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View Full Version : Battle for Wesnoth DC - SDL porter needed!



DCEmu_Newsposter
January 1st, 1970, 01:00
A member of the www.dcemu.co.uk forums, 1timeuser, has posted some info about the very interesting looking SDL based fantasy strategy game The Battle for Wesnoth at our message board (http://www.dcemu.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=homebrew;action=display;num=10860940 53;start=45):[br]http://www.dcevolution.netfirms.com/psd/wesnoth1.jpg
[br][br][b]http://www.wesnoth.org/ (http://www.wesnoth.org/)[br]He considered a port of this game at the developers [b]message board (http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=22276#22276) and recieved this answer by the main developer:[br][br]Hi there, [br][br]We'd certainly be interested in a Dreamcast port, although I don't think anyone on our development team has the skills, resources, or time to do it. But if someone was interested in doing it we'd support them however we could. [br][br]David[br][br]So if anyone is willing to do this port or to help out, please get in contact with the game developers.

Cap'n 1time
June 12th, 2004, 18:43
this is the lead developers email - davidnwhite(AT)optusnet.com.au

this is the lead developers email. Someone really should contact him. I would, but i have no idea what im talking about.

Edited by Curtiss Grymala to remove "@" from email. As a common courtesy, when we post other people's email addresses, we should try to edit them so that spam robots cannot easily pick them up.

Christuserloeser
June 12th, 2004, 18:45
;D This game looks awesome! I love strategy games... Especially fantasy strategy games...


Chris

quzar
June 13th, 2004, 00:39
its written using really heavy C++ (by that i mean a lot of classes and such) and so a DC version isnt very possible without large rewrites of the code.

Christuserloeser
June 13th, 2004, 15:07
They are willing to offer help and surely are very interested in a port to DC. A quote from ziberpunk, a devver of Battle for Wesnoth:


It may be easy but I don't see it very clear. Some more info would be very appreciated. Which steps should be done for porting Battle for Wesnoth to DreamCast?

SDL is supposed to be already ported to DC, but no officially supported. Has you tested it?

Other SDL libs user for wesnoth work aswell with DC?

Which compiler is used for DC? GCC should work or any special framework is used?

Is there any free emulator of DC to test this all?

Eric
June 14th, 2004, 00:00
After seeing that nice image the game looks like a command and conquer copy but i dont know so i have to say it would look pretty interesting on the dc and i hope things will work out with this port

Christuserloeser
June 14th, 2004, 00:23
its written using really heavy C++ (by that i mean a lot of classes and such) and so a DC version isnt very possible without large rewrites of the code.
I am not sure if there's a possibility that these compilers are still available somewhere but...

Dave wrote:

If there is no way to port games that use C++ to Dreamcast without porting them to C first, I would honestly say that it's too much effort to even consider.

Well, unless someone has a tool/compiler that will compile C++ to C. This is what the original C++ compiler, C-Front did. Not sure if there are any such compilers still commonly available though.

David

GPF
June 14th, 2004, 00:47
its not a matter of C++ not working on the dreamcast its more its an incomplete set of libraries. There are no stream class support (so no cout/cin etc.) Alot of the functions such as vectors can be found in the dreamcast port of STLport.

also the SDL_net lib has not been ported to the dreamcast. I don't know much about this game is it multiplayer on the same machine or just across a network?

also depending on the size of the graphics would have to be evaluated, since the limited memory of the dreamcast.

It is possible to rewrite the missing functions with C code or to use supported C++ classes.

Most of the SDL ports I have done, and have seen done require just a Dreamcast Makefile, and other dreamcast specific changes ie cd path, controllers etc.. But there are some exceptions.

Troy

Cap'n 1time
June 14th, 2004, 06:23
"After seeing that nice image the game looks like a command and conquer copy but i dont know so i have to say it would look pretty interesting on the dc and i hope things will work out with this port "


This dosnt at all look like a c&c clone... nor does it play ANYTHING like a c&c clone. Its a very unique game. Check out the PC version, its still cool, just not on Dreamcast. In other words, it could be alot cooler. :P

Eric
June 14th, 2004, 06:34
what i meant is its look like cause its a war battle type of game click and fight like command and conquer plays thats why i said it i can look at a game and can tell how it plays but if its nothing like that i can say it might be like warsong or final fantasy tactics type of game

Cap'n 1time
June 14th, 2004, 06:47
if you wanted to decide whats its most comparable to, i would say it was more like final fantasy tactics... But at the same time not really at all like fft. Once again, its very unique.

guymelef
June 14th, 2004, 08:12
looks like crystal warriors for the game gear

Christuserloeser
June 14th, 2004, 16:33
Shining Force or Warsong (aka Der Langrisser) are good comparisons I guess :)


also the SDL_net lib has not been ported to the dreamcast. I don't know much about this game is it multiplayer on the same machine or just across a network?

Network, yes, but it should be possible to also play the game against a second player with two controllers on one Dreamcast as it is a round based strategy game - Do you remember the secret two player mode from Shining Force 2 (MegaDrive/Genesis)?
Just that you'd still have other enemies with this game, where in Shining Force 2 you'd only have the Shining Force itself and the Runefaust army.

@GPF:

I've posted your thoughts at the Dreamcast topic in the Battle for Wesnoth dev forum:

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=22887#22887


Chris

Cap'n 1time
June 16th, 2004, 14:55
I am kinda curiouse as to how the controls would look. Any ideas?

Christuserloeser
June 16th, 2004, 19:03
Dave the lead programmer has confirmed his interest in a DC port over at dcemulation.com:

http://www.dcemulation.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=51757


Hi,

I'm the lead developer of Battle for Wesnoth.

We'd be interested in a Dreamcast port of Wesnoth, however Wesnoth uses rather modern C++ (heavy use of templates, exceptions, etc). I don't think it'd be feasible to convert it to conservative C++ or to C.

So, is it possible/easy to port a C++ program to the Dreamcast?

David


@1timeuser: Controls could be like in Master of Monsters, Shining Force or Warsong (Genesis/MegaDrive)

Chris

wraggster
June 16th, 2004, 19:47
maybe a slightly modified version for the Dreamcast is a possibility then

Christuserloeser
June 16th, 2004, 20:08
Would be great! This thing could be a commercial homebrew 4 DC and a really big hit too if it supports multiplayer (at least 2-4P on one DC) :)


Chris