Game port question - L'Abbaye des Morts

[ExeDmgDeb]

C and I get along pretty well, and the code seems pretty clean, so I’m interested in this. I might try to give this a shot. I just want to get my Pokitto first before I start experimenting with things.

be great if you did!!! play it some time its pretty unique game. I played it on a gcw-zero a couple years ago and have no regrets

[Pharap]

I would do it if Iknew where to start. Unfortunately I dont know where to begin to get a basic understanding of how programming works.

So far you can only really use two programming languages on the Pokitto, C++ and (thanks to @Hanski) Python.

Unfortunately as it’s still early days for Pokitto there aren’t many Pokitto-specifc tutorials around that are aimed at beginners. Most talks and discussions are about setting the Pokitto up and using the Pokitto rather than about how to program.
There are a few in the tutorials and requests section, but they’re still fairly basic at the moment. There are plenty of C++ and Python tutorials around on the internet though.

Python is probably easier to learn for a beginner, but it has more overhead (and thus uses more memory). The Pokitto has more memory than some similar devices, so Python is usuable, but obviously you’d hit the memory limit sooner.

C++ is harder to learn, but gives you finer control over the hardware and memory use. The C++ philosophy is to give the programmer as much control as possible, but as a result it makes the programmer responsible for more than other languages.

Both languages have a lot of learning resources available and are quite well known. It might be worth giving both a try and seeing which you get on better with.

I think porting this particular game would be a bit too big a project for a beginner because you’d need to know C (the language the source code is in) and the language you’d be porting to (probably C++) quite well. It’s better to start small with programs that don’t do much and work slowly upwards to more complex projects.

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I think of computer languages as if they were actual verbal languages like spanish or french as if they were all different but the same

It’s a bit more complicated than that.
Technically even in real world languages there are words that don’t have equivalents in other languages, resulting in a lot of borrowed words (like English borrowing ‘tsunami’ from Japanese and Japanese borrowing ‘spoon’ from English).

Certain concepts are consistent across languages, for example most languages have similar data structures like arrays, hashtables and lists, and certain languages look similar (for example using { and } for code blocks), but languages can look and behave in drastically different ways. Like how different spoken languages have different grammar rules (e.g. English vs German grammar) or different writing systems (e.g. Latin script vs Japanese kanji) or different ways of pronouncing certain letters, programming languages can also have drastically different grammar arrangements and symbol meanings.

In fact the study of programming languages and compilers is pretty much an entire topic of study on its own, which does have some overlap with the study of ‘natural languages’ (i.e. spoken languages).

[ExeDmgDeb]

@HomineLudens @FManga and @drummyfish Thank you so much for porting this can’t wait for myself and others to enjoy it . Thanks agian!!!

[sbmrgd]

Now that this task is completed, could the other games from Locomalito also be ported to pokitto?

[HomineLudens]

could the other games from Locomalito also be ported to pokitto

Sure, but there are some limitation.
Not sure if other game have source code available, we start from a GPL porting of the game coded in C.
Other game was made with GameMaker so require reverse engineering, this only if original Assets (tiles,map) are available in a open format.

[sbmrgd]

Not sure if other game have source code available

I don’t think so.

[Pharap]

Other game was made with GameMaker so require reverse engineering, this only if original Assets (tiles,map) are available in a open format.

The licence and availability of source is going to be the biggest obstacle for those.
Then the code itself, because Game Maker’s engine is set up in a specific way,
and it has some really strange quirks.
(I have it on good authority (@spacebruce) that the language is “a bizarre anachronistic mess”.)

The assets are less of an issue. They’ll almost certainly be in an easy to read format,
and if not they shouldn’t be too hard to rip out of screen shots.

[spacebruce]

As an addendum to this, I’m experienced with Gamemaker and would be happy to assist porting efforts from it.

[jonne]

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