Wishlist for Porting Projects (Pt. 2)

[Apopas]

Hi all,

I read Phoronix for more than a year, but now I felt inclined to post something.. =)

Welcome! It seems gaming is an awakening thing...

[L33F3R]

I think it might be alot deeper than porting games. Seems it might be linux gaming in general. Even the old classic games are getting people fired up. That said, we are a more enlightened group.

[Apopas]

That said, we are a more enlightened group.

Well, that's for sure

[jonwil]

Leisure Suit Larry is 100% out, as is Space Quest, Kings Quest and Police Quest. They were all published by Sierra On-Line. Which was swallowed up by Vivendi and are now part of the giant maw that is Activision Blizzard. However, for the early games, you can play them using SCUMMVM or a similar interpreter (assuming you have the data files that is)

C&C series (and Dune series) are likely to be a no-go. Owned by EA plus (at least for the older games) the source may no longer exist having been lost when Westwood disappeared.

Myst (at least the first one and the later Riven) are right out unless you can convince Apple to do a port of QuickTime to linux. Both games used QuickTime for a large chunk of game stuff (and its not a matter of "replace QuickTime with FFMPEG").

I also didn't see any mention of The Bards Tale (classic RPG). Who owns it these days? My old manual has an Interplay logo on the cover but that doesn't mean anything given how many people bought various bits of Interplay IP and given how many early Interplay games are owned by other publishers (back before Interplay became a publisher itself)

One game I mentioned a while back, Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic, thats owned by EA and is therefore unlikely to be a goer. Although being a older DOS Game, it probably runs just great in Dosbox

Rollercoaster Tycoon (also mentioned earlier) is owned by Atari so thats out. But for those who want a similar game, keep an eye on Theme Park Builder 3D which is a RCT clone only better. (100% free too)

Question: For a lot of "big" titles, people keep saying "before <big company> would let us port <popular game>, they would want money up front". Is it just a case of money (i.e. if someone went to EA or Ubisoft or SEGA or whoever and said "here is <briefcase full of money>, please let us port <cool and popular game> to Linux" would that be enough or is there more than just money involved?

[hoorider]

I'd like to mention Baldur's Gate II because is one of my favourite PC games and it has 2 big problems:

• It doesnt work well in modern versions of windows
• I cant find a copy on stores

Other game that would be great to have a port is Final Fantasy VIII in my opinion.

[AdrenalineJunky]

lol... who's Ventrillo?

http://www.ventrilo.com/

[curaga]

Myst (at least the first one and the later Riven) are right out unless you can convince Apple to do a port of QuickTime to linux. Both games used QuickTime for a large chunk of game stuff (and its not a matter of "replace QuickTime with FFMPEG").

I meant Myst Online, not the single player series. While it may use QT, it's also getting open-sourced soon; so there's almost guaranteed to be a linux port one day. It's the magic of dropping source out, seems like we linux guys like to have games on our systems

The issue would be the assets, and maybe running some servers. Also if a port, preferably an OSS one, was done by a professional, it would likely appear a lot sooner.

[Apopas]

http://www.ventrilo.com/

Ah! This Ventrilo...

[Wyatt]

Ah, dredged up some more! Leaned fairly hard on the Indies in this batch.

• Knytt Stories - Might not have great sales (freeware, lol), but it's a good Indy game. Can't hurt to just have more titles under your belt, I guess.
• Gish 2 is currently under development and they've stated they'll have a Linux port, but eh, maybe they need a hand.
• Cortex Command - The devs at Data Realms have an OS X port already, and have entertained the idea of a Linux port. (http://www.datarealms.com/forum/view...=13972&start=0)
• Game Maker - There are a lot of games out there using this, including a lot of solid Indy titles. Not a game per se, but if GM users could output ELF binaries, that would be pretty sweet.
• Dwarf Fortress, if only for the chance to work with Tarn and Zach. That must be a damn trip...
• Armadillo Run - 3D physics game with some design heritage from The Incredible Machine. His FAQ claims he plans on OS X/Linux builds, but it's been a while. Maybe he needs help.
• Supreme Commander - Don't get me wrong, GPG didn't support SC nearly so well as Cavedog did with TA. In fact, I'm quite miffed about that. But to their credit, they did come decently close to an experience that was as fun as Total Annihilation. THQ is the publisher.
• Blockland - Discovered this one the other day. The developer acknowledges that it runs serviceably in Wine, but I know I'm not interested in paying for the Windows version. On the other hand, I love Lego, so a port would be an almost instant buy.
• Mount & Blade - Saw on Steam; looked pretty cool.
• Crayon Physics Deluxe - Phun may be more thorough, but Crayon Physics definitely has appeal.
• Darwinia/Multiwinia - I've been curious about these for a while. Looks interesting, reminds me of Giants for some reason.
• Speaking of which, Giants: Citizen Kabuto! Interplay....hmm... Boy, it sure would be swell to have a build of Giants that actually runs reliably....

Oh yeah, and Audiosurf would be sublimely magnificent. I think I recommended that Dylan actually seek you out at one point; from what he's said, he has a multiplatform clone engine already, so it might be really quick work.

[djack]

Dwarf Fortress, if only for the chance to work with Tarn and Zach. That must be a damn trip...

There is already a Linux version. It isn't exactly publicised on the main page, but if you do a search for linux on their forum i seems easy to find. I meant to have a look at this a few weeks back, thanks for reminding me about it.

Armadillo Run - 3D physics game with some design heritage from The Incredible Machine. His FAQ claims he plans on OS X/Linux builds, but it's been a while. Maybe he needs help.

Agreed, I would love to run this natively.

Darwinia/Multiwinia - I've been curious about these for a while. Looks interesting, reminds me of Giants for some reason.

Darwinia definately has a native version, available to buy from Introversion themselves. (As does their other great games - Uplink and Defcon). I'm not certain about Multiwinia though.