What Indie Devs Have Been Approached so far?

[ekianjo]

I was thinking about commercial games following the recent posts in software news, and I was wondering how many Indie developers have been approached to convert their titles to the Pandora ?


Most of the indie game developpers these days also make Linux executables (at least those participating in the Humble Bundles and others alike) and I am pretty sure some of them would be opened to consider ports as long as :


- this does not require significant work for them to do it...


- there is enough revenue in the end for them to justify the extra work


In terms of sales it would of course depend on the nature of the game, but I guess sales could go up to a few hundreds (of course there may be 4000 pandoras in the wild, but I doubt a large chunk of them are still very active).


I would not mind getting in touch with indie devs to see what they think of the opportunity. But before doing so, I'd like to know which devs have already been contacted. No need to duplicate the efforts.


Please Let me know.

 

[EvilDragon]

I tried to contact quite a few devs, but didn't get a single reply... will post where I sent a mail a while ago.


You're always welcome to approach indie devs yourself though - any new one is very welcome

 

[notaz]

Soulkiller contacted quite a few, but this was years ago:


http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/43659-closed-source-ports/

 

[EvilDragon]

Probably a good idea contacting them again - as their games are a bit older, they should work on the Pandora.


I personally would also love to see the games from Nifflas, they are so awesome and perfectly suited to the Pandora


There IS a DS Homebrew version of Knytt Stories, so it should be possible to get them running on the Panda.


AFAIK, he used GameMaker, so the engine would need to be rewritten...

 

[ekianjo]

Allright, I will start contacting them

 

[pmprog]

Spelunky would be interesting, that was a GameMaker game, but he released the GM code; so it'd be do-able.


I contacted somebody regarding Steambirds, but I got no response

 

[Jey123456]

Im still slowly working on Star Sonata 2 port for the pandora, but i can only work on it in my free time, and a lot of work is still needed before the game is anywhere close to a playable state on the pandora. But someday, someday !


Performance wise, my benchmark tests are promising, the game should be very playable in the equivalent of low graphic on pc, but there are still some memory concern to fix and a few of our edits to irrlicht that arent compatible with opengles that i also need to redo.

 

[Stainy]

Allright, I will start contacting them

Could we get a pinned list going so people don`t double contact these guys


I have contacted Simon from Newstargames... worth a punt


and Petri from Kloonigames ( Crayon Physics ) etc

 

[PokeParadox]

You should also mention that the community also has devs that would be willing to do any porting required. Also ask what the best arragement over release would be, would they allow binary distribution and you just copy the data from the paid for version of the game (A la VVVVVV (I forgot how many Vs it is...))


Or if they want to port themselves, or Community can port (wether it be Pickle, myself, anyone else that will step-forward...) and provide THEM with the finished binary and they distribute how they wish.

 

[ekianjo]

Or if they want to port themselves, or Community can port (wether it be Pickle, myself, anyone else that will step-forward...) and provide THEM with the finished binary and they distribute how they wish.

Wouldn't most developers be concerned by someone else stealing their source code ? (I am not saying that's what the community members would do, of course, but for people external to us, what guarantees would be provided for them to accept someone else doing the ports?)

 

[PokeParadox]

Normally an NDA - Or providing a "work history" of previous ports i.e.


"Look I ported this game, and it was closed source, I didn't leak the code, I'm a good boy!"


But in any case, the main point is that some Indie devs may not feel they have the time to do the porting, so it may be attractive if someone steps up to donate their time to do the porting for them.

 

[ekianjo]

Normally an NDA - Or providing a "work history" of previous ports i.e.


"Look I ported this game, and it was closed source, I didn't leak the code, I'm a good boy!"


But in any case, the main point is that some Indie devs may not feel they have the time to do the porting, so it may be attractive if someone steps up to donate their time to do the porting for them.

Allright, I can point that out then

 

[Pickle]

It really varies on the dev but most of the time you get a not interested reply. I think having android is going to bring more titles indirectly with things humble bundle android editions.


For example I had approached the Osmos group and i got some No answer, but now I just saw the android version works on the pandora.

 

[ekianjo]

For example I had approached the Osmos group and i got some No answer, but now I just saw the android version works on the pandora.

Yep, just tried it as well, but it's not nearly as smooth as it would be if you had a native port on Angstrom (I believe).

 

[thatgui]

Yep, just tried it as well, but it's not nearly as smooth as it would be if you had a native port on Angstrom (I believe).

Besides the annoying fact that I have to start Android first .. baah

 

[ekianjo]

By the way, has anyone ever compared vvvvvv on Pandora vs vvvvvv on Android under Pandora ? I'd like to know how much "power" is lost between a native app and an Android layered app. That could be a good element for comparison.

 

[sswam]

I think we should offer a Pandora as incentive / assistance to any game dev who ports


and sells or releases their game for our platform.


I'd chip in $100 a hit for that.

By the way, has anyone ever compared vvvvvv on Pandora vs vvvvvv on Android under Pandora ? I'd like to know how much "power" is lost between a native app and an Android layered app. That could be a good element for comparison.

I suppose both linux VVVVVV and android VVVVVV would run at full speed, unless you turn on the broken TV mode.

 

[Maquis196]

I contacted the authors of FTL: Faster Than Light and got this reply;


Hello Chris,


We are open to other platforms in theory but we won't have time to seriously consider it for at least a few months. I'll keep this in mind though.


Thanks,


-justin


Now, im no developer so couldn't offer to do it myself. Awesome game and would suit the Pandora

 

[zLouD]

Look at the minimum resolution, wouldn't be a simple port i guess.

What are the system requirements?
Operating system: Windows XP/2000/Vista/7, Mac OSX 10.5.8+, or Linux (x86 or x86_64)


Processor: 2 GHz


RAM: 1 GB


Hard drive space: 175 MB


Video: OpenGL 2.0, minimum resolution of 1280×720, dedicated card recommended

 

[Maquis196]

Look at the minimum resolution, wouldn't be a simple port i guess.

What are the system requirements?
Operating system: Windows XP/2000/Vista/7, Mac OSX 10.5.8+, or Linux (x86 or x86_64)


Processor: 2 GHz


RAM: 1 GB


Hard drive space: 175 MB


Video: OpenGL 2.0, minimum resolution of 1280×720, dedicated card recommended

Well it's made for a pc so not surprising about that res. Considering how much happens in the game, the pandora "should" be able to handle it fine. As for proc and ram... I'm unsure why its rated so highly, its an awesome game but doesn't seem very CPU intensive.