Gravity Force Port... Would Be Awesome!

[___]

If anyone remembers this game... it brought many hours of fun for me and my little bro as we hacked through it when we used to have our first intel computer with win95.

Source is available here if you click the "download" menu item.

The game is written in c++ and uses allegro for almost everything, music is played through jgmod but I am sure that this can be easily fixed with mikmod or another library for the gp2x that can play mods.

This game would surely be a nice addition to the gp2x games library.

There is also a newer version of the game called gravity strike, but it's more or less a multiplayer game with no consistent order of missions and it has higher requirements.

 

[___]

*bump*

 

[Parkydr]

It was hard work to get it to compile on Linux (including jgmod and allegttf) there were quite a few compile and configuration errors.

It now runs on the GP2X but the main problem is it's 640x480 and the sprites are held in password protected allegro datafiles - not impossible but more of a pain to resize.

Hardware scaling might be possible (it works for SDL) but the result is usually unreadable text.

At that point I was overcome with a bad case of CBA - too much like hard work.

 

[___]

Ah... now that's at least a start. Tell ya what. I will email the developer and ask kindly for unprotected files/password and see where that gets us. I imagine it would run quite smooth already if we didn't have to scale anything. I would be up for some sprite editing aswell, as to redesign the menu etc.

EDIT:
Done... Sent the dev a lengthy email and asked for a little help. I am sure he will be willing to assist if he still actually has the password for the files ^^. Otherwise, maybe he's got the sprites flying around bulk, as I think he used almost all of them in his latest gravity game, gravity strike.

Let's see how it turns out.

@ParkyDr: thanks for your attention and effort, mate!

 

[DaveC]

There was a port of this to the GP32 before. Actually I think it was a re-make of the Amiga version. It should be possible to do.

If someone were to port the PC one I am sure some artists here could re-draw the tiles and sprites to 320 x 240. That would make more sense then rendering at 640x480 and then scaling down. Not only would it look better native res but it would not need as much power to run at 320 x 240 as it would at 640 x 480.

 

[___]

If someone were to port the PC one I am sure some artists here could re-draw the tiles and sprites to 320 x 240. That would make more sense then rendering at 640x480 and then scaling down. Not only would it look better native res but it would not need as much power to run at 320 x 240 as it would at 640 x 480.

Yeah, that's why we are trying to get the passwords for the datafiles, maybe we can scale the images down then without too much of a hassle and loss of prettyness ^^. We could also touch up a few things. I would imagine the menu would require redesigning aswell.

 

[Parkydr]

The passwords are in the code, that's not the problem.

I don't know if there's a program that reads/writes allegro packed data files and the actual image format used (but I think it's BMP).

It would be possible to write a program to extract the data (it does it in the game).

The main problem was CBA (couldn't be arsed ). The information's there, it's just the effort involved in learning more about allegro - I was hoping it would be an easier port.

I don't get lots of dev time and I'm trying to do updates to some of my existing projects. I'm also a bit dev'ed out with my recent ports and work.

I probably get round to it eventually but don't hold your breath.

 

[claus]

I remember the gp32 port it was the same as the amiga version. I have been hoping for that to be ported to the gp2x

 

[Parkydr]

Found the Allegro command for extracting/creating datafiles (it's called grabber)

Edit: grabber is graphical editor

 

[___]

cool. Hopefully that will get us further. ParkyDr, I am not holding my breath, but I am still hoping ;-)

 

[moxie]

2-player Gravity Force on the Amiga 1000-boxes at the computer club at school...Mmm...Give me a good keyboard to control my ship with (the keyboard controls were much better than the joystick), and I'll blow you all to little bits

 

[___]

Actually I wonder why you haven't been made guru yet, Parky. Same goes for Alex. Two really great devs of gp2x homebrew...

 

[saehn]

Actually I wonder why you haven't been made guru yet, Parky. Same goes for Alex. Two really great devs of gp2x homebrew...

Hear, hear.

 

[sensible GP32]

you're not wrong ill ask the powers that be.

 

[___]

Okay, I have waited a couple of days and so far no news from the original developer. I guess the password problem is solved (as I could have figured out myself using a little logic ;-)). Well, now it depends on ParkyDr. If he sees it to be feasable and if he's got the time, and if he is willing to spend that time ^^. And if he doesn't, who knows, maybe someone else will port it sometime.

 

[Parkydr]

I've started on the graphics - I've managed to get the images for the menu out and resized them, trying to work out how to get them back in now

 

[___]

awesome! sounds good. If I can assist you in any way, please tell me so.

 

[Treebiter]

There was an enhanced vesion called Gravity Power that came on the front of Amiga Power (natch). More maps and options and stuff. Just so you know.

 

[A_SN]

Reminds me of Steel Fighters for Mac OS 8-9. Pretty nice shareware game that was.

 

[___]

*bump*
Any news? Sorry for being impatient but it's my birthday today and some news might just make my day even better ^^.