If you like Bard's Tale, port this to the Amiga, so I can continue doing art for it!

[Methuselas]

http://www.identicalsoftware.com/btbuilder/
 
 
Okay, Guys. if you're a coder and you liked the Bard's Tale series, this is an open sourced version of the Bard's Tale Construction Set. Currently, there's one coder who's maintaining the Linux port. I do all the art for the game currently (you can see screenshots on the page), but I can't test graphics for the game, 'cos there's no port for Windoze or Amiga and it leaves me to send the art to the coder, who then gives me bug reports. I'd like to take out the middleman. :afro:
 
So....
 
Someone port the game, please.  
 
Look at it this way, it's an additional game that the Amiga has. I would prefer that it were OS3.X, as I'd be doing testing in WinUAE.
 
Thanks in Advance.

[Voyager74]

Oh :sadmemories: !

I recall how frustrated I was that the Amiga-port of the game was OCS/ECS
only, and it wouldn't work with the A600 I had at the time when the game was new...

[Methuselas]

Yes, I was completely disappointed with the game, when I first purchased it. This one looks promising and it's being coded by one of the coders who did the more modern Devil's Whiskey clone of BT. I've yet to see the game in action, though, as it's only a linux port. Basically, I send in images, hoping for the best and fix bugs in the graphics, when the coder sends me screenshots. =/

Kinda sucks, but it's a game I'd love to have. Eventually.....

[Linde]

http://www.identicalsoftware.com/btbuilder/
 
 
Okay, Guys. if you're a coder and you liked the Bard's Tale series, this is an open sourced version of the Bard's Tale Construction Set. Currently, there's one coder who's maintaining the Linux port. I do all the art for the game currently (you can see screenshots on the page), but I can't test graphics for the game, 'cos there's no port for Windoze or Amiga and it leaves me to send the art to the coder, who then gives me bug reports. I'd like to take out the middleman. :afro:
 
So....
 
Someone port the game, please.  
 
Look at it this way, it's an additional game that the Amiga has. I would prefer that it were OS3.X, as I'd be doing testing in WinUAE.
 
Thanks in Advance.

Yeah, because porting the thing to another system is way easier than installing linux on a virtual machine

The game looks good though. Good luck!

[SamuraiCrow]

It's an SDL-based program and GPL licensed.  It should be a straightforward port assuming that all the file access is not little-endian dependent.

Update:  It uses PhysFS and XML for file access.  If anyone has an Amiga version of PhysFS, let me know.  A Windows version would be simple enough, getting PhysFS on the Amiga may require some tickling of the PhysFS makfiles.

Update2:  Since PhysFS uses CMake as its build process it may be difficult to make an Amiga version but a Windows version would be easy.  I have the program running on my Mac with only a slight change to the Linux Makefile.

[Methuselas]

It's an SDL-based program and GPL licensed. It should be a straightforward port assuming that all the file access is not little-endian dependent.
 
Update: It uses PhysFS and XML for file access. If anyone has an Amiga version of PhysFS, let me know. A Windows version would be simple enough, getting PhysFS on the Amiga may require some tickling of the PhysFS makfiles.
 
Update2: Since PhysFS uses CMake as its build process it may be difficult to make an Amiga version but a Windows version would be easy. I have the program running on my Mac with only a slight change to the Linux Makefile.

Hey, Sam do you think I could get your makefile so we can say there's a mac port? I don't know heads or tails of how to code really, other than game scripting and MEL scripting, but this is way beyond me, so if someone were to give me some pointers, I could try and port it to windows.
 
As for running Linux in a vitrual environment, I wouldn't even know where to start with that, much less compiling code.

[motorollin]

As for running Linux in a vitrual environment, I wouldn't even know where to start with that, much less compiling code.

You can download a trial version of Parallels here:

http://www.parallels.com/uk/products/workstation/

Once you have installed it, you just stick a Linux CD in your PC, fire up Parallels, use the wizard to configure the virtual machine (which is very, very easy) then install as normal. It's really easy, and certainly quicker than porting the software.

[Methuselas]

You can download a trial version of Parallels here:
 
http://www.parallels.com/uk/products/workstation/
 
Once you have installed it, you just stick a Linux CD in your PC, fire up Parallels, use the wizard to configure the virtual machine (which is very, very easy) then install as normal. It's really easy, and certainly quicker than porting the software.

 
Wow! Thanks, Moto! Can I use that with any Linux Distro or do I have to use a specific one?
 
NVM. I just clicked on the link. =D

[motorollin]

Wow! Thanks, Moto! Can I use that with any Linux Distro or do I have to use a specific one?

Most distros work, but I prefer Ubuntu. After installing the OS you can install Parallels Tools inside Linux, which enable additional features like automatic mouse capture/release, and seems to improve performance. It's easier to get this working if you have a nice easy-to-use distro.

[Methuselas]

Most distros work, but I prefer Ubuntu. After installing the OS you can install Parallels Tools inside Linux, which enable additional features like automatic mouse capture/release, and seems to improve performance. It's easier to get this working if you have a nice easy-to-use distro.

I wonder if this would let me run OSX. My lappy's a hackintosh, but I've had issues with a dual boot.
 
Thanks again, Moto!

[motorollin]

I wonder if this would let me run OSX. My lappy's a hackintosh, but I've had issues with a dual boot.

I don't think you can run it in Parallels, but you can in VMWare, which is much the same thing. If you search for "mac os x vmware" on a popular site for finding files, you'll get it
 

Thanks again, Moto!

NP

[SamuraiCrow]

@Methuselas

If you're still interested in the Macintosh build instructions or Windows ones, I can tell you what you need and how to compile it.

[Methuselas]

That would be most awesome, Samurai. Thank you.

[SamuraiCrow]

What you need for the Mac build:  SDL and its support libraries, XCode installed, Expat XML parser, PhysFS 2.0 or possibly earlier version, and CMake.  You get XCode from the MacOSX install disk 2.  If you didn't have SDL installed either, you'll probably want to install it from the source code since the binaries don't have a disk-image based installer anyway.

From the terminal (MacOSX's CLI) change to the directory where you have SDL installed and type:

./configure
make
su admin (assuming your administrator account is different from your user account)
sudo make install
exit

Note that the su command and sudo command will both prompt you for your administrator password.

Other SDL libraries needed will include SDL_ttf which is the font engine.  Building it from source is similar to the previously mentioned steps.  You might need other SDL support libraries also but I already had the main ones installed in my setup so I don't know which ones you'll need additionally.

Building PhysFS is a little different because you get to use the CMake GUI instead of the configure script as in the others mentioned.  To do that you need to double-click the CMake icon after you've got it installed and the icon in the applications directory.  Select the source and destination directories as the same directory where you unpacked PhysFS.  Click the "configure" button and then after CMake is done working, click "configure" again to process the default options listed in the main window.  When you can click on the "generate" button, select either XCode project, or Unix Makefiles from the generator screen then press enter since the buttons at the bottom of the requester are seldom high enough to be visible from the default screen at resulutions lower than 1280x1024.

If you picked Unix Makefiles it should be similar to the other build processes in the terminal.  You just cd to the directory where you generated the makefile and type:

make
su admin (again assuming your user account isn't the admin account)
sudo make install
exit

Now you're ready to fix the BTbuilder makefile:  use the TextEdit application to load the Makefile saving a copy as Makefile.Linux before you make changes.  Find the line that reads:

   $(CXX) -Wl,-E -o $(BTBUILDER_EXE) $(BTBUILDER_OBJ) $(LIBS)

and remove the ",-E" after the "-Wl".  Save the modified version as Makefile.MacOSX and as Makefile.

Once you've done that use the terminal to cd to the directory where you unpacked btbuilder and type "make" and it should do all of the compiling and linking for you.

For the Windows XP version the steps are similar except you use Visual C++ Express Edition 2005 sp1 as your compiler and you shouldn't need to use the "su" command to switch to the admin account since the user account is admin by default anyway.  You also won't need to use the "exit" command to cancel out the "su" command when you are done.

Since Windows XP is the latest version of Windows I have, I can't tell you how to do it with later revisions so you're on your own for that one.

If you have trouble, just post back here and I'll try to help you with the build processes.

[Methuselas]

What you need for the Mac build: SDL and its support libraries, XCode installed, Expat XML parser, PhysFS 2.0 or possibly earlier version, and CMake. You get XCode from the MacOSX install disk 2. If you didn't have SDL installed either, you'll probably want to install it from the source code since the binaries don't have a disk-image based installer anyway.
 
From the terminal (MacOSX's CLI) change to the directory where you have SDL installed and type:
 
 
Note that the su command and sudo command will both prompt you for your administrator password.
 
Other SDL libraries needed will include SDL_ttf which is the font engine. Building it from source is similar to the previously mentioned steps. You might need other SDL support libraries also but I already had the main ones installed in my setup so I don't know which ones you'll need additionally.
 
Building PhysFS is a little different because you get to use the CMake GUI instead of the configure script as in the others mentioned. To do that you need to double-click the CMake icon after you've got it installed and the icon in the applications directory. Select the source and destination directories as the same directory where you unpacked PhysFS. Click the "configure" button and then after CMake is done working, click "configure" again to process the default options listed in the main window. When you can click on the "generate" button, select either XCode project, or Unix Makefiles from the generator screen then press enter since the buttons at the bottom of the requester are seldom high enough to be visible from the default screen at resulutions lower than 1280x1024.
 
If you picked Unix Makefiles it should be similar to the other build processes in the terminal. You just cd to the directory where you generated the makefile and type:
 
 
Now you're ready to fix the BTbuilder makefile: use the TextEdit application to load the Makefile saving a copy as Makefile.Linux before you make changes. Find the line that reads:
 
and remove the ",-E" after the "-Wl". Save the modified version as Makefile.MacOSX and as Makefile.
 
Once you've done that use the terminal to cd to the directory where you unpacked btbuilder and type "make" and it should do all of the compiling and linking for you.
 
For the Windows XP version the steps are similar except you use Visual C++ Express Edition 2005 sp1 as your compiler and you shouldn't need to use the "su" command to switch to the admin account since the user account is admin by default anyway. You also won't need to use the "exit" command to cancel out the "su" command when you are done.
 
Since Windows XP is the latest version of Windows I have, I can't tell you how to do it with later revisions so you're on your own for that one.
 
If you have trouble, just post back here and I'll try to help you with the build processes.

 
Sweet! I'll make notes to add to the archive. I wonder if this will still work with GCC. I planned on using that, instead of Visual C++ as I don't own it.