Re: Let's get hackin'!

["Adam D. Moss" <adam@gimp.org>]

Ian Crawford wrote:
> 
> > How many people are on the list already ?
> 
> 15 subscribers (hmm... there's a lot of you keeping quiet!)

Helloooo...

I'll stop being quiet for a second to humbly announce a new(ish)
release of "Manic Miner PC/Linux" at
http://www.ws.pipex.com/home/adam/mm/

It's a classic platform game circa 1984, revamped for DOS
by Andy Noble and ported to Linux by me.

I've learnt quite a lot from the port, mostly about the
quality and portability of C written for DOS =), but also
a little about the wonders and horrors of re-implementing
the MIDAS API on top of mikmod (little did I know that MIDAS
had a unix native port), dirty svgalib keyboard hacks, and
the fun of never having actually seen the game you're
porting.  ;)

I'm knee deep in gore porting the game from icky old svgalib
to X (it's sort of working, but puzzlingly too fast),
whereafter I'll release the source (probably public domain,
perhaps GPL).

Also in that directory is a demo of (yawn, yet another)
sprite system with a curious twist, which someone may find
interesting or useful - although the demo requires 2x linear
640x480 framebuffers, so you have to be one of the 'lucky few'
with a well svgalib-supported video card.

I am also trying to find time to continue development of
a 'free' low-bandwidth video codec dubbed BiSPa, which I hope
will prove adequate for cutscenes and such in free game
development projects.  Results are fairly promising so
far - I can provide a demo if interested.

Finally, I have another game, 'XRebels' in development at
http://www.worldserver.pipex.com/home/adam/rebels/

It is in serious danger of stalling since I 'lost' the
graphician and took on too many other projects, but maybe
it will get there in the end.  You may like to take a look
at the screenshots - graphicians are too rare!

Take care, folks -
--Adam @gimp.org