First generation games for OpenPandora?


Sure, there ARE reasons why not many indie games are being sold for the Pandora right now, but I doubt it's because the system is open.


If it was closed, we wouldn't have any commercial NOR free games. With a few thousand sold units, it's not attractive for devs who make a living from it.


ONLY if they release it for multiple platforms - and in this case, it's good to have standard tools, as devs can code games for Windows, Linux, MacOS and Pandora in one go and just recompile it.


HTML5 seems like a good way to go, but it's not there yet in my opinion.


Even some of my faster PCs don't run it properly. Framerate is not constant sometimes, etc.


I tried some HTML5 games with latest FireFox 9 browser on the Pandora, and some ran at an okay speed, but most didn't offer keyboard setup change, so I couldn't play them properly with a DPAD...


HTML5 games might become interesting in the future though.


For an indie dev to sell commercial titles, there are some important factors.

  • Unique game (remakes, etc. don't sell too well) VVVVVV and Forget-Me-Not are good examples. I'm sure Super Geometry Dust also would've gotten some sales.
  • Good promotion (I'm working on that, as I'm currently also working on a new website with some help from a community member, which also allows uploading videos and picture galleries from users). Videos, Demo Versions (VERY important, in my opinion!), not locked down, etc. I'll also include a page with commercial titles there as well.
  • Avaiilabiltiy of the platform: RIght now, the Pandora is hard to get. This will hopefully change soon. But why should someone release commercial titles if the console is not that easy to get. That's why I'm contacting indie devs once the production is up and running.


Hiding a devkit won't make sense - if you are using standards like HTML5, Linux or Android, every dev basically already HAS a devkit.


And doing a non-standard system is a baaaad idea, unless you sell millions of the consoles...

StreaK said:
Theres no business without money. ED is heading in right direction, but this might turn into crap when investors will try to push own idea. ED will be forced to dance like investors say..
Click to expand...

Nope, sorry, no investors dance here. They have no rights to make any decisions,
 
Edd said

  • Good promotion (I'm working on that, as I'm currently also working on a new website with some help from a community member, which also allows uploading videos and picture galleries from users). Videos, Demo Versions (VERY important, in my opinion!), not locked down, etc. I'll also include a page with commercial titles there as well.
  • Avaiilabiltiy of the platform: RIght now, the Pandora is hard to get. This will hopefully change soon. But why should someone release commercial titles if the console is not that easy to get. That's why I'm contacting indie devs once the production is up and running.


This is precisely the solution i always envisaged.Videos, demos, etc. A proper place for devs to advertise their wares.
 
There are those of us who've invested in the Pandora, but it didn't make us shareholders with ED as the CEO answering our calls, it was just a loan with terms, we have no more say on future development than any other member of the community.


I think dual-licensing is what will sell this Pandora to the non-retro-niche crowd, and to abandon all of the work on the firmware, .PNDs etc would be a waste. What's so wrong about backward compatability Streak?


Regarding a Pandora 2, if it was dual-boot, Linux & Android, it could be like a Van Hagar song.


@ Craig, while I understand your push and like of the Android, I can't help but wonder why Google shut you down regarding the iControlPad Google Checkout. And still you champion for them even though they told you that the ICP is not welcome in their world. This is something I expected from Apple, but they are allowing iOS stuff to support the ICP. Everyone says Android is Open Source, but I guess BlueTooth is not part of that dialogue.


Just my 2ç.
 
The number of downloads on the repo as number of sales the 2 are not interchangeable.


Once person could have re-downloaded it mutiple times although in streaks estimated sales they pretty much match... however the people selling these games also sell directly without the repo too so its hard to gage the actual number of sales without asking the developers.
 
Unless there was a hardware software/price reason or some other issue then not having backwards compatability would be insane. You would just be fracturing an already small market. Future games/projects need to be clearly advertised with demos/videos/pictures and blogs from the developers etc and link straight to the repo (which could do with a little visual makeover and such in the future though its undoubtedly a fine achievement by milkshake) With small hardware sales we have to find clear efficient ways of making available and maximising games/projects sales etc. edit i doubt that the majority of people are even aware of aurora rift's existance or even that the Repo is capable of hosting commercial games/apps. Of course we need more pandoras and a larger pool of people to spread the word of mouth etc.
 
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Link said:
@ Craig, while I understand your push and like of the Android, I can't help but wonder why Google shut you down regarding the iControlPad Google Checkout. And still you champion for them even though they told you that the ICP is not welcome in their world. This is something I expected from Apple, but they are allowing iOS stuff to support the ICP. Everyone says Android is Open Source, but I guess BlueTooth is not part of that dialogue.


Just my 2ç.
Click to expand...

They shut down the account because we mentioned emulators would be my best guess. They don't like them. Although they have allowed a select few really shitty ones on the marketplace and some are there which even break the GPL.


Google don't know what they are doing because they are so huge.


However I believe their overall goal with Android is a good one.
 
Nyarla Labs has maybe just broken 10K sales of Forget Me Not and there are millions of iPhones/Pads/Touchs all over the world. As an indie dev, I think he's happy about that 10K number with the game out less than 1 year.


There's been almost 500 downloads for the Pandora since November. Almost 1 in 6 users have downloaded it. I know that through my word of mouth I've probably got them at least a dozen or two downloads through that software, meaning the iOS. Times that by 500 and now the Pandora is competing with the entire Apple userbase on word of mouth advertising increasing sales for that platform. Even if the Pandora user recruits 3 downloads per person, that 1500 downloads generated by Pandora users hypothetically if we communciate our love of games to our friends.


I'd love to know how many copies Wermy has sold. I just read the 10K number from Nyarla over at the itoucharcade site he's very active in. 10K might not be broken just yet, but he's close.
 
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Craigix said:
However I believe their overall goal with Android is a good one.
Click to expand...
What? Keylogging everything you do on the device? Pull the other one. Just wait until they start pushing their adverts at phone startup, making a call and the rest - because you do remember, Google is an Ad broker, right?
 
As usual ED stops me and my idea for a geniune troll thread, this time .. argh. ED you are just perfect mediator. You could really help me with my girlfriend everyday arguing :) . Videos + Demos are very good idea, indeed.


Anyway seems the thread was a good thing, at least selling of commercial games jumps from 6 to 7 for pollopollo and arora rift from 30 to 31. Hurray for good [and emotional thread :) ].


Btw. Im surprised that investors didnt want to have involvement in OP, its nice at least it leaves a clean hand for all decisions OP releated to ED. N.i.c.e.
 
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StreaK said:
Btw. Im surprised that investors didnt want to have involvement in OP, its nice at least it leaves a clean hand for all decisions OP releated to ED. N.i.c.e.
Click to expand...
Doesn't surprise me much. It's still a community driven project and I guess most investors are community members. It probably also takes some idealism to believe (and invest) in this project and its original idea. However it's exactly the original idea and the idealism behind that which makes the project interesting in the first place. Trying to change that is basically asking not asking for a Pandora2, but asking for something completely different that has nothing at all to do with the Pandora. (Which is probably why your ideas are not really reaching anyone here)
 
StreaK said:
As usual ED stops me and my idea for a geniune troll thread, this time .. argh. ED you are just perfect mediator. You could really help me with my girlfriend everyday arguing :) . Videos + Demos are very good idea, indeed.


Anyway seems the threat was a good thing, at least selling of commercial games jumps from 6 to 7 for pollopollo and arora rift from 30 to 31. Hurray for good [and emotional thread :) ].


Btw. Im surprised that investors didnt want to have involvement in OP, its nice at least it leaves a clean hand for all decisions OP releated to ED. N.i.c.e.
Click to expand...

Being that most if not all of the investors are from the community, they do have involvement in a very real sense. When you add into that that ED is known to give reasonable consideration to reasonable suggestions, the lack of voting rights is much less of an obstacle.


-Neelix
 
There actually have been a few things where I've asked the investors what they think about it, and I'll continue to do that, the same way I like getting ideas for improvements from the community :)


The final decision will be mine here, but as I've always worked tied together with the community, I'll try to go the best ways and I'm always happy to gather different ideas :)
 
Very interesting thread.


The only thing I can add is that I'm on of those people who bought a Pandora mianly because it ran linux (but also that it could run SNES games perfectly!). I would also be very unhappy if Pandora2 didn't run linux. I like Android a lot but linux is where it's at for me...


Now, if Pandora2 could run Minecraft - I don't think I would care what OS it ran (so so addicted...like nothing ever before)
 
miner49er said:
Now, if Pandora2 could run Minecraft - I don't think I would care what OS it ran (so so addicted...like nothing ever before)
Click to expand...
The current Pandora can almost run Minecraft, it just needs LWJGL (the graphics library) to be ported to OpenGLES.
 
From the LWJGL FAQ:

Does LWJGL support OpenGL ES?

Yes, OpenGL ES is now part of LWJGL, however it is not built with the distributed binaries. You need to compile it yourself using the supplied ANT Build files.
Click to expand...
hmmm... If I understand this correctly we would need to build lwjgl for pandora then hack it into a 'working copy' of minecraft? Or would it be somewhat more complicated than it sounds?


- Neelix
 
EvilDragon said:
HTML5 seems like a good way to go, but it's not there yet in my opinion.


Even some of my faster PCs don't run it properly. Framerate is not constant sometimes, etc.


I tried some HTML5 games with latest FireFox 9 browser on the Pandora, and some ran at an okay speed, but most didn't offer keyboard setup change, so I couldn't play them properly with a DPAD...
Click to expand...
I see no future for (Handheld) gaming and HTML5 - it is just to slow an ineffective "far away" from the Hardware, I also tried some HTML5 stuff on the Pandora (craigs Demo for example) and even if it runs, it usualy runs in slow mo. It is like flash but even more inefficient. :D


I prefer the opposite thing: optimized coding close to the Hardware, without a gazillion software layers underneeth, at least without browsers needed for gaming. Does HTML5 even allow HW acceleration features and such stuff?


I only see that HTML5 leeds to big and fast CPUs that have to do stuff that could be done much more faster without HTML5. We already see this trend on the PC and I really don't want to see anything of this on a small handheld where the top priority should be optimizing stuff close to the Hardware and not wasting ressources with inefficient scripting languages.

WizardStan said:
The current Pandora can almost run Minecraft, it just needs LWJGL (the graphics library) to be ported to OpenGLES.
Click to expand...
my Quad Core PC with GTX460 GFX Card runs Minecraft at around 40-80FPS. It just never could run decent on the Pandora under that circumstances. We would need the mobile (java free) version.
 
Huh, I knew it was coming "eventually" but it's been in the works for a couple of years now.


Welp, let's see what magic hackery can be done here.
 
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