Klaus Rotter, one of the developers who’s gotten his hands on a Nokia 770, has been rewriting the clone of Bomberman for the Sharp Zaurus, and he’s gotten that rewrite working on the Nokia 770. He notes that “There is nothing special yet, no Maemo/Osso support, just plain SDL” and adds, “But it works…” You can download the software at http://www.rotters.de/dl/bomberman_0.8-1.deb
I noticed Tapani Pälli wrote that he was experimenting with TinyGL (an OpenGL subset) and the Nokia 770, and then I saw on his website some game photos and screen captures of a platform game he’s making for Maemo. Here it’s running on a 770:
ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables shipped with the game, allowing you to play them on systems for which they were never designed!
The ScummVM site adds to that description: ” ScummVM lets you run these adventures: Adventure Soft’s Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2; Revolution’s Beneath A Steel Sky, Broken Sword 1 and Broken Sword 2; Flight of the Amazon Queen; and games based on LucasArts’ SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) system. SCUMM is used for many games, including Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max and more.”
As noted in an earlier post last month, the list of games is lengthy, and two new ones have been added: Inherit the Earth and Gobliiins.
Marcelo Oliveira reports that updates to all the games developed or ported by INdT are being finished. He advises that the following games will soon be available to be downloaded from the INdT website:
* MaemoBlocks : Tetris-like game but you can play also with the stylus (pen) by grabbing and moving the pieces.
* MaemoDrac: Solitaire game based on Drac.
* MaemoSweeper: MineSweeper clone
* BattleGweled: Multiplayer through wi-fi (need manual setup at this version)
* CrazyParking: based on the classic Rush Hour game (screenshot).
* TuxPux : simple port
* Lbreakout: simple port, new GFX needed
* IceBreaker: simple port
* Doom: Multiplayer through wi-fi (need manual setup at this point)
MaemoBlocks, maemoDrac, MaemoSweeper, TuxPux and Lbreakout are all games whose Maemo appearance is new to me and for which, so far, no screenshots have surfaced. Marcelo promises screenshots soon at the Maemo wiki.
IceBreaker has been touted from the beginning as a game that will be running on the Nokia 770. I don’t recall having seen any screenshots or other information about this till now.
The INdT list of applications now lists the game, as does the Maemo wiki, with a link to the originator, Matthew Miller. At his site, he indicates a beta version with themes is available; the wiki description is ambiguously phrased, so maybe that beta version is coming too. The themes change the colors and turn the penguins into bugs, aliens, Hello Kitty! kitties, and so on.
Here’s how INdT describes the game:
Ported version of the famous IceBreaker game based on the famous jazzele for Windows. Use your stylus to break the icebergs and lock the penguins on small portions of ice. Smaller portion bigger score!
For those who’ve never played the game, here’s a screenshot from Matthew’s website (in the game’s original proportions), showing how the iceberg onscreen is broken up, isolating the penguins on the floes.
Update:The GameDevelopment page at the Maemo wiki has had a photo of IceBreaker running on the Nokia 770 since mid-July, which escaped my notice.
The Application Catalog at the Maemo wiki lists a new game: MammaSnake.
You can download the MammaSnake installation package, mammasnake_0.9-1.deb (”works on real N770 device!” notes the site), or the MSnake source code, mammasnake-0.9.tar.gz.
At Neave Games, which sells a version of Snake for Nokia phones, this description of the game appears:
This game has been around since sometime last century, but it only recently took off since it came as standard on Nokia mobile phones (or ‘cellphones’ as those crazy Americans like to say)….
The idea is to guide the snake to eat the food. The sooner you eat, the more you score. And just like real food-eating snakes, the more you gobble, the fatter you become. And don’t eat the walls — they taste awful.
My crazy co-worker Cidorvan ( alias go go go ) has just fixed some small bugs and made it work on scratchbox 0.9x. He is right now playing on his laptop against a 770 a few meters away. Pretty cool to see the multiplayer gaming again on the device ( first was battlegweled ).
This looks like it will be great gaming on the 770. We echo Marcelo Eduardo when he says, “Congrats, Cidoca!!!”
What does it mean in the Application Catalog on the Maemo wiki that ScummVM “runs almost out of the box” with only “minor changes needed for more enjoyable game play”? I didn’t know. Is ScummVM a game, or what? I finally decided to investigate what was behind this entry. And what I found is good news. ScummVM running on on Maemo means more than one game.
As I understand it, SCUMM was a gameplaying framework used by LucasArts, for one, and ScummVM allows SCUMM games to be played on computers for which the games were never designed.
SCUMM games
The Secret of Monkey Island (eg, Monkey Island 1)
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
Curse of Monkey Island
Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Day of the Tentacle
Maniac Mansion
Zak McKracken
Loom
Sam & Max
The Dig
Full Throttle
Fatty Bear’s Birthday Surprise
Fatty Bear’s Fun Pack
Putt-Putt’s Fun Pack
Putt-Putt Goes To The Moon
Putt-Putt Joins the Parade
Other games
Beneath a Steel Sky (available free from ScummVM website)
Flight of the Amazon Queen (available free from ScummVM website)
Broken Sword I and II
Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2
The following games should load, but you may encounter some problems still.
Freddi Fish 1: The Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds
Freddi Fish 2: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse
Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell
Let’s Explore the Airport with Buzzy
Let’s Explore the Farm with Buzzy
Let’s Explore the Jungle with Buzzy
Pajama Sam 1: No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside
Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren’t so Frightening
Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo
Putt-Putt Travels Through Time
As a parent whose first-grader plays several of these games on Windows and Mac machines, I’m happy to learn that I already own the data files necessary to play them on the 770. Since these are older games, you should be able to acquire them easily and inexpensively on compilation disks and on eBay.
“Even having DOOM running full speed on the real device, I want to reinforce my opinion that the simple games will rule this device,” he writes. Why? “Playing action games with the pen is not the most exciting thing in the world, so we could focus on real pen-based fun. Nintendo DS is showing the right away of mobile gaming, and showing that a power house ( like psp ) is not enough to make to the top.”
Not to quote here everything he wrote, still I want to include this comment: “[O]ne thing that would be just amazing to have on the new device is a nintendogs-like tamagoshi. I know 3d is kind of complicated in such device ( with a good quality to that screen ) but even a good 2D one would be great. It’s all there: wi-fi , microphone, the pen based. Everything that we need to make a good virtual pet for this device.”
Cory Doctorow at Boing-Boing pointed to Lemmings, an online game implemented in DHTML.
Well, online means “accessible to Nokia 770,” but the surprising thing when I visited the DHTML Lemmings site is that the proportions of the game seem designed for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet screen.
Maybe someone with a device will play the game and tell us if it fits (as it would seem to). Anyone?
Update: Philippe De Swert at handhelds.org posted a photo at
