An Old Palm Os Game I'm Porting

[LimitingFactor]

I wrote a shareware Action/RPG game for the Palm Pilot 10+ years ago called "Secret of the Orb" and thought it might be fun to dig up the code and port it to a new platform. Despite the "classic" graphics and sluggish controls, it is still a lot of fun to play. I isolated all the platform dependent code and slapped together a Windows version. I have a BeagleBoard, so I'll port it to that while I'm waiting for my Pandora. After that, I'll try out some other ideas for games that will make better use of the Pandora's capabilities.

If anyone wants to try my demo version for Windows, you can download it here:
http://www.claydo.com/soto-win32.zip

I'll be giving out the full version for free when the Pandora ships.

 

[som99]

Looks nice Ill give it a try when the pandora comes.

//som99

 

[efegea]

I wrote a shareware Action/RPG game for the Palm Pilot 10+ years ago called "Secret of the Orb" and thought it might be fun to dig up the code and port it to a new platform. Despite the "classic" graphics and sluggish controls, it is still a lot of fun to play. I isolated all the platform dependent code and slapped together a Windows version. I have a BeagleBoard, so I'll port it to that while I'm waiting for my Pandora. After that, I'll try out some other ideas for games that will make better use of the Pandora's capabilities.

If anyone wants to try my demo version for Windows, you can download it here:
http://www.claydo.com/soto-win32.zip

I'll be giving out the full version for free when the Pandora ships.

Very cool. But the colorus harms my eyes :blink: (I know it's black and white because the palm was 1-bit monochrome, wasn't it?)

Perhaps on Pandora you can give it a more smooth palette, of course if you want, it's your creation.

Something like this:

The look reminds me a lot of Zelda Link's Awakening :lol:

 

[devhace]

Looks great, but I'll agree with efegea on the color thing.

 

[scarath]

Great news

 

[atomicthumbs]

This looks awesome. It reminds me of my old TRGpro, the only Palm III with a CF slot.

 

[jbr]

Palm IIIs were my first foray into handheld computing, thank you very much

I had a IIIxe and later the much improved IIIc, and let me tell you, some of those games were great. I'm happy to see anything that reminds me of those happy days being ported over.

I also agree about the color pallet, although maybe you could just make it a setting so the user can pick.

It reminds me a lot of Links Awakening, too, but that's a good thing seeing as that was an excellent game.

 

[javaJake]

Yes, this game does look like a fun one. The control lag is OK once you get used to it (hold the button until you're where you want to be, and not before) and I don't mind the colors.

It will be a good addition to the Pandora library.

Will you release the source code too?

 

[TheBrainSquid]

Really cool game, I can't wait to play it on my Pandora. It reminds me of the old gameboy RPGs I used to play.

 

[pkostrze]

For some reason "Secret of the Orb" always crashed my Sony Clie so I never got to play it but I regretted missing out on it... it's probably the only Palm OS RPG I never got to play! I look forward to your port, it looks like it'll be worth the wait. Thanks.

 

[iain.dalton]

If it hurts your eyes, turn down your screen brightness. I played games on my Clié (color, 320x320) and it didn't hurt my eyes. I think it's pointless to recolor all games that are black and white (text adventures, sudoku, palm games) to greyish yellow and white when you can just dim your screen.

 

[LimitingFactor]

I wouldn't have thought the black and white screen would be an issue, but it should be pretty simple to make the color palette adjustable for the Pandora version. I'll also be giving out the source code.

 

[benjymous]

I wouldn't have thought the black and white screen would be an issue, but it should be pretty simple to make the color palette adjustable for the Pandora version. I'll also be giving out the source code.

In the windows demo, the graphics are just a folder of bmps. I coloured a few in, and the game seems to load them fine and display them without problem.

As long as you make your engine smart enough to deal with different sized tiles, you'd just need to get someone to make a set of 32x32 colour tiles, and you'd have something that'd fit perfectly on the Pandora's screen

 

[gaterooze]

I like the B&W Thanks for porting!