Using MKXP to Port Games

[moocow1452]

So If I'm trying to port Pokemon Omicron from http://www.pokemonzetaomicron.com to Linux using MKXP. Would I be better off trying to build a solution from the "Mirror Lied" tarball, or compiling myself? Or would there be some sort of in-between recommendation for your average A to B port?

[Ancurio]

The "Mirror Lied" mkxp build itself is stolen from "To the Moon", which was built by Edward Rudd from humblebundle (it's this branch to be exact); it's 32/64bit and has excellent compatibility with older Linux systems (which I myself can't provide because I don't have the necessary setup). There have been some new improvements made in mkxp since that build was created, but nothing fundamental, so if a game runs on the "To the Moon" build it will 99.9% work with later mkxp versions, so I'd definitely recommend to just grab the builds from TtM/MirrorLied if you don't already have a setup to build mkxp yourself.

I use https://github.com/Ancurio/rgss_script_editor to edit the game scripts on Linux, in case there are incompatibilities to fix. The game archive is unpacked with http://davidgow.net/hacks/ttm_unpack.html

[Ancurio]

The scripts are overflowing with Win32API calls, I see lots of code for data transactions with a remote server; this game is huge. It's very hard to tell which parts are dead code. I fear porting such a project to be cross platform is not something a single person can accomplish in their free time =/

You'd basically end up rewriting half of the entire game.

[moocow1452]

Might be better to just stick it with Wine if it's gonna be calling Windows functions the entire time? On Mar 3, 2014 3:26 AM, "Jonas Kulla" notifications@github.com wrote:

The scripts are overflowing with Win32API calls, I see lots of code for data transactions with a remote server; this game is huge. It's very hard to tell which parts are dead code. I fear porting such a project to be cross platform is not something a single person can accomplish in their free time =/

You'd basically end up rewriting half of the entire game.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/Ancurio/mkxp/issues/21#issuecomment-36489549 .

[Ancurio]

Yeah =/ I'm sorry to disappoint you. But mkxp's strength lies in the fact that it implements all the standard interfaces defined by RGSS, so that most games that only use events / light scripting work without any changes. As soon as Win32API is involved, a myriad of new problems arise, because I cannot reasonably emulate the entire Windows API in my small engine. That's what the Wine project provides instead. FWIW, the developers of this game are already using Wine for their Mac "port".