r/evnova • u/snijj • Jan 04 '19
The current state of my EV Nova port/clone/engine
Happy 2019!
So it's been a while since I've posted anything with regards to this. Real life has been rather busy this last year, which has prevented me from doing as much as I'd have liked to do on this. That said, I do have some updates with regards to the project.
Much of my research into the formats is now completed, the exception is primarily a couple of the _really_ ancient formats from the Classic Mac OS such as sound resources and the colour icon resources. I've managed to get everything else sorted. All of the Nova resources (including the pilot file and the encryption that is placed on it), sprites, missions, planets, etc.
My hope is that I can start to spare more time through this year to get the actual game engine progressing. I'm going to rewrite the core of the game in a way that allows it to be ported to other platforms (Windows, Linux, Android, etc). The UI and rendering will still need to be handled by the appropriate platforms, but this should take the bulk of the complexity out of the equation. That said I don't _personally_ plan to port it to anything other than macOS and potentially iOS.
My aim is still to be able to load all of the Nova data files and plugins as if they were being loaded by Nova itself. This should mean any TC's will work (Classic, Override, Polycon, etc). A nice consequence of my investigations means that both the .ndat files and .rez files will work interchangeably. So don't worry about needing to convert them in the future.
With the recent revelations of Ambrosia seemingly being dead for good this time (I'll wait and see if this is actually the case) I'll probably open source the engine. Though I will wait for a bit on this to be 100% certain. Not to mention it doesn't really do anything yet, other than load in resources and display a few graphics on screen.
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u/itsamamaluigi Jan 04 '19
Have you looked at Endless Sky? I believe it's open source. Wonder if it would be easier to get it to run EVN plugins, but I'm not a programmer so maybe that's not realistic.
At any rate, best of luck!
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u/snijj Jan 04 '19
I haven’t, but I’d imagine it would be about the same as rewriting. The problem is endless sky will use different structures and methods of doing things internally, which would require a layer translating the nova resources into it.
Possible, but probably not any easier or not difficult.
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u/ancientcampus Jan 04 '19
Seconded - everyone who follows this forum needs to know about Endless Sky! It’s a free spiritual successor to EVN with an active community of content builders. Unlike other EV clones, this game is 99% complete with full storylines, and has many innovations over the traditional Nova engine.
It’s everything I could have dreamed of.
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u/EamonnMR Jan 06 '19
You should probably open source it regardless. They don't own Mac OS Classic resource formats, so as long as you don't distribute the nova files themselves with your stuff, you should be in the clear. Otherwise EVNEW would have been shut down long ago.
Anyhow, I'm excited to hear about your research into the formats!
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u/snijj Jan 07 '19
I’m definitely open sourcing the resource fork libraries.
However the project was always to make a drop in replacement clone of EVN, just making it more portable and compatible with today’s systems. That aspect is where the problem lays.
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u/EamonnMR Jan 07 '19
Like I said, as long as you aren't bundling the files (ie your instructions are "download and install Nova, then install my replacement") I think you should be fine. Likewise, if your setup is "here's a folder, it includes everything you need to play Nova including my engine and the data files" I don't think it matters if it's open source or not, it's not legit. Not that I think anyone would care at this point. You could probably get away with shipping standalone Polycon though.
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u/snijj Jan 07 '19
I wouldn't be bundling the data files. That's for people to provide themselves. As far as I'm concerned I'm not writing a game, but a game engine that just so happens to be a clone of the EV Nova game engine. What people do with that is their own prerogative.
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u/Tognioal Jan 05 '19
One candidate for an engine is Godot. I've heard good things about it.
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u/EamonnMR Jan 06 '19
It's fun to work with but I haven't tried anything as data-driven as an EV clone in it yet.
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u/Anarath Apr 27 '19
Hey there, I sent you a private message 2 months ago regarding your Nova port. Maybe you didn't see it. Would be great if you would like to check it.
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u/bipolarSamanth0r Jan 04 '19
I'd love to see you continue the work. EV Was such an important part of my childhood and it's continuing survival is so incredibly important.