AcornGamez

Rik Griffin has updated his space-invaders games Hive to the 32-Bit platform and has updated his game authoring library, Popcorn. His announcement explains both releases:

"I'm please to announce new release of a RISC OS game, and a new version of
the game development library, Popcorn.

The game is Hive - which is actually an enhanced version of the original,
now with 32 bit graphics and hardware acceleration on the Iyonix platform.
Not only is Hive a full game in its own right, as source code is provided,
it also serves as a detailed demonstration of how to use the Popcorn
library.

Hive can be downloaded from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rik.griffin/

(Hive requires a couple of third party modules, see notes at the bottom of
this post).

Popcorn is a game development library to aid in writing RISC OS games in C
(or other APCS compatible languages). It provides several useful features
including:

- A resource manager, for easy loading of data (graphics, sounds etc).
- A fast sprite plotter, for 8 or 32 bpp screen modes, with clipping,
  and alpha blending.
- Table based handling of game objects, with automatic collision detection,
  and "callbacks" to the application for objects that need attention.
- Hardware independent high resolution timer.
- Hardware acceleration on the Iyonix platform.
- Various other functions, like key handling and logging.

Full source code is provided. Also there's a tutorial explaining how to
write a very simple game ("Pong"). There's a StrongHelp format manual too,
which supports keyword lookup.

Popcorn is available from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rik.griffin/

Popcorn and Hive were originally written by Matthew Bloch and described in
a series of articles in Acorn User several years ago.

Both Hive and Popcorn are still "works in progress", if you have any
problems or comments please contact me. I'd suggest followups to this post
concerning development go to csa.programmer and those concerning the game
itself go to csa.games.

If anyone actually wants to write a game using Popcorn, please get in touch
via email or newsgroups if you have any questions, I'd be more than happy
to offer help and advice.

Notes - modules required:

Hive needs the THSound module to play sounds. This is available from

  http://www.snowstone.org.uk/riscos/realh/index.html

However I just discovered that the module on that page is not 32 bit
compatible. The source code is there so you can recomplile it if you have
the facilities. I've contacted the owner of that page and hopefully a 32
bit binary will be available soon.

Hive also needs the HAL26 module to run on 26 bit hardware (ie RiscPCs,
A7000s). HAL26 is available from

  http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~theom/riscos/othersoft.html

Popcorn also uses several modules for hardware acceleration on the Iyonix
platform, these are "AppAcc" and "IntelDMA", these modules are bundled with
Hive as their licences allow this. Popcorn also uses the "HALTimer" module
which too is bundled with Hive. "

...and this time, it's 32-bit!

Alan Buckley has converted the 90's DOS pinball game called PC Spiel Pinball to the RISC OS platform in the form of PC Play Pinball 1.0. This game may not be Gottleb Classics but the 2D flat graphics and dodgy physics are still highly addictive!

Alan Buckley would like to thank Ansgar Scherp and Joachim Gelhaus, the original authors of the Turbo Pascal game which is now available with non-restrictive copyright on the source code. This version is coded in the C programming language with the help of the ever faithfull SDL library.

System Requirements

The Shared Unix Library available from here. This is provided in an archive which contains a !System application which needs to be merged with your !System.

202Mhz computer running RISC OS 4 or higher. (32-bit compatible)

Other downloads

• The game including source code (377KB)
• The original Turbo Pascal DOS source for reference (380KB)

So, what are you waiting for? Grab your free copy from the RISC OS PC Play Pinball website now!

Thanks to Gareth Lock you can follow the development of a small Space Invaders game written in BBC BASIC on his website, perfect for beginners wanting to start coding games! Follow the game's development here!

Game updates and a new online software and games directory!

Before I get to the news I wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year to everyone in the RISC OS community and beyond!


Now for the news:
Alan Buckley has launched a new RISC OS friendly website that automatically shows the latest versions of several RISC OS ports of programs and games. The Autobuilder takes the source code from open source packages originally written for Unix-like platforms, and compiles them into RISC OS applications, ready for download by punters.

Thanks to the Autobuilder, a new version of a maths game for youngsters TuxMath can be downloaded for free from the webiste along with new versions of the MS-DOS emulator for the Iyonix, DOSBox and Battle for Wesnoth, a fantastic turn-based fantasy game very much like Heroes of Might and Magic 2. The Autobuilder also produces libraries including a new version of the libSDL package for all the coders out there.



Got something games related to discuss? Talk about it with the Acorn Gamez community on our forum!

Acorn Gamez are looking for contributers! If you have any news, reviews or anything related to RISC OS games then don't be afraid to contact us!

A disc image version of the classic 2067 B.C. game has been released for free by Wocki on his Acorn Emulation website, yet another game from Tom Cooper. 2067 B.C. with it's previous price tag of £16.95 is an Arcade game requiring skill and strategy and is very popular with young children and adults.

The reason why millions of people around the world have bought PocketPC and Symbian devices.

The classic (and a little gorey!) RISC OS platformer from the legend that is Tom Cooper has been ported to PocketPC and Symbian powered devices. Tom is hoping to sell his Personal Digital Assistant version in the future but is currently asking you, the RISC OS users who have been playing his game for decades what should be included in the PDA version.

Hamsters is a game which involves a small unsuspecting extra-terrestrial (and yellow) lifeform smashing hamsters and other furry household pets with a gravity-defying and suprisingly large hammer to their gory death while dancing along to a sometimes annoying techno soundtrack.

The graphics on this new version will be sharper and the cartoon intro sequence has been axed and bonus rounds are now called speed rounds. Video acceleration is now used to make the programing of the new game easier and a lot faster. A musician is also rewriting the music and the new game will be called RoboRabbits. Apart from that, it's exactly the same game. :-)

Stewart Brookes has released not one but two new maps for use with Islands from Little Yellow Moon Software! Their names are Hubworld and Medieval and will run on !Islands for RISC OS, an adaptation of the boardgame Risk. Both maps are included in this download from Stewy's website.

Spheres of Chaos for free!

Spheres of Chaos, the extremely popular psychedelic arcade game is now available for free after over fifteen years of availability as a commercial product and more recently as shareware. Once you download the game from the Spheres of Chaos website, you must enter an unlock code which is supplied on the website and you're all set for frantic chaos!

Iain McLeod, the current Spheres of Chaos mainter for Microsoft Windows, Linux and PS2 Linux as well as RISC OS has stated on the Spheres of Chaos website that there will be a new release of Spheres of Chaos in 2008. Proof of this is a series of pictures from the new version.

So what are you waiting for? Go download it!

There is a strong possibility that R-comp Interactive will be publishing a side-scrolling shoot 'em up by Jack Parkinson in the very near future. The current version is fully playable on RiscPC computers.

R-comp have also announced that a port of the Wolfenstein 3D-style game Rise of the Triad is near complete but have not announced whether they will release it.

Watch this space for more information on these upcoming titles from R-comp Interactive.