/
http://abuse.zoy.org/ < Maintenance webpage, source files.

// Edit
Uses a mouse, is this a big problem?

Stef · Post by **Stef** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 7:48 am

Shiru wrote:Black Tiger was rereleased by Capcom in 2006 on three major platforms of the time. This means that of course there is no source code, and no way to get permission from the developer.

It better to think about some indie and freeware games.

What a shame, one of my favorite arcade game

sheath · Post by **sheath** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 11:22 am

I'd vote for the original Dos Silpheed

I'd also really love to see Gate of Doom/Dark Seal ported to Genesis (or anything from that gen really). But it looks like it's in the Data East Collection for Wii.

It looks like Abandonia has a ton of games listed that I've never heard of.

Also, but probably for the Sega CD or 32X, I wonder how Alone in the Dark might be adapted.

If Archon is really abandonware, I'd love to be able to play it on Genesis.

There was also an old LAN game for Unix that I loved playing at school but can't find for the life of me. It was a multi-player space ship shooter deathmatch style game, side scrolling with very simplistic line based graphics. It has physics, gravity, inertia, it basically played like Subterrania and Star Control but with up to twelve players (maybe only eight). If I find it, I'd bet it's open source now. It must have been a Thrust Clone that was adapted for multiplayer.

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 8:03 pm

People should remember than only games that got source code and data available are possible candidates... and the smaller/simpler the game, the more likely it is to see light of day on the MD.

tomaitheous · Post by **tomaitheous** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 8:41 pm

Ketsuban wrote:I'm told the source code for those isn't usable as source code (i.e. it would take an unacceptable amount of work to repair them for use with an assembler).

Look at the SMB source for yourself, it's quite complete. It's not machine generated disassembly, it was done by hand - tracing through the game to figure things out, with comments, with variable names and functions names, etc. Not sure on metroid source though. But the point is moot since he doesn't want to get involved with copyrighted material without permission.

bastien · Post by **bastien** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:14 pm

i also think SMB is a good idea

sheath · Post by **sheath** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 5:24 pm

Hmm, I assumed old DOS/C64/Amiga games could be easily decompiled. If we're looking for actually released source code I'm all out.