Pandora Ohrrpgce On Pandora

[SiegfriedCroes]

Hi, I'm new here on the forums, I became interested in homebrew/opensource a while ago. First I was looking at homebrew for DS but then someone linked me to a site where I saw the Pandora. I knew right away that this was the system I needed! I always wanted to make my own games, and of course it would be awesome to play them on a handheld system!

Now, back to what this topic is about. Would it be great to make an RPG on the Pandora itself even if you are not a programmer? In the past I used a program called OHRRPGCE which means Official Hamster Republic Role Playing Game Construction Engine (you can forget the full name right away). It's a very simple program to make Final Fantasy (on Super Nintendo) like games without any programming. On the site http://www.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce I saw that there is a linux version (and a sourcecode). Would it be able to run on the Pandora, I wonder?

 

[Downsider]

I dunno much about FreeBasic, but since it's written in that, it'll be more difficult than a regular port.

 

[viridior]

Hi, I'm new here on the forums, I became interested in homebrew/opensource a while ago. First I was looking at homebrew for DS but then someone linked me to a site where I saw the Pandora. I knew right away that this was the system I needed! I always wanted to make my own games, and of course it would be awesome to play them on a handheld system!

Now, back to what this topic is about. Would it be great to make an RPG on the Pandora itself even if you are not a programmer? In the past I used a program called OHRRPGCE which means Official Hamster Republic Role Playing Game Construction Engine (you can forget the full name right away). It's a very simple program to make Final Fantasy (on Super Nintendo) like games without any programming. On the site http://www.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce I saw that there is a linux version (and a sourcecode). Would it be able to run on the Pandora, I wonder?



I looked at the initial documentation and references, but did not get too involved. It appears that there is ~x86 Gentoo support, but nothing specifically made for the arm platform, however the support packages are supported by Gentoo for the arm architecture. So to sum those two sentences, the support libraries already have arm support but ohrrpgce itself appears to only have been developed for the x86 (at least for Gentoo), therefore it will need to be ported.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

To bad I'm not a programmer myself (I'm more of an artist), so I will not be able to port it myself... Maybe someone else could do it in the future.

By the way, I think I posted this topic in the wrong place, sorry for that. Maybe it would be a good idea to move this it to the general discussion, to see if there are more people interested in this RPG creator.

 

[audovoice]

Before this topic is moved I second the want for a program like this but it does not look like it supports complex scripting. Making really complex logic branches in the event editor was the funnest part of rpg maker XP... but that program will never make it onto Pandora. Plus this program has the advantage of bringing a lot of existing games with it. That and the low rez graphics would display well almost as is. If some one did make a port it would be nice if there was an internal variable that could be flipped to allow the 16x16 pixle tiles to make screens 25 tiles wide and 15 tall and then double then have the resolution scale to fit the screen perfectly. As is it looks like it is 320 × 200 pixels.

 

[sindbad]

If all of it's dependencies exist in gentoo arm, only the freebasic compiler needs to support arm. Since it uses binutils it might, but I haven't found anything certain.

Btw, horrible name.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

Before this topic is moved I second the want for a program like this but it does not look like it supports complex scripting. Making really complex logic branches in the event editor was the funnest part of rpg maker XP... but that program will never make it onto Pandora. Plus this program has the advantage of bringing a lot of existing games with it. That and the low rez graphics would display well almost as is. If some one did make a port it would be nice if there was an internal variable that could be flipped to allow the 16x16 pixle tiles to make screens 25 tiles wide and 15 tall and then double then have the resolution scale to fit the screen perfectly. As is it looks like it is 320 × 200 pixels.

Actually you can go quite complex with the external script editor, it's a very simple program language called hamsterspeak, you can just write it in notepad and then compile it with hamsterspeak.exe. the commands in this script are like the following:

script, intro, begin
suspend player
walk hero (me, north, 2)
wait (8)
...

Here the hero will walk 2 tiles north and than wait 8 ticks. With more advanced command some people even made 2d platformgames.

the tiles are 20x20 (strange format I know), so it will be 16 tiles wide and 10 tall. that's 16:10 format and if I am not mistaken the pandora screen has that aspect ratio. So it would be perfect, like you said!

for an example of a good game made with the OHRRPGCE ---> http://crucial-destiny.000webhost.com/cdex.html

 

[audovoice]

Actually you can go quite complex with the external script editor, it's a very simple program language called hamsterspeak, you can just write it in notepad and then compile it with hamsterspeak.exe. the commands in this script are like the following:

script, intro, begin
suspend player
walk hero (me, north, 2)
wait (8)
...

Here the hero will walk 2 tiles north and than wait 8 ticks. With more advanced command some people even made 2d platformgames.

the tiles are 20x20 (strange format I know), so it will be 16 tiles wide and 10 tall. that's 16:10 format and if I am not mistaken the pandora screen has that aspect ratio. So it would be perfect, like you said!

for an example of a good game made with the OHRRPGCE ---> http://crucial-destiny.000webhost.com/cdex.html



I meant more like complex conversation branches with multiple choices (and not just y/n) and variables like how many times you pissed this person off by selecting a response that affects a variable by one point or a variable amount. Or for a walking event to follow the hero and be solid but become passable after 1 second of the hero walking into them.

There are so many 'if this happens then this happens'. 'If this happens then this can exist'. It really helps to have some math functions you can call on and as many variables and switches as you want. But maybe hamsterspeak does have a lot of this. I just get a kick out of making things more complicated then they have to be. About the only "game" I ever made was just a couple of nice maps with custom music and party member that was as complicated as I could make her. She had a lot of dialog but also you could send her places and also tell her to wait on any map. Also when teleporting between maps she would appear near the hero on the new map. That does not sound like much but it is what you need to have a NPC on the sophistication level of fallout 1 and 2. If OHRRPGCE can do that I'd be pleased to use it.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

I meant more like complex conversation branches with multiple choices (and not just y/n) and variables like how many times you pissed this person off by selecting a response that affects a variable by one point or a variable amount. Or for a walking event to follow the hero and be solid but become passable after 1 second of the hero walking into them.

There are so many 'if this happens then this happens'. 'If this happens then this can exist'. It really helps to have some math functions you can call on and as many variables and switches as you want. But maybe hamsterspeak does have a lot of this. I just get a kick out of making things more complicated then they have to be. About the only "game" I ever made was just a couple of nice maps with custom music and party member that was as complicated as I could make her. She had a lot of dialog but also you could send her places and also tell her to wait on any map. Also when teleporting between maps she would appear near the hero on the new map. That does not sound like much but it is what you need to have a NPC on the sophistication level of fallout 1 and 2. If OHRRPGCE can do that I'd be pleased to use it.

You can do all these things in hamsterspeak, even things like checking if an npc is facing you to check if he can see you when you steal something from his house,... also in the newest version you can make menu, so you can modify the main menu and maybe you could use it for choice too.

It started out as an engine for DOS so everything is done with the keyboard, only in the draw mode you can use the mouse so it will be very easy to use.

 

[multiplex]

I've been thinking about this as well. I don't see any non-x86 packages for FreeBASIC though, so it may be a fair amount of work to port, depending on how it's written. The DOS version of OHRRPGCE can be run in DOSBox, but I think that'll be too slow to be practical.

Actually, I just had a look at the FreeBASIC code, and I can't imagine why they thought it'd be a good idea to have a self-hosting BASIC compiler. :blink:
Still, the code that would need to be updated seems reasonably localized, and I just might have a go at it later, when I get an ARM machine to experiment with.
I'd recommend cautious pessimism for now.

 

[audovoice]

You can do all these things in hamsterspeak, even things like checking if an npc is facing you to check if he can see you when you steal something from his house,... also in the newest version you can make menu, so you can modify the main menu and maybe you could use it for choice too.

It started out as an engine for DOS so everything is done with the keyboard, only in the draw mode you can use the mouse so it will be very easy to use.

Yeah I checked it out. If any thing there are more options then RPG Maker XP.
http://hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/index....Dictionary.html

And you can do dialog choices. http://hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/index....ialog_box_.html
To make verbose choice options you would just rename yes and no options to some line the hero says.

The graphics are a little bit of a drag but they are probably not to limiting.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

The graphics are a little bit of a drag but they are probably not to limiting.

it depend on how good you are at spriting. although of course, there are some limitations, like for the sprites you have to make palettes of only 16 colors out of your masterpalette that is limited too, but you can change it for example if you want a better grassgreen color, the default colors are just too bright!

but I think you can still make some good looking games, here 2 screens, the first is one of my own, a game I started not so long ago and I would really want to work on it again if I could do it on a Pandora. the second is from a game by my older brother, I like the spaceship in that screen.

 

[MarkoeZ]

nice oldschool graphics And i think that this is basic enough to run well in dosbox, there is even a mention of it in the wiki/faq somewhere.

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

nice oldschool graphics And i think that this is basic enough to run well in dosbox, there is even a mention of it in the wiki/faq somewhere.

The problem is that they don't update the DOS version anymore, so you are stuck with this old version. They included alot of important features in the newer versions so using DosBox is not a good idea.

 

[audovoice]

nice oldschool graphics And i think that this is basic enough to run well in dosbox, there is even a mention of it in the wiki/faq somewhere.

The problem is that they don't update the DOS version anymore, so you are stuck with this old version. They included alot of important features in the newer versions so using DosBox is not a good idea.


Getting rid of Freebasic and replacing it with some thing more widely used might be some thing that would help the project grow. At any rate some one involved with the project would know exactly what needs to be changed for it to port.

I just looked into it a little further and it turns out it was originally written in QuickBASIC and ported to FreeBASIC. So I don't know if it is really a case of only parts of the program that would need to be adjusted.

Actually as I look still further there is this http://gilgamesh.hamsterrepublic.com/wiki/...index.php/Ports.
There is a java port in the works, but the java port is on hold for 6 months and the C++ port is "in heavy development" but at the same time listed as Dormant. At any rate the writer "intends to use the project as a reason to do research into Windows programming and possibly DirectX". Its says also "currently, the code utilizes OpenGL and GLUT (may change to SDL shortly)". There are numerous other incomplete dead ports that don't look like they got any where.

For those that are eager the Alpha Java port does look like it can be used. But because the Java version is meant to run on cell phones it would be even more desirable to have the game adjusted with Pandora's screen in mind. Also it looks like it is only the game.exe that is ported and not the game tools.

Once Pandora is out and the Java port starts up again the Devs might leap at the chance to have a useful proof of concept for what they are trying to do in a much more limiting environment. This little image came with the demo game.

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

rpg maker is pretty famous.
I'm really happy to see projects like this, where the users are able to build games with no coding expertise at all.
I have ideas of making one myself, actually (but it's another game genre btw)

 

[SiegfriedCroes]

Also it looks like it is only the game.exe that is ported and not the game tools.

That would be a good first step, be able to play the games on the Pandora. Of course, making them on the Pandora would be even better.

A while ago I was making an Elder Scrolls like game in OHR, an open-ended, non-linear game. Quests, exploring, fighting, stealing,... It would be so cool to make it for the Pandora!

 

[audovoice]

Also it looks like it is only the game.exe that is ported and not the game tools.

That would be a good first step, be able to play the games on the Pandora. Of course, making them on the Pandora would be even better.


It occurs to me that the dos version of the tool set might be usable in DOSbox because it is probably needs much less to run it. However it does not have all the features apparently and I doubt it would just work as is with what ever the java build is right now. But I could be dead wrong on that point.

A while ago I was making an Elder Scrolls like game in OHR, an open-ended, non-linear game. Quests, exploring, fighting, stealing,... It would be so cool to make it for the Pandora!

Open ended games and they are much less discouraging to pick away at because every added feature makes the game better (tangible progress) and you don't have to necessarily worry about stuff like plot because it is not a get from point A to B situation.


Also this might be of interest to some one.
http://hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/index....ternatives.html

http://www.verge-rpg.com/
Active development and community. Of the game makers it is probably the most powerful. However it has no Linux port and it is hardly user friendly anyway.

http://zeldaclassic.com/
It has a dos version.

http://ika.sourceforge.net/
It has a platform independent version http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...lease_id=498476 and it sounds like it is powerful however it sounds like you need to know some python to use the program. For some that might be a plus.

 

[CyruzDraxs]

However it has no Linux port and it is hardly user friendly anyway.

I think you're mistaken.

 

[audovoice]

However it has no Linux port and it is hardly user friendly anyway.

I think you're mistaken.



That link can't be accessed with out a password and user name.

The site is kind of hard to find things in. Aparently there is a Mac port and
a Linux port http://www.verge-rpg.com/boards/display_thread.php?id=131086
and a GPX2 port. http://www.verge-rpg.com/boards/display_thread.php?id=131385
I don't know how good they are and all but the Mac one seems completely inactive. I don't know if that is because they are mostly done or if the people working on it just got sick of working on it. I gather the problem is that a great many people use custom modified versions of the verge execute and those do not work with any of the ports.

The person who was working on a GPX2 port made something that works but he stopped working on it when his GPX2 died.



I checked Verge out a few years ago. Your post might have been to prove it is currently very user freindly and I can imagine it would be much more so by now. I may have always been comparably easy to use considering what it is. But as they say here http://www.verge-rpg.com/docs/view.php?lib...amp;section=139 "at the moment some programming is required."