Suggestions for ports

Impy

@VictimRLSH Thanks! My problem was a combination of the location of the asset files and the need to use startx (retropie install)

VictimRLSH

OpenTomb doesn't seem to have been worth the considerable effort to get to compile and "run". The display window is skewed, the controls are awkward, it completely hijacks the mouse (alt-tab to Terminal window and Ctrl-C to break). The overall impression is AWKWARD and UNFINISHED. You are much better off playing the Tomb Raider series on DosBox or PCSX-rearmed.

Solarus also took a LOT of effort to run, but this one was worth the effort. Solarus DX is a VERY good looking Zelda game. The controls and inventory control are a mix of Zelda:A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. There are also ports of the earlier Zelda fan games. The Solarus versions improve on the graphics and controls and the English translations are a lot better. It WILL make install into the Desktop Games menu, but the laucher won't run from there, you need to start a game by selecting the game itself from the Games menu.

I'm going to image a fresh install of Retropie and see if I can develop install scripts for some of my successes. Now to figure out how...

mitu

@VictimRLSH said in Suggestions for ports:

Solarus also took a LOT of effort to run, but this one was worth the effort. Solarus DX is a VERY good looking Zelda game.

Solarus is already a system in RetroPie - did you install it by yourself ?

VictimRLSH

@mitu Yeah, didn't realize there was already a port for it. LOL

It was good practice though.

VictimRLSH

@mitu I'm noticing Arx Libertatis was being kicked around as a possible port for a while but don't see it in zerojay's script archives. I'm trying to crack that egg but it insists on not being able to build even if you ignore the sticking point of building icons as noted in the compiling instructions. That one might take some time.

I also notice some of those Zelda games in the Extra ports, including Picross which I couldn't find a useable source for.

EDIT: No luck getting Arx Libertatis going. Colditz-Escape compiled but segfaults when it tries to open a window. Numerous other failures today, much of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked...

EDIT: Got Conquest working and was able to join a multiplayer game. Seriously doubt if it would work from Retropie though, and would require a keyboard. There were 4 active servers on the list when I started it up, and only one said it was incompatible with my client.

VictimRLSH

Cytadela runs, but I'm getting some system instability after running it, so it might not be a good candidate for a Retropie port even though it seems to be a pretty well made Wolf3d type game.

EDIT: Got Epiar going as well. There is no make install for this game, you seem to only be able to run it from the build directory at the moment. Nice looking game.

VictimRLSH

Got FreeRTC working now too. This one brings up a question. Why are devs of Raspbian packages giving up so easily? I'm a noob to compiling and building open source games, yet have been succeeding in building games that are not in the repos yet. I've been noticing that the "low hanging fruit" of source code is already in Raspbian repositories, but anything requiring much more effort than a make and make install isn't winding up in there.

This one just required manually constructing a .cfg file with a font choice. I've noticed others that nobody did the legwork required to get a good game working. It is sad to see good games not get the opportunity to be played because nobody wanted to make the effort to make them work.

Glad I'm learning how to compile and build games, I'd be missing out on some cool stuff otherwise. I just need to make the extra effort myself so OTHER people can play some of these too.

quicksilver

@VictimRLSH I think it's because there are just too many versions of Linux for them to keep up with.

VictimRLSH

Hexoshi is working and looks great, I'm just not sure how much game is actually there because it is labeled as a "demo", but has save slots so can't be THAT short. Catchy music.

VictimRLSH

Got KQ Lives running, I might actually play this one for a bit, has the look and feel of the Lufia games on the SNES and an awesome soundtrack as well. Another one I would like to develop an install script for, but is a keyboard game as well. There are few enough controls to convert to a 10 button controller though.

Kobo Deluxe is going too, REALLY like this one, it's like Bosconian on crack. You have a level map of bases that are launching shots and fighters at you like Bonconian, but you get much larger 2-D "Borg" style cube ships and have to destroy nodes on the outer side of the maze to make it far enough in to destroy the core, you can't insta-kill the cores like you can in Bosconian, you have to chew on them for a while.

VictimRLSH

Magarena works, but there is some bad with the good.

Good: You can play Magic The Gathering without the thousands of dollars of expense in cards, dealing with toxic players, and much of the grief normally associated with the game. You play 1p vs a quite capable CPU opponent using any cards you want out of the over 13,000 available.

Bad: There are 13,000+ cards, and the artwork is indeed neat to look at, but it takes about 1.5gb and a LOT of time to download the card art. The artwork is pulled from online MTG sites, and about 250 cards can't be found, so text only on those.

The source will NOT compile properly, but the Linux package is all Java and contains no x86 code, so the scripts will properly start up the game if your java is updated to Java 8.

Oh, has built-in screenshot capability too.

retropieuser555

Hi all, this isn't a port as such I suppose, but I came across a discussion in here a few years ago about a lib core melonds

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/9777/new-libretro-core-for-nds-melonds

I'm asking this in this topic as everyone seems to have an understanding on how to compile these.

So the steps so far I got from here: https://github.com/libretro/melonDS

I installed the dependancies ok, I make the build directory but cmake gives me an error, am I doing something wrong here that means I need to compile differently?

VictimRLSH

@retropieuser555 What is the error message? Cloning the repository into your Home will create a directory that needs root permissions to modify, did you try sudo cmake.. ?

retropieuser555

@VictimRLSH

pi@retropie:~/build $ cmake ..
CMake Error: The source directory "/home/pi" does not appear to contain CMakeLists.txt.
Specify --help for usage, or press the help button on the CMake GUI.
pi@retropie:~/build $

I think the instructions they have in the github don't mention cloning the .git of the program? I need to do that I guess?

Apologies am a total noob with compiling manually.

Edit:-

I think I've gotten further I ran

git clone https://github.com/libretro/melonDS.git

Then managed to build it with sudo cmake. Thanks! So now that's a libcore sitting in the directory? How would I go about testing or using it to load content from? Aside from going into retroarch manually?

VictimRLSH

@retropieuser555 I have not tried any Libreto yet, don't know the install procedure.

retropieuser555

@VictimRLSH that's cool. Doing this gave me a melonDS file but I get the feeling I need to create a .so file somehow. Anyway, I guess someone must've managed it before as there's a thread about it 3 years ago.

Luddo183

How do you create a scriptmodule? I have gotten Super Mario 64 PC running through commands, and even created a .sh file for booting from emulation station, and would love to make a scriptmodule for it, but don't know how.

retropieuser555

I managed to compile the lr-melonDS core and getting it working the pi4. It's not too shabby but it doesn't play a lot of games and does have alot of slowdowns. I got perfect performance on Tetris DS and Phoenix Wright series. But anything 3d, mario 64, mario kart etc it doesn't handle it very well. But as an experiment it does work.

VictimRLSH

Got Stendhal working, was able to register a new account, create a character, and join the game.

No compilation is required, just start with java -jar stendhal-starter.jar

You need to create an account on the game site https://stendhalgame.org/ before logging in from the client. There seems to be many active players. Not sure if this one can be launched from Retropie, and would require KBM if so.

EDIT: Got Cosmoscroll running, a side-scrolling space shooter that is a bit like Gradius, but in addition to collecting drops to upgrade your weapons and shields, you can also buy upgrades from a shop between levels. Controller configured and a good candidate for a Retropie install script.

ExarKunIv

@quicksilver well i finally got to try both OpenJKA and OpenJKO. on my pi3

they will not start. my guess it has something to do with the GL drivers. from looking at the runcommand log

i did look into the .cfg for it, but it does not launch so it does not make a cfg file to me to go into and change.

it was worth a shot, right