From the blatant copyright infringement department comes Still Alive, a homebrew game for the Nintendo DS that does a good job of capturing the madcap mayhem of the popular Valve game Portal from the PC.
Of course, without the raw horsepower of the PC and modern consoles, French developer “T4ils” have had to cut a few corners in the graphics and presentation of the wall-zapping puzzler for the DS version. Fortunately, the core gameplay appears to be intact — players must make their way through maze-like levels by creating portals on wall surfaces which allow them to teleport around the level. Here, the goal is no longer simply to make it to the exit, since the infamous cake from the original game has finally deicded to make an appearance. Players must scoop up the pieces of cake scattered throughout stage as an additional challenge before they can make their way to the next level.
Fortunately, despite the changes in gameplay and graphics, the creativity and dark humor of the original Valve release seems to be intact. Some players have even reported difficulty making it past the game’s menu screen, which requires a little bit of creative thinking. If you think you are up for the challenge, be sure to head over to the developer’s site to download a free copy of the game. If you are not sure how to run homebrew software on your system, be sure and check out our handy DS Homebrew Guide.
Indie developers HermitWorks surprised the world last month when they managed to get a multiplayer match of Quake III running on two iPhones. The coders are now hard at work on a port of their original Mac game Space Trader to the iPhone. Reportedly, the Quake III stunt was just a test to find out how first-person movement and controls might work on the handheld, motion-sensing platform.
Space Trader was reasonably successful when it released on Mac and Linux platforms in the Summer of 2007. An intriguing cross between a strategy board game, space opera and frantic first-person shooter, it is no exaggeration to say that Space Trader broke new ground with its innovative gameplay. The objective of the game is to make money by buying and selling commodities at various locations around the solar system. Things get physical when players take on bounty-hunting missions, or become the bounty themselves for refusing to pay their taxes. The bargain-priced game did not attract a huge mainstream following, but the smattering of reviews around the net were mostly positive, praising the resemblence to early strategy games like Elite.
If HermitWorks can update the graphics and iron out some small issues with the play mechanics, this could be a promising title to watch out for when the iPhone Store opens its virtual doors in June.
Yes, that’s right. Canadian developers HermitWorks have come out of their log cabin and impressively figured out networked play in Quake III for at least two players on the iPhone. The built-in accelerometer seems to work adequately well for controlling movement (as seen in the demo vid below), suggesting that the future looks bright for FPS gaming on the newest contender in the portable gaming space.
World of Warcraft is the most played MMORPG to date and as such there’s probably a lot of you who don’t get to play it as often as you’d like. With pesky things like work, school, friends, and life in general sometimes there isn’t much time left to set aside for a little WoWing. Thankfully, those of us with a PSP can enjoy WoW and many other PC only titles on our small screens with an application called PVNC. What is PVNC? Well it’s the application you need to basically make your PSP another screen and input controller for your computer, it will literally make your PSP a remote control for your PC. Things can get a little tricky while installing this program and trying to implement it however so pay attention class!
First download TightVNC which is the PC software you’ll need to run PVNC here and install it. After you install it make sure that the TightVNC Server is selected. Find the shortcut and run the one that says Launch TightVNC Server, double click on the system tray icon of TightVNC and choose a password. You’ll then want to Idle the mouse over the TightVNC System icon to get your IP which you’re going to need.
Lastly you’re going to download PVNC which you can find here. Then you just extract the files to your PSP after you plug it into your computer. You want to extract it to the PSP/GAME/ folder. After that you can run the program from the games menu, plug in your IP address and you are done! It’s as easy as that, if you have any questions go ahead and leave them as comments and I’ll address them as quickly as I can, I know homebrew stuff can get a little overwhelming. Good luck with it gamers, I hope you’ll enjoy this little app as much as I have!
So an interesting little application has surfaced and it goes by the name of PSPMUD. If you don’t know what a MUD is I’ll give you a quick refresher course, they are essentially stripped down versions of an MMORPG like World of Warcraft or EVE Online. MUDs were the first online RPGs and the first recognizable MUD was released in 1978. MUDs are normally text only programs but some programmers use keyboard characters to form pictures, once in the MUD a user can generally create a character choosing from a wide variety of classes, skills, jobs, and races. Most MUDs have a newbie area that will teach you the ropes of playing the particular MUD and get you familiar with navigating through the world.
Almost all MUDs share this formula: the player can move in the 8 directions on a compass, the player can climb, pick things up, equip items, train skills, and battle enemies. MUDs vary widely in topics from generic medieval fantasy to aliens vs predator to mech wars. With the introduction of PSPMUD you can now experience the text based excitement from anywhere with a wi-fi connection, the only problem? WOW its going to take a long time to input text on the PSP, which has me predicting this application will be a whole lot more popular when the PSP keyboard manifests it’s self on store shelves. With this App the controls are simple, the D pad acts as the North South East and West directions, square scrolls text and circle enters what you have typed. You can pick up this very cool new homebrew app right here. Have fun out there, and don’t forget to check out Thy Dungeonman!
A clever hacker by the name of zodttd has released his SNES emulator for the iPhone/iPod touch to public beta. His code joins many other great emulators for the sleek Apple device which include the GBA, NES, and PS1 systems. What separates zodttd’s emulator from the pack is the fact that his runs at a full 30 frames per second for most titles, and features an impressive list of compatible games for such an early release. While the use of a touch screen for action titles like F-zero quite frankly depresses us, the presence of some great turn-based RPGs from the 16-bit era like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI on the list of supported games fills us with glee. Action games will likely remain a challenge on the system, even once the developer gets multi-touch support working. It seems as if slower, more methodical games are where it’s at as far as the iPhone is concerned.
Head on over to the official forums if you want to grab a download and try it out for yourself.
There is an exciting and vibrant DS homeberw development scene, with more and more people interested in writing their own indie programs and games for the system. Over the past few years, a handful of coding pros have delivered some very impressive homebrew games and applications (also check out our interview with the maker of Phidias, a homebrew paint program). One of these talented DS programmers is 0xtob, a fellow DS lover from Germany that took it upon himself to code up some nifty DS apps including Pocket Physics, a neat little sandbox game that allows you to draw shapes and play with them using the rules of gravity. Think of it as a cross between Line Rider and the upcoming Crayon Physics Deluxe for the PC. 0xtob was nice enough to give us some insight about the current state of DS homebrew and his experience with it:
PVG: Your Pocket Physics DS application is a neat and impressive program. Is it tough to work with physics on the DS? How well can the system cope with physics?
0xtob: For simulating physics, I’m using the Box2D library. The author is spending a lot of time finding the most efficient algorithms for physics simulation and has really done fantastic work! Still, it’s a hard task for the DS, because the main CPU (66MHz ARM9) is rather weak and has no FPU (Floating Point Unit), which is why I had to change Box2D to use fixed point math instead.
PVG: What’s the most challenging aspect of developing DS homebrew applications?
0xtob: You mean besides finding the time for it? Well, the DS as an embedded system has a lot of limitations, like the rather slow CPU and limited amount of memory. One of the most challenging, but also fun, aspects of homebrew coding is that you are forced to write efficient code. You really have to think about how to get your algorithms to be fast and memory efficient.
Homebrew applications for the Nintendo DS continue to surprise us. We have seen impressive games, a cool paint program, and a puzzle collection with tons of replay value. This time we have put together a handy ‘how-to’ guide for VoIP on DS. Using the SvSIP application by Samuel Vinson, you can use your DS to make phone calls to cells and landlines in many countries. The quality is great, and when your free minutes run out you can continue to make free 1-minute calls, perfect for a quick question for your local GameStop or a friendly ‘hello’ to an acquaintance of yours. Continue reading to find out just how to use your DS as a phone!
Following hot on the heels of the NES emulator for the iPhone, a working Ps1 emulator has recently been released in beta form. The ¨private beta¨of the aptly-named psx4iphone emulator supports about 75% of the Ps1 library, a fairly impressive feat for a hand-held port. Readers that have (or have played with) an iPhone will of course want to know how the programmers have handled the input of controls on the device. Well, the control problem has been ¨solved¨ by assigning buttons to transparent overlays that make use of the built-in touch functionality of the device. While this looks pretty cool, it is easy to see how this solution might fail in games that require any sort of coordinated control input (like say, Metal Gear Solid). Wait, Metal Gear Solid playable on an iPhone! *faints*
After having picked myself up off the floor from amazement, I must say that both the NES and Ps1 emulators are kind of a cruel joke. It is clear from the work of these skilled coders that the iPhone has loads of latent videogaming potential, but where both of these efforts fall short is in the control scheme. The touchscreen, while awesome, isn´t quite up to scratch when it comes to traditional button-mashing. Apple could easily remedy the situation by releasing a peripheral that would attach to the bottom of the device and provide basic gaming input, the same way that a third-party company is planning to do with their upcoming GPS device. That would definitely propel the iPhone into gaming readiness and offer a reasonable amount of competition for Sony and Nintendo. Sorry, Husdson, but point-and-click memory ¨games¨ simply aren´t going to cut it.
EDGE magazine has an interesting rumor lurking inside its pages. Apparently, Nintendo is hard at work on an official DS flash card, which would allow DS owners with internet access via Wi-Fi to purchase old-school Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, in a fashion very similar to the Wii’s Virtual Console. Not only that, but Nintendo’s upcoming WiiWare Channel, which will allow developers to produce low-budget, downloadable games, would see a similar revision on the DS. Such a possibility could seriously stir the DS homebrew scene. Potentiallygreat hombrewed games could see commercial release, and other content could be made available for the 50 million DS systems around the globe. These rumors sound great, but they are rumors nonetheless, so keep your eyes peeled for an official confirmation / denial in the not-too-distant future.
There is an exciting and vibrant DS homeberw development scene, with more and more people interested in writing their own indie programs and games for the system. Over the past few years, a handful of coding pros have delivered some very impressive homebrew games and applications (also check out our interview with the maker of 
Well, the DS as an embedded system has a lot of limitations, like the rather slow CPU and limited amount of memory. One of the most challenging, but also fun, aspects of homebrew coding is that you are forced to write efficient code. You really have to think about how to get your algorithms to be fast and memory efficient.
EDGE magazine has an interesting rumor lurking inside its pages. Apparently, Nintendo is hard at work on an official DS flash card, which would allow DS owners with internet access via Wi-Fi to purchase old-school Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, in a fashion very similar to the Wii’s Virtual Console. Not only that, but Nintendo’s upcoming WiiWare Channel, which will allow developers to produce low-budget, downloadable games, would see a similar revision on the DS. Such a possibility could seriously stir the DS homebrew scene. 