Lately word has been going around about our little scene approaching an untimely death. New software releases have been the magnet that kept most of us here. Lately, these releases seemed to have slowed down, for understandable reasons no less. But what if as many GP2X devs as possible tried to release one piece of software* around the time of January 1st 2008 (give or take a few days)? With a bit of luck and determination we could get tens of new software - now that would be a breath of much needed fresh air, wouldn't it?

This could be big, and would show everyone what the GP2X scene is all about. Imagine, 20+ releases in the time span of one week. Put a coffin nail in that, if you can

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* If the software is new, it doesn't have to be in a fully finished state, this is more about uncapping potential than doing gold releases.

Can I hold back the release of PSSST, or do I have to make something new ?

I'll try - I've got something in progress, but I'm not promising anything.

I'm not keen on releasing anything incomplete, I've tried that before (listing the deficiencies in the README), but you still get loads of negative comments.

It's entirely up to you, this is just a suggestion, not a requirement or obligation

I guess there'll be quite a few F200 based releases - mostly of pocketPC based stuff that needs touchscreen to work..

I'm wanting to do some dev on it as well, but since I don't own a gp2x yet I'm a bit stuck.

Over the last two weeks, I've been working furiously at what I thought would be a simple port. It was to be a satisfying, triumphant return to programming after 6 months in the woods. It really was intended to be done by now, a warm-up for something more demanding. But I've been fighting a bug in it for 4 days straight and memcheck, valgrind, and gdb have all been of little use. Trouble is, the bug only occurs on the GP2X, never when run on a windows or linux PC. Arrrrgggghhhhh

Anyways, yeah I've got two things in the pipe, one will be done by Dec 31st and it'll be quality.

EDIT: hah, fixed the bug at 5:30 in the morning

OK you're on... I'll polish CromoZome and start work on my next project

How about making it a long-running competition till Jan 08? I'd do it as a GPXile competition, but I can barely afford the cost of living, let alone buying flashy prizes.

Actually lets just focus on getting the scene back up to spec.

Then we can worry about the competitions and such later.

FleshChasmer ZERO high quality homebrew saga
Project Completed. Unreleased. Possible release date - begin of November.

I'm working on something new for the gp2x - old-skool arcade sort; a unique game (I think) but instantly recognisable ..
Problem is I'm getting bogged down in things like button-reconfig and stuff like that - the game's essentially finished but not quite as complete as I'd like to add these things..
Personally I think getting loads of games in bulk doesn't help, I'd prefer to see a steady trickle of ports, emu updates and new homebrew..

I think we should have a Touchscreen mini-game competition. I would do a brain age mini-game!!!

Let's just do another community competition. You know, where we donate to one account and the winner split it accordingly... What do you think?

Touch Screen Mini Games!!!!!

But that would cut off the majority of users, who have F100s - definitely not the goal here


If only some people would have been nicer to Psymastr...

i have that "death" feeling too ..
i do prefer NewYear with polished c64/Zx/Amiga/PcEngine/Snes + new homebrew
..and then .. eternal silence

damn ..that was short life

That's true, hmm, it could be a catagory in the competition, there needs to be some motivation to take advenntage of the features of the F200 also or there won't be that much to justify a purchase/upgrade of one yet.

I like your thinking Alex. A huge homebrew release day could certainly garner new interest in the 2X.

I've been thinking a bit lately about how to make the 2X scene (and possibly the Craiginator scene) more active than it currently is. I'm vaguely familiar with something called indie gaming, which is similar in many ways to our little homebrew scene. It's a small group of hobbyist game developers who make (sometimes for profit) games for Windows/Linux etc. Though both our scene and theirs share mostly the same common interests, our separate communities rarely cross paths.

If we could somehow court indie game developers to our scene, we'd no doubt see an increase in releases and activity on this board. "How" is the big question though.

Anyway, sorry if that's off-topic. I'm all for a New Years mega-homebrew-release Day.

See but problem with indie granted is the money/time/patience and interest in the actual system.

Theres a reason why those indie devs go after pc.

I believe when I was first talking about with a few guys over at local IGDA meetings.

Indie gets nice advantage over big guys without having to worry about so many deadlines and such and work with smaller teams.

Still you have to get them to want to work with gp2x which shouldn't be too too hard because of the open source aspects.

I think the best way is to show them what the system can get done. Hmmm you know that competition sounds like a good idea. if you can showcase tech demos, demos, and concept art and other details on system at the competition I bet you they'll come flocking over.

I'll be getting it as long as it's well reviewed by the early adopters. GP2X satisfies all my portable gaming needs... GBA, C64, NES, SNES, etc. If they improve the viewing angle on top of the D-pad, I'll be set.

Craig's machine sounds great but is outside of my gaming budget.

I would have hoped that PC-engine would have been fixed before the death of the GP2X Would have made it complete as far as emus go.

Maybe the solution is like in Amiga scene to make a bounty on some software that we would like to see on GP2x. The idea is to make donation for an aplication that some people are looking for and whoever first make this app he takes a bounty. It works in Amiga society and mybe it's a solution. This also can be a good motivation for developers

@guayar: http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/GP2X_Bounties

Work on Project T.I.M. hasn't stopped, only slowed down until my new F-200 arrives, on the other hand I have at least another three projects on paper, one of which is a graphic adventure... I don't like deadlines, they tend to work against me.

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I'm also doing a load of other things, making videos of AMIGA games and fixing / reconditioning / modding an arcade cabinet that has a 4 slot NeoGeo MVS system inside and a 25" screen ... I also have real work to do lol, so I'm kinda busy

Thanks - I'm quite new to GP2x

Greetings,

Just wanted to make a short introduction and chime in on the concerns about the future of the GP2X and what what my company will be doing to support the community.

A couple years ago I started a small company to provide open technology solutions to bars and restaurants. We wanted to introduce an open entertainment solution that could challenge the established proprietary vendors in the US market. After investigating several would be products, we elected to go with GP2X platform about a little less than a year ago.

What you'll find on our website is a product called Panda which is based on the the gp2x. The Panda serves as a mini kiosk that provides personal dining and entertainment services to the guest as they sit at their table or at the bar counter.

To bring games and applications to the Panda, we are working on revenue models that will attract both commerical indie game developers and and open source pioneers. We will be partnering with commercial game developers, especially those that provide games to mobile phones.
The reason for this simple. The Panda will serve as an access point to provide digital content for current and future mobile phones. Movies, music and games will be able to be browsed on the Panda and then download to a guests mobile phone.

As a byproduct, many of the games and apps that run on the Panda will also be able to run on the personal GP2X devices, perhaps with minor mods if needed.

There is strength in unity.
The power and value of the Panda becomes clear with the introduction of our Bamboo server. The Bamboo server allows several Pandas to be networked together and onto the internet. What you get is the ability for multiplayer gaming, web browsing, chatting, video streaming and much, much more that is beyond scope of this post.

As much of our R&D is taking place in Taiwan and Asia, it allows us the advantage to visit with regional hardware component manufactures, such as those that make mobile phones and SDIO accessories. As example, we are currently working with one company to help port a wifi driver for the GP2X.
While will allow us to extend our product line, of more importance to the gp2x community is they will finally have an wifi SDIO card to call their own.
More over, a wifi enabled GP2X in hand, you will be able to visit participating establishments and join in on the social games provided from the Bamboo server.

I hope this info helps garner new interest and allays any fears about the gp2x. Now all I ask is to please have some patience, as we are a small startup with many ambitions, it takes a little time to put all the key pieces in place. If you have found interest in what I have announced and you would like to help out, then please help spread the word about Panda. If you're old enough to drink, visit your local pub or bar and give us a plug. If you're not of legal age, then visit your local coffee shop or deli hangout and tell them about us.

Best Regards

I took a look at your site, and that is a very creative way to use the GP2X, not to mention that it really puts its versatility to good use. All the best with that!

Some things to note..

Real projects take time.

Compos tend to compress everyone into that time frame, and then you have nothing for awhile.

ie: I know I spent a _lot_ of time on BattleJewels .. better part of a year, to get it to the pollish its at.

So I know I'm exhausted

After GBAX, there is _always_ a quiet time .. you have dozens of releases in one shot, that means quiet time to recup for everyone. If no compo, you end up with them spread over the year (though maybe a few less?) Its why theres a big pile of movies in summer, and then quiet for 6 mo after..

jeff

Whoa, that was unexpected and completly awesome.

woot!

It would be nice to see some screens of what devs are working on in this thread. Good idea to help people get excited about gp2x stuff but I don't think the gp2x is really dying. Just going through a quiet period like skeezix said.

though I haven't beaten the first one yet looking forward to FleshChasmer ZERO. original is really good despite low resolution look. there is a lot of depth to the game which may make it harder to get into than some of the more simple homebrew but is really good stuff.

that panda thing sounds cool. some of the developments you make there could also be used by the gp2x community.

Definately working on something now - basic 3d engine works nicely on the PC but still waiting on my F200 to see how fast it runs..

Getting polished, will be out soon.. It's a port of TileWorld with a complete re-writing of the user interface.

I hope we can see a bunch of releases around the new year. That would be great.

I wish I could help revive things, but I don't think two months is enough time for me to learn how to program for the 2X and also make a game. Especially because conventional programming languages don't work out for me. (Yes, I'm even confused by Fenix.)

But good luck to everyone who's going to be making something!

GP2X dead!

I must have missed that meeting while I was AWOL.

I can't see it dead just yet but like the GP32 before it there is a plateau where a lot of things are done to an acceptable level, devs get bored and start to cheat on the console with the latest cheap whore on the block etc. . Like most things people come and go but I think the 2X has a lot of life in it yet.

I still know of loads of active projects and people seem to forget just how much of the GP2X mainstay software is cross platform with optimised ARM engines running on many consoles, cross platform cores etc. – Just because a dev is hacking with a DS now or something else does not mean there code fixes will not hit the 2X versions of there software once stable etc.. There is a rush when things start to come together and the GP2X has long since had its rush but that does not mean quality releases won’t come out that build on those foundations. I also expect to see a raft of small updates for F200 support (I think I have ScummVM working with the touchscreen for example but need an F200 to test ) so that should liven things up a bit and just freshen things.

Ill deffo have a release around New Year. Thinking about a version Tranz Am - I loved that game.

DJWillis, you are my hero xD





Now we need UAE4all to get moving

I can now confirm it works, all builds from 0.10.0> support the touch screen but there will be some touchscreen specific options in newer builds to do right clicks with push/hold (if I can figure out how).

Right now it's move and left click on tap. There also seems to be problems with games bigger then QVGA (320*240) as the touch panel seems to go out of whack with the screen position . I'll look into that but obviously I don't have an F200.

this looks very exciting

Does everyone have to go into this panic like 'the community is dying, my gp2x is useless oh noooo' At the slightest slowdown of the forum? I mean this happened once before and the developers never all flat out LEFT... developers are getting visibly bored of the machine and that's natural. I'm interested to see what devs do with the new handheld....

and I bet that's what most devs are waiting for, too. When there is new hardware there will be new development to exploit its possibilities...... take a chill pill and just wait a while!