As many of you have wondered what is going on in the GCW Zero scene and whether anybody is still actively working on any projects, I decided to shed some light into the matter.
First, let me say that since January 2014 I am a full time employee at a local company and have only weekends to dedicate to development. That said, the last few months I have been working on 3 closed-source game ports for GCW Zero. Giana's Return is one of them, I will leave the other two as a surprise
And in case you missed it - there was also an update to Sqrxz 3 (v-sync!) and a release of EDuke32 - both to be found on the official repository. Additionally I was putting effort to UMG development and my second (yet unannounced) homebrew project that is testing Java capabilities of GCW Zero. I was also working on a port of graphical Nethack, but due to uncertainty of the legality of the data assets, this is currently on hold.
Last weekend I was busy porting
Wizznic!, a nice puzzle game. The port is almost done, I will be ready with it by the end of the week. Once the author sends me updated graphics for the game, I will release it on the official repository.
Enough with the introduction! After Wizznic! is done, I would like to focus on another game port for GCW Zero. Since the time is my constraint, I want to focus on a single new project and only move to another when the current one is done.
I decided it might be interesting if I ask you - the community - for the opinion. What game port should I focus on next? Below are 5 candidates, they are all games I have been already working on over the last two years and the ports are in different stages of completion.
If you are interested, please vote for the one you would like to see ported first.
NOTE: All the videos below, except for Commander Genius, are of my actual Work-In-Progress GCW Zero ports, filmed on PC for better recording quality.
Liero (done)Liero is a realtime worms clone, a classic from the DOS times. Destructible terrain, tons of custom weapons - hours of fun.
MeritousMeritous is an interesting variation on the hack&slack genre. Wander through countless, automatically generated dungeons, kill enemies with your force blast, collect artifacts, defeat bosses and upgrade your character.
HeroesHeroes is a mix of the classic Tron and Snake games. Race against other players, pick up bonuses and try to get the longest tail.
Unfortunatelly my PC wasn't able to capture it's awesome soundtrack. Luckily the GCW Zero has no problem playing it.
FlareFlare is an RPG in the spirit of Diablo. Embark on a quest, kill tons of enemies and collect the valuable loot. Except for the first screen, the game is fully playable with GCW Zero controls (no mouse or mouse emulation required).
Commander GeniusCommander Genius is an engine reimplementation of the classic Commander Keen game series. As my old, unfinished port of it got very outdated - I need to start over with a fresh port and cannot show you a video of my work. The video above is from the PC version of Commander Genius.
The poll will be open until my port of Wizznic! is officially released.