"Porting" Games to Mobile

[pixelmischief]

Remember back in the Dreamcast and PS2 days, a lot of retro "ports" were released. The best of the 2600, Sega Genesis, and others made it to the newest consoles. Those of us who know about these kinds of things knew that it was just an emulator without an interface running that one ROM. But ignorance is bliss, and to those who didn't know, it was just a port of their classic favorite to their new system.

 

Today, the platform to be on is mobile; Android and IOS. These platform already enjoy a number of emulators for various systems. Emulation, however, remains a geek's tool. I know that when I try to talk to friends and family about emulation their eyes glaze over and they try not to drool on themselves. Not to mention how uncomfortable the mobile "store" services are with emulation in general; believing them to be copyright infringement engines.

 

I wonder if we could put together an emulation package for mobile that would be seamless to the user; something where the software is compiled into the package. Instead of "run this emulator and select your game", it would just be "run this game". The modern mobile user requires this kind of modularity and abstraction, and the gatekeepers at the distribution level would get their blessed checksum. A single game with a nicely designed tile for the launch pad - "touch it and off we go" - could be well received. No configuration, no long, unwieldy list of game images. No concerns about software piracy. Users wouldn't know and no one would care that that the underlying emulation engine and BIOS file might exist multiple times on their phone. There are plenty of application frameworks that do the same thing already. Compared to modern offerings, the size would be negligible anyway.

 

The packaging and publishing of such products could be handled by an expert service of our community, probably someone who is intimately involved with the development of the emulation part of the equation. The first one might be a little tough to get through the channels. But, if the effort was centralized behind a single entity, a once-formed relationship could ease the way. Once the framework got past, it would likely be smooth sailing.

 

I believe this could spark a lot of new development on the platform. If we could get word out to old school developers who remain dormant because they can't justify making the time in their lives to develop on a commercially dead platform, we may be able to vastly increase the size and activity of the community.

 

Thoughts and reactions?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

This seems as very good idea. Actually, you can do it already with current emulators - using proper command line will mount specific floppy image and start emulator with specified settings - so, you will see only game start, without any TOS messages, logo (TOS 2.06 excluded)

On some tablet lack of keyboard and mouse may be trouble - so joystick controlled ones will be usable best, I guess.

Of course, it is possible to create 1 single executable file, what will contain/do everything. Considering lot of storage space and expected not large amount of such ports it seems really as best way.

I guess that it would be like: emulator with all included - TOS for instance ~200KB - max 2-3 MB. Floppy image of typical Atari 1 floppy game - 500 KB (packed) . All together with SFX may be about 1.5 MB .

[English Invader]

Call me a purist, but I would rather see people become more informed about emulators and how to use them rather than see everything dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Understanding emulators, and learning more about the actual machines in the process, is all part of the fun.

[pixelmischief]

Call me a purist, but I would rather see people become more informed about emulators and how to use them rather than see everything dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Understanding emulators, and learning more about the actual machines in the process, is all part of the fun.

All part of the fun for YOU and ME, but not for the mobile gaming marketplace. Despite what we would RATHER, the reality is that the consumer wants a nice little icon for a single game on a tiled lauchpad. We could attract a whole new breed of developers here by offering the promise of publication and commercial viability if we could formalize this.

Edited March 6, 2015 by pixelmischief

[galax]

Emulators are too much hassle for some people, there was a thread the other day where a guy couldn't get past the "Cannot find TOS ROM" message on starting STeem, which is a pretty user-friendly emulator.

There have been a quite a few ZX Spectrum games released on iOS, not remade or enhanced, just wrapped in an emulator. The same companies also do emulators where you pay per title etc.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/jonathan-needle/id421662153
https://itunes.apple.com/au/artist/elite-systems-ltd/id339779247

Most of the remakes cop out and add an 'enhanced' mode or whatever though:
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/another-world-20th-anniversary/id460076328?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/secret-monkey-island-special/id324741347?mt=8

I just can't stand the 'retro' games where the 'pixels' rotate or can make sub-pixel movements, or are different sizes for different objects on screen, drives me mad!

[pixelmischief]

*Deleted*

Edited March 7, 2015 by pixelmischief

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Well, I will put this idea (with link here) on AF - where emulator developers are active. Would be nice to do some joystick game like Backlash for start.

Porting Steem to Android would be not so simple, because it has some asm parts + other OS related things. Hatari on Android is already done:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.RetroSoft.Hataroid

Edited March 7, 2015 by ParanoidLittleMan

[jhd]

Code Mystics did something very much like this -- there is the Atari collection (including both 2600 and arcade games) and the Activision collection (just 2600 games). I assume that it is running an emulator, but all of that is transparent to the end-user. Just select the game and go.

 

Unfortunately, neither package has been updated in quite some time, and so it is no longer possible to purchase additional games, beyond what is included with the original download.

[pixelmischief]

I just want to reiterate - because it is vital to the potential of the initiative - this is NOT about re-releasing commercial software. It is ONLY about creating a publication path for NEW software. Or, in cases where existing titles are "ported", they are done so by the owner of the copyright for their own purposes.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

What would be probably best solution is to make some kind of shell for Atari SW integration in one emulator:

That would be simple SW where can set main emulator switches - as emulated HW, TOS version, etc. + add floppy image(s) . Then SW would just compile it in single file, ready for run on target platform - mostly Android, I guess .

With that, everyone could compose it, from own sources - what would solve copyright problems too.