Tremulous DS

[NiTRoX]

I think it would be cool of someone ported Trem to the Nintendo DS.

I mean it would be great.. using the stylus & touchscreen instead of mouse, Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.. voice chat ..

Well I think it might be possible since theres a Linux port to the DS (DSLinux).

Anyways. Post your comments here.

[Make]

Have you ever played tremulous on a laptop with a touch-pad? Its not much good except for humiliating yourself. Just give me my mouse and keyboard and I'll be happy.

But if someone is willing to port it why not?

[NiTRoX]

Have you ever played Metroid Prime HUnters for the DS?

It's a first person shooter and its easy to aim (with the stylus)

[Rocinante]

Not having a DS myself, can it do 3D graphics?  I'd see that as being the biggest sticking point.

I keep seeing friends who have them, and are doing things like IRC from them, and wonder if I should get one.  I don't have that much free time as it is :>

[Odin]

Yes, it can do 3D graphics. Metroid Prime Hunters is an excellent example of a 3D FPS on the DS.

The DS cannot do hardware texture filtering, so imagine Tremulous at 320x240 with GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_NEAREST.

[NiTRoX]

Not having a DS myself, can it do 3D graphics?  I'd see that as being the biggest sticking point.

I keep seeing friends who have them, and are doing things like IRC from them, and wonder if I should get one.  I don't have that much free time as it is :>

Yes it does. They're approximately the same as the PS1/N64

[Make]

Have you ever played Metroid Prime HUnters for the DS?

It's a first person shooter and its easy to aim (with the stylus)

Ahh I forgot about the stylus. But as for your question, I must admit its not quite within my field of experience. But it seems to me that trems game play would be faster, but I don't know as I have never played Metroid Prime.

* Make goes to find a video of Metroid Prime game play.

EDIT: I should have made clear that to me; you can't navigate as quickly with the DS as you can with a keyboard and mouse and thus would be at a disadvantage when playing online against those with a keyboard and mouse.

[NiTRoX]

Have you ever played Metroid Prime HUnters for the DS?

It's a first person shooter and its easy to aim (with the stylus)

Ahh I forgot about the stylus. But as for your question, I must admit its not quite within my field of experience. But it seems to me that trems game play would be faster, but I don't know as I have never played Metroid Prime.

* Make goes to find a video of Metroid Prime game play.

EDIT: I should have made clear that to me; you can't navigate as quickly with the DS as you can with a keyboard and mouse and thus would be at a disadvantage when playing online against those with a keyboard and mouse.

True but it would still be cool.

Note: Theres also a port of Doom and Quake to the DS.

[Caveman]

It would be a good idea, coding wise.
But totally unplayable.
Just ask you this, if you'd really be able to see the dretches from a mile away like on a normal screen.
No matter the resolution, it's the display in the DS that is way to small to give anybody serious fun in a fps-mpg. After you died several times because you either could not move/aim fast enough the DS is in serious trouble of hitting the wall.

Not everything that is doable should be done, just ask your parents.

[benmachine]

The DS with high enough sensitivity can rival mouse aiming. The small screen would be an annoyance, but not crippling.
Technically however, I think it'd be a massive challenge to get any kind of worthwhile frame rate. The DS hardware is remarkably, how shall I put this, spartan - tech specs are surprisingly low.

[Paradox]

Arent the ds's specs only a stones throw away from those of a Wii?

[AKA_Loser]

Have you ever played tremulous on a laptop with a touch-pad? Its not much good except for humiliating yourself. Just give me my mouse and keyboard and I'll be happy.

But if someone is willing to port it why not?

[derail] A minor derail, but with enough practice, you can become quite proficient at playing with a trackpad.  I play tremulous exclusively on a laptop, and while by no means an amazing player, I often find myself at or near the top of servers - aiming isn't really that difficult once you've practiced enough.  I'm not saying a trackpad is just as good as a mouse, but with enough time, you can get fairly decent.  The trick is to set your primary fire key to something other than the mous button - freeing up your entire hand for the trackpad.  After that it's a question of practice and and getting your sensitivity just right  The biggest problem is when the surface of the trackpad gets moist from sweaty fingers...[/derail]

[Caveman]

Ben I am not saying that one can't aim
I am saying that it is impossible to think one can compete on with a few buttons and a stylus against a whole keyboard and a mouse.
What use is the best aim if you can't move vertically and jump at the same time?
Reminds me somehow of sitting ducks with pea-shooters.

[Odin]

It would take some clever hacking of Tremulous' code to take advantage of the various hardware accelerators on the DS(pure CPU speed isn't everything).

Like running the logic on the ARM7 and using the ARM9 as a GPU.

[Make]

[derail] A minor derail, but with enough practice, you can become quite proficient at playing with a trackpad.  I play tremulous exclusively on a laptop, and while by no means an amazing player, I often find myself at or near the top of servers - aiming isn't really that difficult once you've practiced enough.  I'm not saying a trackpad is just as good as a mouse, but with enough time, you can get fairly decent.  The trick is to set your primary fire key to something other than the mous button - freeing up your entire hand for the trackpad.  After that it's a question of practice and and getting your sensitivity just right  The biggest problem is when the surface of the trackpad gets moist from sweaty fingers...[/derail]

Well maybe I didn't try tweaking it enough, or maybe I have a factory defect. But changing my sensitivity resulted in one of the following problems:

1. Setting it too low and running out of room on the track pad.
2. Setting it too high and not being able to hit the side of house.

And now back to your regularly scheduled topic...

How would you handle actions like crouch, activate medikit, or reload? It seems like it would be a hassle on a DS. Would you select it on the second screen? Because that means you wont be able to aim when you activate the medikit or something similar,  which in my mind is a major disadvantage.

[PIE]

... you guys really should play metroid prime. It will give you a good idea of how you can actually pull the aiming aspect off with a touch screen.. its MUCH easier than playing with a laptop.

The controls available are L button R button and the D pad (or right side buttons if you are left handed).
Dpad is movement thought so that leaves L and R... which AKA_Loser pointed out doesn't leave a whole lot of options when you need:
Fire
select item
use item
crouch
run
in addtion.. you could possibly have a bar on the bottom of the touch screen to allow people to select and use items and use the right and left buttons for crouch and run.. but you could also very easily hit the use button by accident..

Overall though i'd be very shocked if someone put forth the effort to port trem to the DS.. i'd definitely play it though, no matter how it turned out.

[Odin]

In order to play it you'd require a modding kit.

So uh, yea.

[NiTRoX]

In order to play it you'd require a modding kit.

So uh, yea.

There's are tons of DS modding kits (if they are what I understood they are) like the R4, NinjaDS , MD3 and othaz.

http://www.devkitpro.org/

[Odin]

Which you have to buy.

[Lava Croft]

Quake is already ported to the DS by fans, and id Software has very concrete plans to bring a Quake Arena iteration to the DS. So, just be patient, id Software and Fountainhead Entertainment did not start id Mobile for nothing.

[NiTRoX]

Which you have to buy.

They're not expensive...

[benmachine]

Yeah, I just thought about how much of my keyboard is bound to play Tremulous, and on that ground I doubt it can compete. So obviously you wouldn't be DSing in a clan match, but that's hardly the point. If it could be done (and I'm still of the opinion that it could not) then the coolness of pocket Tremulous would easily outweigh the relative suckiness of your actual play. That said, how you cope with primary and secondary fire and jumping all on the same two hands while still keeping a thumb for the touchscreen I'm not sure.

Which you have to buy.

Mmhm. And to play Tremulous you need to buy a computer.

[leilei]

Just recode and port Tremulous to DOSQuake then customize DSQuake to fully utilize it )))

[Matt2k10]

Metroid Prime: Hunters has item changing, etc on the touch screen and all the action(health and ammo as well) on the top screen. To jump, you double tap. Secondary fire could be L, though it would really hurt to keep your finger on it and the touch screen for longer periods of time
Yeah, it wouldn't be as great as keyboard and mouse, but it would work decently. I'm all for it

[benmachine]

Just recode and port Tremulous to DOSQuake then customize DSQuake to fully utilize it )))

Sure, that'll only take like FIVE MILLION YEARS.

[leilei]

Just recode and port Tremulous to DOSQuake then customize DSQuake to fully utilize it )))

Sure, that'll only take like FIVE MILLION YEARS.

What makes you say that? You being lazy is not a factor for pipelines. Plain QuakeC is sufficient enough to replicate the gameplay of Tremulous

[Caveman]

Oh come on... oh great and wise guys. In your abundant knowledge of the source you deem it so easy to do, then give nitrox his port.

If not, then explain to him why you are unwilling to do it.

[NiTRoX]

Oh come on... oh great and wise guys. In your abundant knowledge of the source you deem it so easy to do, then give nitrox his port.

If not, then explain to him why you are unwilling to do it.

Hey, I never said I knew how to port it.

[MasterMechanic]

to port trem to ds its nothing but a simple set of limitations. if it is to be done then the ds version needs naught but one thing.

the limitation of players. if it were to be ported, as stated by others, there would be a disadvantage over those on ds by those on pc. create a seperate fanbase and player set. this then solves the first and foremost problem for the ds.

and to add to what has been said about the ds...

I bought CALL OF DUTY 4:Modern Warfare for my ds{yes it's on ds}. twas an alright game, could have been better, but it shows that other shooters can be done on ds, though not necesarily trem.
.


and in no way am i saying that separation is the only way for the game to be ported fairly. it's a possibility.

[hitchen1]

Arent the ds's specs only a stones throw away from those of a Wii?

RAWR! no ! wii's are alot better, DS gets boring faster than the wii does (DS taken 1 day Wii taken 3)
Do it on wii, would probably bring funner game play (aiming and shooting would be funny) aswell as using the nunchuck' to move around, xD.