ClanLib Games

[dulsi]

Since working with the OpenAlchemist code, I've been looking at ClanLib. The project seems to have died. Fedora has 2.3.7. Debian has an earlier version. No one seems to be packaging 5.0. I can only assume API changes break programs. Fedora has OpenAlchemist and Super Methane Bros using the library. Debian has Trophy. Probably the most notable game using the library was Pingus but it switched off of it. I found this list of games:

https://www.seul.org/~grumbel/tmp/clanlib/games.html

I'm kinda tempted to try to get Mojotron running at some point but who know if I will ever get to that.

[fluffrabbit]

Why do these games sound like memes? In any case, it's nice to see the kind of creativity a library like ClanLib can unlock. There was never a lighter 3D rendering engine for C++. RIP.

[dulsi]

Since I've mostly converted OpenAlchemist from ClanLib to SDL2, I decided to take a quick look at mojotron. It was written with ClanLib 0.6. Which means it doesn't compile with ClanLib 2.3. The API is completely different. The resource manager object reads an .ini like file instead of an xml file. So you have lines like:

player1 = "graphics/monkey.pcx" (type=surface, x=0, y=0, width=32, height=32, tcol=22, array=6x2);

It does support two players which is what I want.

[fluffrabbit]

Right, you're doing the arcade thing. Split-screen is pretty rare on PC, and that Mojotron game looks like crap TBH. What about Jump 'n' Bump? It's SDL and has nice graphics.

[dulsi]

Right, you're doing the arcade thing. Split-screen is pretty rare on PC, and that Mojotron game looks like crap TBH. What about Jump 'n' Bump? It's SDL and has nice graphics.

Jump'n'Bump is competitive only, I'm looking for cooperative games if possible. It doesn't have any depth to it's game play. It doesn't have an obvious end to the game like a time limit to make it easy to switch players.

The look of Mojotron can be improved. The real question is does it play well. It has other advantages to me as well. I love Robotron: 2084. (I had Robotron: 2084 on the Atari 7800 and Playstation arcade collections. I also bought a Dos version someone made a long time ago. I have Robotron X as well.) You need joystick, four buttons for directional fire and a use button. The arcade machine has a lot of buttons and isn't using that many in most games.

[fluffrabbit]

Is emulation an option?

[dulsi]

Is emulation an option?

Yes and no. As a cub scout project, I want to respect copyright law. Also I want to highlight open source games because they capture the community service that scouting is about.

[fluffrabbit]

Russian cub scouts might appreciate open source, but the rest of the world doesn't even know what software is. If you want PD ROMs, they do exist. I believe there are a couple of PD 8-bit ROMs for MAME, though they are quite violent.

[dulsi]

Mojotron is now on gitlab. To my surprise ClanLib 0.6 is available for Fedora as ClanLib06. It plays for a while and then crashes.

[leggazoid]

Does clanlib work on a raspberry pi? I would like to see Super Methane Brothers work on a Raspberry Pi. Would it require converting to SDL2?

It was ported to powerpc back in 2008.
http://aminet.net/package/game/jump/smb ... orphos.lha

GPX2 port to sdl
http://wiki.gp2x.org/articles/s/u/p/Sup ... thers.html

I wish I knew enough to hack this code together.