The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

The Ur-Quan Masters Re-Release => General UQM Discussion => Topic started by: The Last Androsynth on December 02, 2003, 04:48:38 am



Title: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: The Last Androsynth on December 02, 2003, 04:48:38 am
Any consideration about porting the Star Control series (as The Ur-Quan Masters or under any other title) to the Nintendo Game Boy Advance? Toys For Bob already have a developer's license for the GameCube, & as the GBA is all that's keeping 2D gaming alive today, SC2 could keep it's original graphics & sound without being out of place there, unlike on the PC or consoles among all the 3D overkill games.

Super-Melee would be just awesome on a GBA multilink - players would play through the storyline to collect ships they could use in multiplayer against others. To increase marketability, the game might also come in different versions, with different extra ships for each race, like the Pokemon/Megaman EXE/Medabots series, so if a player wanted all the ships they'd have to buy all versions or trade with other players.

On a technical note, as the GBA's screen resolution has less width than the PC original's (256 compared to 320, IIRC) the sidebar could be removed - it doesn't have to be there all the time. Everything else would be ported 1:1 & still feel perfect on the handheld.

If the SC series will ever get a chance to be popular with new fans again & be officialy continued by TFB, while remaining financially viable for them, it is now on the GBA.

Please help in convincing Fred & Paul to at least seriously consider this. Thanks.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: JonoPorter on December 02, 2003, 04:52:38 am
there are several threads about this.

try the search button

most of them disscuss a few topics.
but mainly
how to fund it and would it work on that small screen.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Lukipela on December 02, 2003, 04:56:16 am
And the porting itself I seem to recall... Someone has to do that has well :P

EDIT: Why is it always Attention Fred and never Attention Paul?


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: The Last Androsynth on December 02, 2003, 05:07:31 am
Quote
Why is it always Attention Fred and never Attention Paul?


:) wondered that myself, but since I just arrived on this forum last night & saw a couple topics that were to Fred, I assumed this was the way to go, & that "Fred & Paul" might make the subject too long & get it truncated..heh

It'll be ATTN: TFB next time. Apologies Paul.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Androsynth on December 02, 2003, 05:21:32 am
Quote
And the porting itself I seem to recall... Someone has to do that has well :P


If they could port it to OpenGL  & OpenAL, taking it to the GBA environment shouldn't be too much of a hassle, just modifying the part of the game engine which interfaces to the hardware, & streamlining the interface so it takes less space on the screen.

There's nothing too complex in the game mechanics that the GBA's CPU wouldn't be able to handle, & it'd play the original, awesome, 4-channel music just fine as well.

But.. since publishing for the GBA requires a license, TFB will have to be there, as they are already registered with Nintendo. As for the funding.... ..hmmmmmm.. maybe Paul & Fred could somehow take it up with Infogrames, who as I understand now hold the right to "Star Control" after buying Accolade.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: JonoPorter on December 02, 2003, 05:31:03 am
Quote


As for the funding.... ..hmmmmmm.. maybe Paul & Fred could somehow take it up with Infogrames, who as I understand now hold the right to "Star Control" after buying Accolade.


If not mistaken and i never am infogrames turned into atari.

and i remember the atari vs nintendo console wars


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Culture20 on December 02, 2003, 07:00:25 am
Quote
EDIT: Why is it always Attention Fred and never Attention Paul?


Because Fred's the only one from TFB that's shown up here using his real name; and he's the programmer of the deific duo if I recall correctly.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Androsynth-X on December 02, 2003, 07:35:03 am
Quote


If not mistaken and i never am infogrames turned into atari.

and i remember the atari vs nintendo console wars


I remember the Sega vs. Nintendo console wars more vividly.

& I remember playing Sonic Advance 2 on the Game Boy Advance about an hour ago.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Androsynth-X on December 02, 2003, 08:24:05 am
 :-/ Hell, we have more obscure games from the Commodore 64, like Cinemaware's Defender of the Crown, making it to the GBA. Even Sega's Phantasy Star is on the GBA.

Star Control has way much more potential than lot of old series being ported over to the GBA. It would be a shame if it missed this chance to be a huge success. Done just right, it has all the elements needed to be a popular franchise; a vast ensemble of charismatic & interesting alien races, an intense combat system, & a deep woven plot to hold fans in waiting for more.

To attract new fans, it might be initially marketed as one of the fighter-collector breed of games currently popular, Pokemon et all - to the players who are into that, the storyline would serve only to collect new ships from, to battle their friends with. of course, as they progress into the plot the single-player mode will become more enthralling (pun intended) & soon they too will join our ranks - The Abandoned Children Awaiting The TRUE Third Coming of Star Control!

..of course on the GBA it'll be Star Control 2 they'd wait for ;)

Please. This needs to be done before the GBA is superceded by the next Game Boy, which might likely have a proper 3D chipset, hence indirectly requiring every game for it to be in 3D, which would make SC as we know it look a bit crude there..

:-/


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: guesst on December 02, 2003, 05:07:50 pm
Quote
Please. This needs to be done before the GBA is superceded by the next Game Boy, which might likely have a proper 3D chipset, hence indirectly requiring every game for it to be in 3D, which would make SC as we know it look a bit crude there..


Or the PSP for that matter.

Listen, how long has it taken to develop UQM for the PC? And we don't even have a stable 1.0 yet that the developers are satisfied with! Do you really think that there's any chance this'll be ported to GBA in time?

Yeah, I agree that a portable UQM would be way cool. Personally I'd rather see it in PalmOS myself so that I can play it on my (imaginary) http://www.tapwave.com.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: NECRO-99 on December 02, 2003, 08:26:22 pm
Quote
Hell, we have more obscure games from the Commodore 64, like Cinemaware's Defender of the Crown, making it to the GBA. Even Sega's Phantasy Star is on the GBA.


Speedball 2 - Brutal Deluxe has also been ported to the GBA. It was made in 1990, and very few people have even heard of it, let alone it's predecessor. A few years before SC2, so yea, they should bring it to GB, or some portable system of some sort. Cell phone games, anyone?  ;D
Ahhh..that game rocked back in the Amiga days...nothing like playing rugby with metal-clad warriors and a huge steel ball.

"The Last Androsynth"? Sorry man, there's two more of us here. :P


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: JonoPorter on December 02, 2003, 08:51:44 pm
I would much rather see one for handheld computers E.G. palm and windows CE


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Culture20 on December 02, 2003, 10:05:58 pm
Jay Mattis is working on trying to port UQM over to Windows mobile 2003.  He's got a thread in the Technical board.

Psuedo related note:
I played UQM for about 20 minutes on my linux-iPAQ by forwarding an X connection from a desktop PC.  It was quite slow due to the network traffic.  
<technical stuff>
Running UQM natively on an iPAQ has other problems too: unless Windows CE/PPC does memory management differently than the linux for iPAQs, memory alignment issues cause problems.  Also, the ARM and Xscale processors don't have any floating point units, so all floating point math is (currently) interpreted by the kernal and then converted into math that the CPU can handle.  It's _really_ slow.  Thankfully, there aren't as many floats & doubles in UQM as there are in TW.
</technical stuff>
So, it's able to be done, but it will take someone with a little more low-level memory expertise than me (hopefully Jay is that person).


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Rib Rdb on December 03, 2003, 01:03:47 am
I actually started porting uqm to the gba a couple of weeks ago.  It's not very far along yet (some image conversions scripts, and a few tests like playing the music or drawing the solar system star background.)  I have finals next week, so I probably won't be able to work on it much for a while.  I also have one or two friends who want to help after we finish this quarter of school, and another who worked on several GBA games (Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter I think), who's giving us some advice. I don't know if he would legally be able to help with the coding though.  

We talked a little on the irc channel about selectivly zooming in on the interesting parts of the screen so that we can keep the same graphics, and possibly using some of the pc content. As far as the sidebar I was also thinking that you could have the date, and maybe fuel, in a status bar at the top of the screen like there is in the starmap. Then when you pause the game, a box could pop up showing the stuff about your ship.

Anyway, I've already spent too much time playing with this today, it's time for me to start studying!


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Lukipela on December 03, 2003, 03:25:44 am
Quote


Speedball 2 - Brutal Deluxe has also been ported to the GBA. It was made in 1990, and very few people have even heard of it, let alone it's predecessor. A few years before SC2, so yea, they should bring it to GB, or some portable system of some sort. Cell phone games, anyone?  ;D
Ahhh..that game rocked back in the Amiga days...nothing like playing rugby with metal-clad warriors and a huge steel ball.

"The Last Androsynth"? Sorry man, there's two more of us here. :P



Speedball 2? I knew there was some reason I liked you.

*hits Necro with a pillow, but in a friendly fashion*


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Novus on December 03, 2003, 11:12:24 am
Quote

Speedball 2? I knew there was some reason I liked you.

*hits Necro with a pillow, but in a friendly fashion*


REPLAY!

ICE CREAM! ;)


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: NECRO-99 on December 05, 2003, 11:07:47 pm
*gets up, dons a pair of thick Bitmap Shades*
Aggression - 250
grrRRRAAHH!!!
*flings an electropillow at Lukipela, misses, hits and electrocutes Culture20*
Dang!

ADD
One of the things I like to do, just for gags, is raise the entire team by one stat. It's really amusing.

Aggression - They're weak, and kinda slow, but they just SWARM opponents. You win about 3/4ths of the games due to sheer casualties (and the points racked up because of so.) It's great when you annihilate all the opponents main fielders and about 90% of their (crappy) reserves.

Attack - You can rip the ball out of anyone's hands. Amazing you don't take the arm with.

Defense - You cannot be ripped. Period. The only way to lose the ball is to get knocked down or throw it away.

Intelligence - Your guys automatically set up excellent game-plans, surprise attacks and, as I call them, "ambushes" against your opponent who's about to recieve the ball. The Goalie gets hellaciously good, too.

Power - You can level any opponent in about 4 slugs/slides. Veeery useful for racking up pointage.

Speed - You simply cannot be caught, but don't get hit! Rolling further seems to do more damage.

Stamina - You never lose a player due to injuries. In fact, you can practically IGNORE damage.

Throwing - Your team has fuggin' trebuchets for arms. You can get about a full field lenth air-ball, and when you get an Electroball, you annihilate.

I usually get whacked when I hit Division 1, but it's great fun when I'm in 2.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Yukki on December 06, 2003, 08:58:09 pm
I'm sorry, I might go off the subject, but I am wondering about why StarControl addicts who want TFB to make the sequel/the new SC don't care about Minions at all.  I know Fred and Paul are still very interested in making the game. I feel the concept is fun and mixed SC2 with Pokemon (probably because TFB has been invaded by a Big Pikachu).  Also I even think if Minions hit the market and sold well, they might be one step closer to SC fans' dream. Frankly speaking, I'd like to play their own new game again and I hope their plan is within the odds...


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: guesst on December 08, 2003, 04:53:33 pm
You know what I'd love to see is a compile for UQM for Palm. There's this new device that has me creaming my ... uh, that I really would love to have called a Zodiac. You can get it's specs on http://www.tapwave.com. It's certianly powerful enough to run it. I even think it'd run on most OS5 machines.

Now all I need is a OS5 palm.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: chmmravatar on December 11, 2003, 03:40:52 pm
Quote

Listen, how long has it taken to develop UQM for the PC? And we don't even have a stable 1.0 yet that the developers are satisfied with! Do you really think that there's any chance this'll be ported to GBA in time?


Well, I'll go ahead and point out the obvious that we're all doing this on our free time, and lately there hasn't been much of that to go around. Now if TFB was actually working on the GBA port, I'm sure they'd be paying people, and that always makes stuff go more quickly ;)


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: guesst on December 11, 2003, 06:13:11 pm
Quote


Well, I'll go ahead and point out the obvious that we're all doing this on our free time, and lately there hasn't been much of that to go around. Now if TFB was actually working on the GBA port, I'm sure they'd be paying people, and that always makes stuff go more quickly ;)


Oh, and what, pray-tell, are you fine people so busy with, hmmm? TFBs newset game, perhaps? Details?


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Mika on December 11, 2003, 09:15:08 pm
Quote


Oh, and what, pray-tell, are you fine people so busy with, hmmm? TFBs newset game, perhaps? Details?

We all have been busy with so-called Real Life (tm) which happens to disturb things from time to time. I've been trying to catch up with my studies, which UQM managed to slow a bit too much ;) About rest of the core team, Meep-Eep is having an internship and so on.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: guesst on December 12, 2003, 04:31:46 pm
Quote
I'm sorry, I might go off the subject, but I am wondering about why StarControl addicts who want TFB to make the sequel/the new SC don't care about Minions at all.  I know Fred and Paul are still very interested in making the game. I feel the concept is fun and mixed SC2 with Pokemon (probably because TFB has been invaded by a Big Pikachu).  Also I even think if Minions hit the market and sold well, they might be one step closer to SC fans' dream. Frankly speaking, I'd like to play their own new game again and I hope their plan is within the odds...


YUKKI!!! Next to a post from Fred, I love to see you on these boards the most. I missed your post the first time.

So Minions is SC2-Pokemon.

...

I don't know what to say to that. It seems like such a passe idea. Any collecting games just don't seem to thrill the market anymore. Call it over-sautration.

Of course, if it's TFB, it'll be great.

You know what I'd like to see, and forgive me for going off, but I'd love to see "UQM - Yukki Art Edition" where all the conversation picts are drawn by Yukki! Animation may be a pill, but I still think the change'd be cool and Yukki's artwork is so kawaii! (Isn't that how it's spelt? I'm doing a search and only turning up Henti so I'll go with this spelling.)

Aside from StarControl and Unholy Wars doodles, do you have any other drawings on the web, Yukki? How, by the way, do you make your drawings? Pen and marker, or CG, or what?


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Nic. on December 12, 2003, 07:35:13 pm
Quote

We all have been busy with so-called Real Life (tm) which happens to disturb things from time to time.

What is this "life" thing you speak of?  It sounds somewhat interesting :)

But seriously, what can we, in the "peanut gallery", do to help you fine folk?  The current ad-hoc methodology of "pick a bug in Bugzilla, fix it, post the patch, and wait for the benevolent dictators to include it into their tree" works great when you gentlemen have unlimited free time, but when your time is short, things tend to get a little backed up, as evidenced by this list (http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/bugs/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&field0-0-0=attachments.description&type0-0-0=notequals&value0-0-0=%22%22) of open bugs with patches submitted waiting for approval/rejection; this, of course, only compounds the problem by frittering away your scarce free time on "clerical work".

What can we do to help you get the good patches into CVS, (and the bad ones thrown out) with minimal effort on your part?


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: chmmravatar on December 13, 2003, 01:41:47 am
Quote
But seriously, what can we, in the "peanut gallery", do to help you fine folk?  The current ad-hoc methodology of "pick a bug in Bugzilla, fix it, post the patch, and wait for the benevolent dictators to include it into their tree" works great when you gentlemen have unlimited free time, but when your time is short, things tend to get a little backed up, as evidenced by this list (http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/bugs/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&field0-0-0=attachments.description&type0-0-0=notequals&value0-0-0=%22%22) of open bugs with patches submitted waiting for approval/rejection; this, of course, only compounds the problem by frittering away your scarce free time on "clerical work".


Well, to be fair some of those bugs have had patches committed to fix part of the issue, but other issues still remain. Others are enhancements that are questionable if they will be added (like the progress bar for load). But the question does still remain, I suppose. None of these bugs are really of any major significance, though...there's only one crash, and even that is in a very specific situation.

I guess my thoughts on the matter is not many people get the CVS version, and 0.4 isn't coming out until the resource system is completed, so...there's not really a hurry on any of those patches. The one thing I would like, though, is the ability to mark bugs as duplicates...it's a minor annoyance, but sometimes bugs sit around for a few day that have already been addressed...it would be nice to be able to clean up the database if necessary.

Anyways, I'll stop hijacking the thread ;)


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Michael Martin on December 13, 2003, 11:28:53 am
At some point I should probably set up a guide for this kind of thing.  We tend to "sweep" through Bugzilla whenever we aren't grievously mashing the codebase -- sometimes we don't commit patches for a long time because we're busily doing modifications all through the system.

Having some kind of slightly detailed road map might help for splitting up results, too, I suppose.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Yukki on December 13, 2003, 11:15:08 pm
Quote
YUKKI!!! Next to a post from Fred, I love to see you on these boards the most. I missed your post the first time.

I remember you, guesst, because you like Unholy War:) I think Fred is just busy for a while.

Quote
So Minions is SC2-Pokemon.
...
I don't know what to say to that. It seems like such a passe idea. Any collecting games just don't seem to thrill the market anymore. Call it over-sautration.

Of course, if it's TFB, it'll be great.

Well, Minions is not SC2-Pokemon nor an imitation of Pokemon. As far as I know, Minions' monsters will be like SC2 aliens -- you have to negotiate with/help them and then win them over to your side or lead them to give you their information/items and so on. Also it will have a story like SC2. I'm not sure but it seems like you might breed the monsters. I wrote about Pokemon because I felt it had some impact on TFB. (The Big Pikachu is not a metaphor).

Quote
You know what I'd like to see, and forgive me for going off, but I'd love to see "UQM - Yukki Art Edition" where all the conversation picts are drawn by Yukki! Animation may be a pill, but I still think the change'd be cool and Yukki's artwork is so kawaii! (Isn't that how it's spelt? I'm doing a search and only turning up Henti so I'll go with this spelling.)

Thank you for your compliment but I'm too lazy to do so:)

Quote
Aside from StarControl and Unholy Wars doodles, do you have any other drawings on the web, Yukki? How, by the way, do you make your drawings? Pen and marker, or CG, or what?

Ususally I use Painter and Photoshop, but I used to do pen and ink. As for my web, yes, and I have my very old abandoned site which was written in Japanese.


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: guesst on December 15, 2003, 09:18:53 pm
Quote

I remember you, guesst, because you like Unholy War:)


That made me smile. I have a feeling we'd get along quite well if we weren't half a planet apart, with no reliable rapid transport system to bridge the gap in a spur-of-the-moment sort of way.

(BTW, Yukki, Are you a Boy or Girl? Not that it matters, it's just I don't want to seem like I'm comming on to you if you're a girl. I'm married you know. And the name Yukki can go either way, can't it?)

Quote
Thank you for your compliment but I'm too lazy to do so:)


Even if we promised to pay large amouts of American Money to see it? Not me, of course, I just had a kid so I'm broke, but I'm sure we could get [turns to reading audience] someone to step up?! What'dyawl say?

Quote
Ususally I use Painter and Photoshop, but I used to do pen and ink. As for my web, yes, and I have my very old abandoned site which was written in Japanese.


So do you do the line work on paper and scan it in, then color on Painter and Photoshop? Or is you line work in Painter and Photoshop too, on a tablet or something?

Link to your old site, please?


Title: Re: ATTN Fred: Star Control on the GBA
Post by: Yukki on December 16, 2003, 10:29:03 pm
Quote
That made me smile. I have a feeling we'd get along quite well if we weren't half a planet apart, with no reliable rapid transport system to bridge the gap in a spur-of-the-moment sort of way.

(BTW, Yukki, Are you a Boy or Girl? Not that it matters, it's just I don't want to seem like I'm comming on to you if you're a girl. I'm married you know. And the name Yukki can go either way, can't it?)


Even if we promised to pay large amouts of American Money to see it? Not me, of course, I just had a kid so I'm broke, but I'm sure we could get [turns to reading audience] someone to step up?! What'dyawl say?


So do you do the line work on paper and scan it in, then color on Painter and Photoshop? Or is you line work in Painter and Photoshop too, on a tablet or something?

Link to your old site, please?

Thanks for your reply but it seems like an "off topic" discussion forum is available now:)