Ambermoon open source remake in progress

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by alexh

This bug and ones like it are automatically-detected flagged for manual checking (e.g. remove any garbage at end of string) and lengths auto-corrected by Pyrdacor's tools.

Have those fixes been "backported" to the Amiga version or is there a plan to do so?

I've always been fascinated by Ambermoon, but I've always thought of it (from what I have been reading around) like a mass of bugs waiting to wreck your game and put you in an unwinnable state. Kinda off-putting when you have limited time for gaming

[dlfrsilver]

This game would need either to be fixed or reprogrammed.

[alexh]

Almost all of the bugs do not spoil the enjoyment of Ambermoon v1.05 (German) or v1.07 (English). Both can be played to completion with the original files. The original v1.07 has more issues, after all it is an unpublished beta.

Originally Posted by jbenam

Have those fixes been "backported" to the Amiga version or is there a plan to do so?

Yes. With the feedback from lots of people (and his own experiences) Meynaf created a patch for v1.07 a long time ago for the worst of the bugs introduced during translation to English. Plus many cosmetic bugs. The spreadsheet in the first post has a column which shows which bugs are in the 2012 Maynaf patch and which are not (yet?). Each bug has a description of the effect and a technical description of the fix, which file it is in plus the original and patched files to show anyone interested how the patch works.

Originally Posted by jbenam

I've always been fascinated by Ambermoon, but I've always thought of it (from what I have been reading around) like a mass of bugs waiting to wreck your game and put you in an unwinnable state. Kinda off-putting when you have limited time for gaming

This is just not true. You can play the entire game through to completion with the original files. With the Meynaf patch you can play through and never have a crash.

But as dlfrsilver scaremongering says both v1.05 and v1.07 have some sort of memory allocation bug in the exe which can cause crashes under extreme conditions and has not been fixed. But they are rare, I've never experienced one, but they are also predictable and with the multiple save game feature you can save regularly, e.g before using the eagle, broomstick, or flying disc, just in case.

[Jerry]

Wow, this is really cool and great progress already.

OT: The only thing I really wished was, that it was coded in c++. Otherwise this would have been a nice addition to scummvm once finished.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by alexh

Almost all of the bugs do not spoil the enjoyment of Ambermoon v1.05 (German) or v1.07 (English). Both can be played to completion with the original files. The original v1.07 has more issues, after all it is an unpublished beta.


Yes. With the feedback from lots of people (and his own experiences) Meynaf created a patch for v1.07 a long time ago for the worst of the bugs introduced during translation to English.

Great stuff, thanks. It's now on my list of games I need to play

[Toncon]

Ambermoon Remake !?
my blood's starting to boil

[Jield]

Originally Posted by Toncon

Ambermoon Remake !?
my blood's starting to boil

This is not a remake, but a PC version with enhancement.

[Seiya]

Wow. i waiting to see how good it will be

[LooZee]

Originally Posted by alexh

but already way ahead of the previous attempt Amberworlds.

Amberworld was my baby. I started it almost 20 years ago, with a hex editor and some rudimentary disassemblers available at that time. It's been a great experience and it told me a lot about "open source" in general.


If you're making progress, you're getting lots of positive and motivating feedback. You might even find someone to help you out for a brief period and then disappear forever. There were two or three guys and I'm grateful they even bothered.



But if you're having a problem, you are on your own. You might get messages asking "is this project dead?" "when will this be playable?" "are you even working on this anymore?".


There will be people that are more interested in creating new graphics at higher resolutions, porting the 3D stuff to OpenGL, build an editor to create new content than there are people interested in making the thing playable at all.


I have seen parts of my code being used many times in all those years. People created maps and avatars to fill their websites with my tools. That's great and it always made me happy to have the Amberworld project credited.


But that is not what "open source" is about. It's not about getting things for free that someone else put a lot of work into. It's about helping each other. It's about progress and enhancement by each other's knowledge. That concept doesn't work anymore, if it ever did. Not in the open source software, nor the hardware scene.


Many attempts on porting Ambermoon, Amberstar and Albion have come and gone, I've seen them all. Some of them started by forking parts of my Amberworld project. Great ambitions have come and gone in almost 20 years. Not one of those developers ever contacted me to ask for cooperation. They all failed to reinvent the wheel and have disappeared within a few months period, leaving abandoned ambitions, but not a single line of code.


That is the lesson that Amberworld taught me about "open source". Never do that again. Well, I did, but that is a story for another time.

[Thalion]

Well this project is definately different. The Author has made significant progress already and has successfully created similar projects in the past. Just to mention freeserv. So I'm pretty sure this will get finished too.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by LooZee

But that is not what "open source" is about. It's not about getting things for free that someone else put a lot of work into. It's about helping each other.

Highly agree. But before you can help each other, you need to be in some kind of relationship with each other. I.E. in a "team". Team building for bigger open source projects is still a thing that needs to happen and needs to be fronted by someone. That is where it can easily collapse, it requires a specific type of person to be able to attract others to their cause and keep a team together, organised and motivated.

It may have worked out better if you had not waited to be contacted but reached out to the lone rangers.

[Toncon]

@Jield
umm ? don't you even see the word "remake" in thread title ?
and your definition as well sure fits in the same expression as many other similar projects went by.

anyway, im looking forward to it.

[AJCopland]

Originally Posted by LooZee

But that is not what "open source" is about. It's not about getting things for free that someone else put a lot of work into. It's about helping each other. It's about progress and enhancement by each other's knowledge. That concept doesn't work anymore, if it ever did. Not in the open source software, nor the hardware scene.

Many attempts on porting Ambermoon, Amberstar and Albion have come and gone, I've seen them all. Some of them started by forking parts of my Amberworld project. Great ambitions have come and gone in almost 20 years. Not one of those developers ever contacted me to ask for cooperation. They all failed to reinvent the wheel and have disappeared within a few months period, leaving abandoned ambitions, but not a single line of code.

That is the lesson that Amberworld taught me about "open source". Never do that again. Well, I did, but that is a story for another time.

That, and I say this having done been involved with the open source PioneerSpaceSim for 9+ years now, is a bizarre conclusion to draw.

People often reimplement things because they:

• Don't know about other projects
• Don't like how they were done
• Want to do it themselves to learn
• For the fun of it

It can be difficult the manage the contributors who come along, some of them have... erm, difficult personalities at times but if people know about it, and you can get along wiht them and build your community then it works great.

We've had our project forked and commercialised but that's not a bad thing. We got a lot back from their process of doing that, even if we did have to demand at times to get them to open the code according to the license.

Open source is the only way forward for small communities especially, all of the newer TF stuff like the 1230 and 1260 being closed source means that they're dead ends now.
Open projects would just need other contributors, it's a huge loss to us all.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by LooZee

I have seen parts of my code being used many times in all those years. People created maps and avatars to fill their websites with my tools. That's great and it always made me happy to have the Amberworld project credited.

Thank you for all your time and effort. You have inspired many people.

Originally Posted by LooZee

Many attempts on porting Ambermoon, Amberstar and Albion have come and gone. Not one of those developers ever contacted me to ask for cooperation.

Yes? Most have contacted me and discussed your work in detail over the years.

Originally Posted by LooZee

That is the lesson that Amberworld taught me about "open source". Never do that again.

It can be quite hard to see work you did go in a direction that you don't like or approve of, without any input or appreciation. Being an open-source developer I imagine you have to be good at breaking emotional ties with the work and letting it loose to see what it might transform into. I couldn't do it, contribute to other projects yes, publish my own project no, my work is too much like my children.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by meynaf

Do you have a full list of these bugs ? F.e. I've never read about wrong map flags before.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing : Fixed (unconfirmed) sheet - bug 59

1Map_data.amb - Subfiles 00D.amb and 094.amb both need the 2nd byte in the file changing to $3A

These two maps (which cover an area of 50x50 tiles) have the "Map flags" "indoor" bit set but should have the "outdoor" bit set. As such they are not illuminated by sunlight, based on time of day, instead they are permanently dark.

Here is a description of the Map file format

https://github.com/Pyrdacor/Ambermoo...eSpecs/Maps.md

Unfortunately I can't find the discussion Pyrdacor had on this so I cannot confirm the location of these two areas using the Lyramion world map coordinates but I think I can work it out for the future.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by alexh

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing : Fixed (unconfirmed) sheet - bug 59

1Map_data.amb - Subfiles 00D.amb and 094.amb both need the 2nd byte in the file changing to $3A

These two maps (which cover an area of 50x50 tiles) have the "Map flags" "indoor" bit set but should have the "outdoor" bit set. As such they are not illuminated by sunlight, based on time of day, instead they are permanently dark.

Here is a description of the Map file format

https://github.com/Pyrdacor/Ambermoo...eSpecs/Maps.md

Unfortunately I can't find the discussion Pyrdacor had on this so I cannot confirm the location of these two areas using the Lyramion world map coordinates but I think I can work it out for the future.

Don't forget to add the text bug too when you meet the huge spider in the cave in the grandpa house. it has the |END bug too, the text doesn't appear correctly in the v1.07.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by alexh

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing : Fixed (unconfirmed) sheet - bug 59

1Map_data.amb - Subfiles 00D.amb and 094.amb both need the 2nd byte in the file changing to $3A

These two maps (which cover an area of 50x50 tiles) have the "Map flags" "indoor" bit set but should have the "outdoor" bit set. As such they are not illuminated by sunlight, based on time of day, instead they are permanently dark.

Here is a description of the Map file format

https://github.com/Pyrdacor/Ambermoo...eSpecs/Maps.md

Unfortunately I can't find the discussion Pyrdacor had on this so I cannot confirm the location of these two areas using the Lyramion world map coordinates but I think I can work it out for the future.

Can you ask Pyrdacor to make x86 32 bits builds of his tools ? it only works on x64 64bits....

[alexh]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Don't forget to add the text bug too when you meet the huge spider in the cave in the grandpa house. it has the |END bug too, the text doesn't appear correctly in the v1.07.

See Fixed (Unconfirmed) sheet, bug #34. Released in a fix on 23/09/2004 by Meynaf.

Originally Posted by Meynaf

spider web message with "|END", and not terminated

He removes the extra characters "|END" at the end of textblock 4, replaces them with a textblock terminator "$00" (and fixes the string length for textblock 4 in the header). There was already 10 textblock's defined in the header of the original sub-file and 10 textblock lengths. Now there are 10 correctly terminated textblocks in the body and everything SHOULD be displayed correctly (but I have not tested it).

(For some reason Meynaf also shortens textblock 10, removing a space at the end. Why I have no idea. I assume this is a cosmetic text layout fix that was not recorded)

This fixes the issue you you reported in 2013 9 years after the patch.

[dlfrsilver]

ok good !

[alexh]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Can you ask Pyrdacor to make x86 32 bits builds of his tools ? it only works on x64 64bits....

Done. Todays release includes x86 builds

https://github.com/Pyrdacor/Ambermoo...tag/v0.1.6beta