Gimbal Games Inc. : project TwinTris

gimbal · 26 November 2007, 03:37

The last month or so I have been slaving over a second game project. A light port of a charming Amiga game called TwinTris.

http://hol.abime.net/5109

I say *light* port because I am not going to implement all the features of the game, I am only borrowing the main gameplay itself, including all sounds, music and graphics, and I am plugging it into my own 2 player implementation that can be played over a network between computers running windows 2000 or windows XP, or even pocketpc devices.

Find more details and development screenshots on this very basic projects page:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~gimbal/projects/twintris.htm

Development is going REALLY well, actually all the main game functions are implemented already as you may guess from the screenshots! What remains is the "decorating" (high score table, game title screen) and the 2 player mode.

vroom6sri · 26 November 2007, 09:20

Cool! Thanks (in advance) for your hard work. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

gimbal · 18 January 2008, 14:21

a small status update.

The game itself is 70% finished now, only the 2 player mode needs to be implemented and the networking code of my framework seems to be working nicely. I also managed to plug FMOD into the framework so I can play MP3 or OGG files, even on PDA devices. I can create a beta which is single player only, which I hope to have next month.

The thing I'm working on now is a rewrite of the graphics part of the framework. I really want this game to work on PDA devices, and as it turned out doing games for such devices is far from easy thanks to no real standards in the graphics capabilities. I have to take care of:

- display differences (240*320, 480*480, 480*640)
- orientation differences (default portrait, default landscape)
- bitdepths (15 bits mode, 16 bits mode, 32 bits mode)
- API support (GAPI, DirectDraw, Direct3D)

Many, many head aches to deal with... For example, if you want the game to run on pocketpc 2003 devices, it is best to use GAPI (Game API). But from windows mobile 5 and up support for it is becoming crappy because MS wants you to use DirectDraw or Direct3D...

So I thought to use Direct3D for the added perks such as rotation and scaling. The problem I had with GAPI is that it does not support drawing in landscape mode, which I really need for my games. And guess what... Direct3D mobile cannot do it either, or not reliably at least :s

So now I am porting the graphics code to DirectDraw, with the option of plugging in another API if necessary. The problem is, on desktops DirectDraw is too deprecated and I really need Direct3D...

Grrr, I shall succeed!

26 November 2007, 03:37	#1
gimbal cheeky scoundrel Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Spijkenisse/Netherlands Age: 42 Posts: 6,919	Gimbal Games Inc. : project TwinTris The last month or so I have been slaving over a second game project. A light port of a charming Amiga game called TwinTris. http://hol.abime.net/5109 I say light port because I am not going to implement all the features of the game, I am only borrowing the main gameplay itself, including all sounds, music and graphics, and I am plugging it into my own 2 player implementation that can be played over a network between computers running windows 2000 or windows XP, or even pocketpc devices. Find more details and development screenshots on this very basic projects page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gimbal/projects/twintris.htm Development is going REALLY well, actually all the main game functions are implemented already as you may guess from the screenshots! What remains is the "decorating" (high score table, game title screen) and the 2 player mode.

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26 November 2007, 09:20	#2
vroom6sri Registered User Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Peterborough Age: 47 Posts: 845	Cool! Thanks (in advance) for your hard work. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

18 January 2008, 14:21	#3
gimbal cheeky scoundrel Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Spijkenisse/Netherlands Age: 42 Posts: 6,919	a small status update. The game itself is 70% finished now, only the 2 player mode needs to be implemented and the networking code of my framework seems to be working nicely. I also managed to plug FMOD into the framework so I can play MP3 or OGG files, even on PDA devices. I can create a beta which is single player only, which I hope to have next month. The thing I'm working on now is a rewrite of the graphics part of the framework. I really want this game to work on PDA devices, and as it turned out doing games for such devices is far from easy thanks to no real standards in the graphics capabilities. I have to take care of: - display differences (240320, 480480, 480*640) - orientation differences (default portrait, default landscape) - bitdepths (15 bits mode, 16 bits mode, 32 bits mode) - API support (GAPI, DirectDraw, Direct3D) Many, many head aches to deal with... For example, if you want the game to run on pocketpc 2003 devices, it is best to use GAPI (Game API). But from windows mobile 5 and up support for it is becoming crappy because MS wants you to use DirectDraw or Direct3D... So I thought to use Direct3D for the added perks such as rotation and scaling. The problem I had with GAPI is that it does not support drawing in landscape mode, which I really need for my games. And guess what... Direct3D mobile cannot do it either, or not reliably at least :s So now I am porting the graphics code to DirectDraw, with the option of plugging in another API if necessary. The problem is, on desktops DirectDraw is too deprecated and I really need Direct3D... Grrr, I shall succeed!

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