Hi there, not sure if this is the right place for this topic...
Like lot of people here, I play with videogames since I am a kid. [:D] Unfortunately, although I am working with computers, this is not in videogame industry.[:(] So I catch up at home [8)]
After having browsed this forum, it seems that GBA is not widely discussed as a development platform. If you are interested with this platform, you can head in the next few days to: http://rmstudiogames.free.fr to download a library I designed to facilitate the development on this console. It only helps in coding itself, not in every aspect of game development like Catapult for example.
Or you can head right now to download the freeware games I wrote with this system which are remakes of classic Commodore 64 and Amiga games... Enjoy it ! Any feedback is welcome !
My dev system is actually based upon a GCC suite. I use HAM compiler chain (GCC 3.2). I am sure that would work with the other wide spread freeware compiler in the scene, DevKitAdvance (GCC 2.8) without any trouble.
The library I provide is a C/C++ library on top of GCC. It "only" simplifies the way you manipulate the hardware, in a convenient way rather than weird binary operations (I do that for you). I know that lots of people wanting to develop on GBA are stuck with all that register stuff. Plus now I have started integrating high level concepts (sprite manager, more to come).
This system works fine both on emulator (at least VisualBoyAdvance) and on the hardware.
For the link API, no need of the official kit[:)] You can perfectly handle this through C, and I will integrate it soon in my system (I have all the specs, I only need time badly [V]).
BTW: I saw screenshots of Fuzz, if gameplay is in par with gfx, it should be a big hit !!!
Nice tetris conversion! Brings back so many memories [:)].. and yeh, I agree, the C64 version of tetris was miles ahead than the others that were around at that time. Nice art, and some great atmospheric/trippy music too!
There are plenty of excellant c64 and Amiga games that beg for conversion or even an update.. I mostly emulate the games that I loved though!
Thanks Souri !
It reminds us that in the good old days, even with low end platforms, you could have some really nice things achieved.
It's why I love to reprogram classics, because it brings back lots of memories, and I enjoy doing that. Not working in the games industry, at least I participate to it. When people tell me they enjoyed my work, there is nothing more rewarding [;)] I just wish I had more time to implement old classics. The list is endless: H.E.R.O., Oil's Well, Archon, Tapper, ...
A few games have made their way commercially though: Manic Miner, Speedball 2, Defender Of The Crown, Classic Arcade collections (Namco, Midway, Konami), Boulder Dash, Ghouls'N Ghosts, Bubble Bobble, ...
Hello there,
at last my website has been redesigned... Also, as I mentionned it earlier, you can download the C/C++ library I wrote in order to help with GBA programming. All my games were written with it.
It's here: http://rmstudiogames.free.fr
Well at the AGDC Half-Brick Studios showed off a game that they made for the GBA using Cygwin, GCC, and an emulator. It was a really old-school type platformer named: Fuzz and Rocket (It got my vote!). It seemed to show that GBA development can actually be relatively easy if you want to make a plain game, however for the link API etc I would suspect that you'd need the official GBA kit.
I would say using the good ol' GNU tools would be the easiest way to develop for the GBA.