Author: Auriea

TEF on Mac almost, again

There is Yet Another Windows Virtualization software. This time one that does NOT require you to install windows on the machine AT ALL! I tried CrossOver a year or so ago but found it lacked any 3d acceleration or DirectX emulation, but now they have a new product available.
CrossOver Games is a fancy, 3d optimized, re-packaging of Wine software emulation. Thus it works for both Mac and Linux to emulate an environment compatible with many PC video games. Read more about this on Joystiq, thats where I first heard of it.

Anyway, my tests with getting The Endless Forest up and running with it were mixed. The GOOD: It does a really fantastic job of running the game! It speeds along at over 30 FPS on my MacBook Pro. Since it doesn’t require a real Windows installation I had it installed and was playing in a matter of minutes. CrossOver Games is alot less expensive than VMWARE or Parallels and since you aren’t buying windows either its a good emulation solution. The BAD: I couldn’t get a network connection :( which of course renders the multiplayer experience of TEF unusable. I don’t know if the connection problem with TEF is just a problem with my network or my computer though, so if you try it then let me know what your experience was.

On the upside… It runs Guild Wars flawlessly. So maybe that is some consolation.

TEF on Mac (sort of)

I tried out the public Beta of VMWARE Fusion 2.0 because they boast it has “experimental support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 3D acceleration” (meaning it actually uses the video card, allowing one to play some 3d games!) I was hoping that it would allow me to run The Endless Forest on the Mac, and it does!

Okay, before we all get excited, this is still in the realm of exotic setups. VMWARE is a software that allows you to install Windows (or use a Boot Camp partition) without having to restart your computer. So you _still_ need to have Windows. Also, even on the MacBook Pro which runs TEF like a dream in Boot Camp, in VMWARE I’m getting 7-9 FPS for TEF. This is… not good. Then again, this is a beta of VMWARE maybe the final version will get the frame rate up? It _could happen… right?

Anyway, for you Mac using, dual Booting, tinkerers out there who are curious about TEF, I encourage you to give it a try and let us know how you fare!

Audio Games for DS Homebrew

HYENA DS logoSurfing for new thrills for my Nintendo DS the other day I was happy to find that one of my favorite homebrew devs Collecting Smiles, Jens Andersson of Colors! fame, has a new release just out!

The wickedly named HYENA is created to usher onto the DS the genre of Interactive Fiction, but with a twist. Using the unique qualities of the hardware he has created a system for the playing of “Audio Games” which can be played only with sound (a reading of the text via voice synthesis) and one button for interaction. Though if you keep the screen up you can also read the text and view graphics.

In addition he’s put up documentation for the scripting language so that anyone can make their own Audio Games. A pretty wonderful idea! This already has me thinking of ways the system could be used to create some interesting, and simple, audio/visual games. And I hope many people do come up with games for this.

The first game released for HYENA is Lone Wolf – Flight From The Dark… I’m in!

Photo Post: GDC 2008: Independent Games Festival

We had a great time participating in the IGF this year with The Path! Even though we didn’t get the prize, seeing so many people play the demo every day taught us a lot about what is going right with the game as well as what is going wrong (-.-)! Thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth. We got so much excellent feedback, along very sore feet and hoarseness from talking so much, but we are looking forward to (hopefully) doing it all again next year!

2008-02-22 at 15-27-13

photos here and some videos here: