Fledgling Fyora Almkaz Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 Hello, Recently the XBOX 360 has had a program to help 'indie' developers create and sell games for the 360. Do you think it would be a good idea to do this for BOE? I think it would take a lot of work since XNA is C#/.NET but I wonder if it would be worth it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk Lazarus. Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 I don't really know too much about the developer's program, but unfortunately I believe it would be illegal. From what I've heard Microsoft has a big say in the prices on downloadables, and they definitely aren't in the business of distributing free open source programs. Selling BoE is illegal unless you're Jeff, so that kind of rules out Xbox live. It would be kind of cool to try to bring the game to such a wide audience, but besides the potential technical difficulties (which I can't really comment on), there's the issue of the xbox controller. Exile doesn't really lend itself to play without a mouse, or at least a keyboard. Managing the inventory, casting spells, dialog-- that would all be have to be overhauled or else it'd be pretty clunky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug King InuYasha Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 Originally Posted By: Lazarus. I don't really know too much about the developer's program, but unfortunately I believe it would be illegal. From what I've heard Microsoft has a big say in the prices on downloadables, and they definitely aren't in the business of distributing free open source programs. Selling BoE is illegal unless you're Jeff, so that kind of rules out Xbox live. It would be kind of cool to try to bring the game to such a wide audience, but besides the potential technical difficulties (which I can't really comment on), there's the issue of the xbox controller. Exile doesn't really lend itself to play without a mouse, or at least a keyboard. Managing the inventory, casting spells, dialog-- that would all be have to be overhauled or else it'd be pretty clunky. There are two misconceptions here: That free games cannot be published to Xbox Live, and that BoE cannot be sold by anyone except Jeff. First off, Microsoft DOES provide a way for regular people to publish games to Xbox Live. It is called the Creators Club. You must be a premium member of the Creators' Club though. Secondly, Blades of Exile CAN be sold by anybody. The GPL does not prevent that. The only restriction on distribution is that the source code must be provided and accessible. Binaries can be sold for any price point as long as source code is still available. However, you MUST indicate that it isn't an official Blades of Exile version because only Jeff Vogel can publish an official version. Either that or change its name entirely... In any case, Blades of Exile doesn't lend itself to being very portable to game consoles. Its design makes it very difficult to play under the restricted input of a game controller that has no form of freeform movement. Only the Wiimote has a method of freeform movement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Cryolemon Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 Also, you would have to completely re-write the code in C#, which I'm willing to bet would be a MASSIVE nightmare. You may as well write a new game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fledgling Fyora Almkaz Posted November 18, 2009 Author Share Posted November 18, 2009 Hello, Thanks for all of the insightfull replies. Regarding the GPL licence, my understanding is the same as the King, in that I would have to provide a way to make the source available. I think porting to C# would be a big job for sure - one hope is that since they share the same root syntax, and the .NET framework has pretty good coverage for standard C library calls, that it would not be too overwhelming. The main deterrent for me seems to be the user input. Perhaps I should wait for a year to see how Project Natal works out - maybe I will get the freeform movement after all. Chomping at the bit to bring some nice deep RPGs to the console... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dantius Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 This might just be me, but I can't see anyone with a shiny xbox 360 wanting to play BOE- it's just too old-school on any console but the computer. Anyways, your entire market would probably already have the game on their computer, so why would they get it again on Xbox? I remember Jeff posting something to this effect on his blog, and I would have linked it with a witty comment, but I'm too lazy to find it. Ah well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug King InuYasha Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Originally Posted By: Almkaz Hello, Thanks for all of the insightfull replies. Regarding the GPL licence, my understanding is the same as the King, in that I would have to provide a way to make the source available. I think porting to C# would be a big job for sure - one hope is that since they share the same root syntax, and the .NET framework has pretty good coverage for standard C library calls, that it would not be too overwhelming. The main deterrent for me seems to be the user input. Perhaps I should wait for a year to see how Project Natal works out - maybe I will get the freeform movement after all. Chomping at the bit to bring some nice deep RPGs to the console... Porting to C# might not be a bad idea, but porting it to XNA would likely not be worth it. XNA is a largely closed platform. It also isn't the only set of APIs in C# you can use for making games. Probably the best choices would be SDL and GTK# or wx.NET. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fledgling Fyora Almkaz Posted November 18, 2009 Author Share Posted November 18, 2009 Looking closer into the GPL license question, I think this idea is not allowed under the terms of use for the XBOX Indie Community program. It says clearly that one needs to own the IP rights for the game. The GPL is a license but obviously not ownership. I am not sure who owns IP rights for open source projects in general but it's not me as a user. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug King InuYasha Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Originally Posted By: Almkaz Looking closer into the GPL license question, I think this idea is not allowed under the terms of use for the XBOX Indie Community program. It says clearly that one needs to own the IP rights for the game. The GPL is a license but obviously not ownership. I am not sure who owns IP rights for open source projects in general but it's not me as a user. Technically, under the GPL, the IP question isn't really that much to consider. The GPL only covers code. In the case of games, the IP rights would need to be considered for game data. As it is, I believe there are plenty of scenarios out there to use. One of them is possibly licensed under a content license that is compatible with the GPL (CC-BY-SA 3.0 is generally a good choice). The intellectual property clause is written to make sure that plagerizing games isn't somehow permitted. It is an important point, but in the case of Blades of Exile, it is moot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fledgling Fyora Almkaz Posted November 18, 2009 Author Share Posted November 18, 2009 Dantius, Yes, you make a great point - my entire market would probably already have the game anyway. Perhaps it's using some of the great RPG elements from BOE but taking it more casual - like a platforming side-scroller RPG! Or.. maybe I should just go back to playing the recently released BOE... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Cryolemon Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Originally Posted By: Almkaz I think porting to C# would be a big job for sure - one hope is that since they share the same root syntax, and the .NET framework has pretty good coverage for standard C library calls, that it would not be too overwhelming. In my experience they stretch the definition "sharing the same root syntax" a fair bit, and then you have the problems of C# not directly supporting global variables, requiring everything to be a class, not allowing multiple inheritance, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Originally Posted By: Almkaz I think porting to C# would be a big job for sure - one hope is that since they share the same root syntax, and the .NET framework has pretty good coverage for standard C library calls, that it would not be too overwhelming. C and C# may share the same root syntax, but they are very different languages. I don't think C# is even a superset of C, as C++ (almost) is. Originally Posted By: King InuYasha Porting to C# might not be a bad idea, No. I'm porting to C++. I do not want to go to C#. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug King InuYasha Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel Originally Posted By: King InuYasha Porting to C# might not be a bad idea, No. I'm porting to C++. I do not want to go to C#. How much of it has been ported to C++ then? And while this is going on, are you planning on separating the platform-specific code out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Originally Posted By: King InuYasha How much of it has been ported to C++ then? A fair amount of it. However, the Windows version has different parts ported than the Mac version, and in a way incompatible with my mode of operation in the porting... so, I'm going to have to do something about that somehow. Originally Posted By: King InuYasha And while this is going on, are you planning on separating the platform-specific code out? In theory. I haven't really paid attention to it much so far, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug King InuYasha Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel Originally Posted By: King InuYasha How much of it has been ported to C++ then? A fair amount of it. However, the Windows version has different parts ported than the Mac version, and in a way incompatible with my mode of operation in the porting... so, I'm going to have to do something about that somehow. Originally Posted By: King InuYasha And while this is going on, are you planning on separating the platform-specific code out? In theory. I haven't really paid attention to it much so far, though. You might want to start comparing each file as you go and merge in the differences. Start bringing the codebase back to one set of files. I don't understand all the code very well, but I did run comparisons of files of the same name in osx and win32 folders and they are still largely the same. There are chunks that exist in one or the other, but most of it is identical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Yes, I definitely do want to start doing that. When I have time again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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