Porting Zelda Classic to Consoles and Mobiles

[HtheB]

Hi,

First of all, I'd want to thank to everybody who involved in the development of ZC.
I saw that there is a linux port available now.

I'd like to port this game to the Nokia N900 and the N9. Both run on Maemo and MeeGo (real linux, unlike android), which should be very easy to port with minimal things to change.

It should be possible to port this to the Nintendo DS and even the PSP.
I would like to participate on porting this to those devices, but I couldn't find the sources.

Is there any chance to get the sources or get in touch with the developers to talk about this?

Thank you

[Chris Miller]

I doubt they'll share the source code. The main focus in porting ZC is split between Windows, Mac and Linux at the moment, the "big three", if you will. They're the most practical platforms for it anyway, as it's oriented mainly toward use with a keyboard and mouse. You might look around for an emulator to run Windows programs. I believe there's one for the PSP.

[HtheB]

Well, the N900 and the N950 has a keyboard and a Touchscreen, so that shouldn't be a problem.
Both runs on a debian based linux OS (Maemo and MeeGo).
It has to be recompiled to run for ARM processors and a bit adjusted to fit with the OS.


Nokia N900


Nokia N950

[Chris Miller]

Interesting. I'm afraid I don't know very much about modern phones. My cellphone makes calls, and that's about it.

[SUCCESSOR]

@HtheB , hello! I am always glad to hear enthusiasm from a community member. I do not know the viability of porting ZC to mobile devices. I do know that ZC is being prepped for open source development release. This may take time. If you are an experienced developer you may speak with one if the current devs( @Gleeok or @Saffith ) about getting access to the repository. I do not know their requirements or they're willingness at this time.

Things I do know that have prevented such a project in the past:

Mobile devices lack the CPU power and memory to support ZC. Becoming less of an issue as devices are becoming more powerful

Allegro is not easily portable and usually requires emulation of environments it supports. This is the reason ZC 1.9 on the Wii used DosBox.

Mobile devices do not have the peripherals to properly use ZQ. Your phone has a keyboard but what about a mouse? ZQ is also not designed for touch screen input.

Also a modest ZC quest uses 6 input buttons(a b l r start map) and an 8 direction dpad excluding the possible Ex1-4 and mouse inputs. This makes it difficult for playing on touch screen devices.

All of this being said, I would love to see ZC ported to mobile devices. I personally would prefer Android as I am not a member of the Maemo or Meego communities.

[HtheB]

@HtheB , hello! I am always glad to hear enthusiasm from a community member. I do not know the viability of porting ZC to mobile devices. I do know that ZC is being prepped for open source development release. This may take time. If you are an experienced developer you may speak with one if the current devs( @Gleeok or @Saffith ) about getting access to the repository. I do not know their requirements or they're willingness at this time.

Things I do know that have prevented such a project in the past:

Mobile devices lack the CPU power and memory to support ZC. Becoming less of an issue as devices are becoming more powerful

Allegro is not easily portable and usually requires emulation of environments it supports. This is the reason ZC 1.9 on the Wii used DosBox.

Mobile devices do not have the peripherals to properly use ZQ. Your phone has a keyboard but what about a mouse? ZQ is also not designed for touch screen input.

Also a modest ZC quest uses 6 input buttons(a b l r start map) and an 8 direction dpad excluding the possible Ex1-4 and mouse inputs. This makes it difficult for playing on touch screen devices.

All of this being said, I would love to see ZC ported to mobile devices. I personally would prefer Android as I am not a member of the Maemo or Meego communities.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Well, the devices I mentioned, the N900, N9 and the N950 should have enough power to run it.
Believe me, the N900 is a BEAST :)
You can just pop in a Mouse and there you go, you have a mouse on your mobile device. USB Host mode. (bluetooth keyb/mouse also works)
Pop the TV OUT cable in, and you have an awesome "console" :)

Another thing to mention is that there is also a Game Gripper for the N900.
You just snap it on the N900 over the keyboard, and voila... you have gamebuttons which should work perfectly


Allegro is already ported on the N900...
http://wiki.maemo.org/Allegro

About Non Touchscreen apps... have a look at this (Skip to 2:20):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJghBapvnC0

What I really want to have ported is at least the gameplay part... (The creation part could be done. As shown on the video above that even THIS could be achieved on the N900)

[SUCCESSOR]

Allegro is already ported on the N900...
http://wiki.maemo.org/Allegro

Well sweet. If Allegro is ported then there may be a fair chance that ZC could run well in the N9 phones. To actually get access to the code before it goes Open Source you will have to talk to a ZC Developer. Also I know almost nothing about Allegro and nothing about how ZC is built.

Since you posted this I am wondering how difficult it would be to port ZC/Allegro to Android with Android NDK. I suppose with a large touch screen(I have a 4.7inch screen with 720p display) most quests could be playable with a touch screen.

[HtheB]

Well sweet. If Allegro is ported then there may be a fair chance that ZC could run well in the N9 phones. To actually get access to the code before it goes Open Source you will have to talk to a ZC Developer. Also I know almost nothing about Allegro and nothing about how ZC is built.

Since you posted this I am wondering how difficult it would be to port ZC/Allegro to Android with Android NDK. I suppose with a large touch screen(I have a 4.7inch screen with 720p display) most quests could be playable with a touch screen.

After a quick search, it seems like that allegro is ported aswell to Android. So Maemo AND Android both could be done if you ask me :)

[Gleeok]

@HtheB : Yes, it is possible. Post 2.5 ZC is all going to be open-source; you've just got us at the transitioning phase right now, where, I'm sorry to say, we are lagging a bit. (We are working on it.)

After a quick search, it seems like that allegro is ported aswell to Android. So Maemo AND Android both could be done if you ask me :)

I could be mistaken but I believe only the allegro 5 branch works on Android. Unfortunately 4.x and 5 are incompatible (A5 is D3D/GL hardware accelerated and has no packfiles). I think someone was working on an allegro 4 to 5 wrapper library but I don't know how complete it is.

Personally, I'd love to see ZC ports for the Wii, PSP, Android (OUYA) consoles. The DS may be very difficult if not impossible though...IDK. Were you able to run allegro examples on any devices with success so far?

[HtheB]

@HtheB : Yes, it is possible. Post 2.5 ZC is all going to be open-source; you've just got us at the transitioning phase right now, where, I'm sorry to say, we are lagging a bit. (We are working on it.)


I could be mistaken but I believe only the allegro 5 branch works on Android. Unfortunately 4.x and 5 are incompatible (A5 is D3D/GL hardware accelerated and has no packfiles). I think someone was working on an allegro 4 to 5 wrapper library but I don't know how complete it is.

Personally, I'd love to see ZC ports for the Wii, PSP, Android (OUYA) consoles. The DS may be very difficult if not impossible though...IDK. Were you able to run allegro examples on any devices with success so far?

Allegro 4 (version 4.4.2) is ported on the N900 as told before, so there are a couple games that uses Allegro on the N900.

Check out the discussion concerning this:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1050896
and on https://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/607818