Homebrewn Games Vs Emu

[pAiN]

EvilDragon had said he believes that this is the time for the Homebrewn games to shine since we have most all the emus at full speed.

I just want to ask you this. There is a PS1 emulator in developement. IT will never have any games that are playable. BUT!!!

This opens the door to many emulators. Neo Geo, Sega CD, TurboGrafix CD, better SNES, MAME, CALLUS, and any other system that was once thought as impossible.

Because of the PS1 emulator, you may see more coders try to emulate systems once thought to be impossible on the GP32, plus with all the Genesis emu with the cyclone core. That core can be incorporated into other Emulators to make them run better, correct???

I don't believe that the homebrewn scene will get that much better. I hope that it would, but emulators pretty much dominate the gp32 scene.

 

[davey g]

I don't think this PS1 emulator is going to help at all. You don't think the coders have tried hard enough to get speed out of Snes emulation etc?

I have to agree with EvilDragon.

 

[Shirohagen]

The skills needed to pull off a great emulator and a great game are different, as an engineer can make an emulator whereas it needs an artist to create a great game. Now I know that coding requires a great deal of skill and quick thinking etc but ultimately you then sit back and let other people's games run on it, so you don't have to worry about the gameplay, just solving the technical problems (which is an art of it's own!).

I think the two attract quite different people so I'm sure the development will continue side by side. Now we are starting to get game creation engines, there is less and less coding involved so the two really can diverge to cater for what people enjoy doing most, to put it simply (and to do them a slight disservice) imagination or problem solving. They really are two different "types" of person and we'll always have both in the community.

I was personally glad to see so many good homebrew games in the 16 days comp, as I'm not a coder, I would love to put a game together in something like Zot, my main ambition would be to do a Monkey Island style game if a SCUMM creation engine was ever created. Or I guess I could learn to code (ooer) I'm one of the ideas guys, I have so many ideas, but no coding ability!...

®

 

[mATkEUpON]

I don't believe that the homebrewn scene will get that much better. I hope that it would, but emulators pretty much dominate the gp32 scene.

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Well, this is even more discouraging. But at least, that's someone who clearly says that he doesn't expect much in homebrew. I just more and more believe this was the last big arrival of homebrew, and I maybe I'm the only one to think that, but this is disappointing.

 

[falken80]

I don't believe that the homebrewn scene will get that much better.  I hope that it would, but emulators pretty much dominate the gp32 scene.

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Well, this is even more discouraging. But at least, that's someone who clearly says that he doesn't expect much in homebrew. I just more and more believe this was the last big arrival of homebrew, and I maybe I'm the only one to think that, but this is disappointing.

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I think the Adic will be the last Contest with great entry...

 

[Topcat]

Well, as long as someone is coding anything, i will clap my little happy hands!!!
I love everything for the GP32, also players/viewers/OS/firmware and so on
And i have to agree with Shirohagen... all developers are not alike!!

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, just take a look at the last competitions:
There were some homebrewn games, yes, but most of them were simple and nothing special.

This time, we had REALLY innovative games. Xump is a great puzzler, Elena is a Tetris variant never seen before, Nazca Dreams is a beautifully made game, Lacuna is a fast paced action game, and so on...

When I look 1 1/2 years back, there were nearly NO homebrew games (except Minesweeper, Tetris, other simple games, ...), but mostly ALL new releases were emulators.

If you take a look, what we got this year:

The above mentioned games
Gianas Return
A lot of great Puzzlers like Numo or the games from Akuma no Houton
GPFinalWar

In my opinion, most of these games don't need to hide between commercial games for other handhelds. They are really High Quality Games.

 

[Sonic-NKT]

i hope new homebrew games come.. i would like to see more nazcadream like quality games, i know that is much... but the game is great a gp32 orginal
perhaps we have soon more great homebrew games, i hope so

 

[Shirohagen]

People only want the emulators so they can play great games, the audience is for gameplay in either case.

There are only a few people who have the ability to code emulators whereas the GP32 community is huge and everyone likes to contribute. Some people wrrite fanzines, or do icons etc like me, but anyone else who has an interest in coding is always going to dabble with game creation, it's the benefit of an open source console rather than a PSP or DS etc. We are the sorts of people who will always be fascinated by the way things work and want to create our own, I'm sure that if an emulation peak is reached, creativity will continue in the form of homebrew. (There are then the emulated platforms to code for too - new Speccy games etc) The gratification is bigger for an emulator, you would get a lot more people patting you on the back, but if you code a great game in C or for the C64 then that will live after the GP32 has gone, as it would be playable outside the GP32 world too, so perhaps the long term gratification is better and THATs the reall future...

®

 

[declaration]

People will always wanna make games for fun. There's not too many of them, but they are there. Handhelds are a great medium for homebrew games- ie- good for short periods, good for platformers and puzzle etc.

With Emulation at/or reaching its peak, the natural place in the market for the GP32 will be as the homebrew king. I expect the audience to die down substantially- wiith the PSP and DS etc taking lots of people with them, but the GP32 will hopefully become a great place for homebrewers to develop and release games long into the future. I cannot see such a developer friendly console with such raw power being released untill the GP32 2.

 

[Shirohagen]

Yeah, if the GP32 Mk2 was easily backward compatible then that would extend the lifespan of the current homebrew scene dramatically as everyone will want to target their coding efforts at a platform with a future and perhaps the GP32 Mk1 won't carry the torch past the PSP and DS etc, but it's successor could do...

I agree, handhelds are perfect for our kind of scene, I have been thinking recently of the GP32 being to the Dreamcast what the GBA is to the Gamecube, we have a nice little retro/homebrew setup there between them. A sort of subversive open source alternative.

Making things is fun and the scene we have is most of our only chances to be like the long-gone bedroom coders who started the games industry in the first place. Making games in the real world of business these days doesn't look much fun! WE are the luck ones (well, you guys who can code are - I envy you!)

®

 

[mATkEUpON]

Ok, good point about something: there are different kind of coders, so there are different kind of programs. That's obvious.

The problem is, that people don't really make the difference between the 2 kinds of projects. One of them is based on an existing program on another platform. So (and that's a guess, but I pretty much think it goes like that), all you have to do is, replace those gfx and sound functions, and input, to some Gp32 specific code. Then, you have to optimize those functions, and maybe tweak some other parts, to gain some speed.
The other kind of project is based on an idea. You have to gather gfx, sounds, and build the code FROM NOTHING (except for graphic, sound and input).

Here I'm not attacking the work of people like yoyofr or rlyeh, but I really think people should try to keep in mind how much work those programs involved. And maybe seeing that some other coders get pissed off when a topic about an already existing emulator gets so much answers in a few hours, will show people that homebrew games need support, what pays people doing that is YOUR FEEDBACK, AND ONLY YOUR FEEDBACK.

 

[woogal]

I don't believe that the homebrewn scene will get that much better. I hope that it would, but emulators pretty much dominate the gp32 scene.

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Wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. Emulator users pretty much dominate the gp32 scene. Emulator coders are few and far between. Just look at the large number of people creating excellent games at the moment, compared to the handful of emu coders. Never mind the fact that there's only a finite number of emu's that can be coded, for systems that have effectively stopped software development (and therefore there is a finite number of games to be played on these finite emulators), but there are an infinite number of games just waiting for people to create them.

Also, while we on the subject of emulators I had a thought the other day. Look at the fantastic homebrew that the amiga spawned, then try and imagine how dull the world would be if people had said 'why bother writing amiga games, lets just write speccy/c64/cpc emulators instead'.

The simple fact of the matter is that if people don't continue to write games, then in 10 years time all you are going to be playing is the same old stuff over and over again. Is that really what you want?

 

[don]

Yeah, woogal is right. I don't think there are more and better homebrew games than before, it's just that slowly homebrew games are getting more and more accepted by the dominating GP32 emulator user. I remember some opinions, back when Giana's Return first came out, some people were like, "what for? we already got frodo and Great Giana Sisters", other people were like, "Yeah, it's just ONE game, how could you spend 2 years on one game, imagine how many emulators you could write in two years".
I'm glad we're (okay, I'm one of the dudes only doing small and less sophisticated games, but hey, some people like it) gaining more and more acceptance by the user scene. People like Frolik start doing small reviews (a great idea, and a very good indicator for the acceptance of homebrew games), people are discussing Lacuna more than the emulators... Finally, homebrew games seem to get what they deserve. Thus, it is a good time to write games. That's probably all.
Oh, and btw, i'm thinking about doing a page focussing on GP32 homebrew games reviews. Is there enough interest? Are people interested in contributing?

 

[Tobriand]

I think, essentially, what it boils down to is necessity.

When any console comes along, assuming it is targetting gamers at some point, the first thing it needs is to be able to play games. Emulators open up vast libraries of games comparatively quickly - no-one disputes that. Thus they will naturally be the first thing to appear.

Now we've got that library opened to us, the panic is over - we no longer need to worry about the lack of things to play. Thus homebrew games start to get a look in. And they are popular - just not quite so hyped. As emulation backs off, games will get more of a look in - in that sense I certainly agree with Evildragon.

Personally, I think its very simple as to why emus get more press even in the current climate (which is much more game-friendly now than it was say 8 months back, I think). With an emu, lots of people are motivated to try it because there will be a couple of their favourite games that run on it. With a game, it is inevitably one genre, one game. Or it requires effort that your average joe either can't be bothered to put in or doesn't have the time to in order to create their own.

Basically, emus have a large market, therefore large response. Games have much more specific market - there are many sorts I don't enjoy that others find fantastic. But within the group who you're reaching there will be some brilliantly addicted gamers to whom you are just as great a saviour as they who write emulators, if not more so. After all, the temptation to turn on an emu and then flick through 500 games without playing 1 through to completion is massive. The temptaion with a separate game is non-existent.

 

[bringoutthegimp]

id much rather have more homebrewn games than another emulator. i couldnt care less about emulation for systems than will never become playable, seriously, what is the point in making a ps emu? yeah itd be good to show it off and all but its basically a waste of time.

 

[JyCet]

@mATkEUpON
I'm totally agree with you :huh:
How many people buy a GP32 to play with an emu ? 70% 80% ?
I'm not a good coder like you ... I code some simple game and I like my homebrew games ... the feedback is sometime very poor but this bad side dont discourage me
Yes I will participate at ADIC2k4 with a new and my bigger project I never build ... so after this compo I don't know if I will continue in this way ...

So finally:
CONGRATULATION for the 3 winners and all coders of this 16days compos (me too )

 

[don]

JyCet: No need for understatement, I think you're one of the best maker of homebrew games on the GP32.

 

[Alpha2]

When I bought my gp32_console I was doing it for the video playback and thought, "ooh emmulators? nice plus" but before I did that I looked at the commercial games and figured there were atlease 2 or 3 that I'd like (of course 2 of them had apparenly not been released at the time).

So now I have 99% perfect portable NES/SMS/GG and 75% perfect TG16/GEN which is cool (though I'd love to see the 75 come closer to 99) And cooler fully playable things like BoR. Emus are good for having built in immediate playability but to see brand new things with characters and stories would be a lot more exciting.

What I'd like to see more contests for fully original games that arnt Emulators or Doom wads or Tetris clones, thats not to say I dont appriciate the puzzle games we get I just think the system can do MORE so why stick in the black and white GB style games when the system can do things as good as a GBA? Unfortunatly there dosent seem to be enough people with the skill to fullfill that request... atleast not yet.

Emu coders code for the sheer desire to see if they can get something running on a machine that wasnt designed to do it. If they thought they could get pacman running on a calculator I'm sure they'd try might even be good for a laugh with his fellow coders and can occasionally even benefit us with some new bit of code that speeds up a languishing project. But a homebrewer has visions of new new horizions, bringing his ideas from nothing to fruition. We need more people like that.

 

[Wolfsclaw]

JyCet: No need for understatement, I think you're one of the best maker of homebrew games on the GP32.

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I'm really with you this time... JyCet is one of the most underrated coders on the GP32 and totally deserves the Guru Status!