[Enigma-devel] Maemo Port for Nokia Internet Tablets

[Pipeline]

Sorry, I couldn't resist porting enigma to maemo, and although i have little linux experience (actually only prior unix experience), i was able to get it running on my device (and subsequently packaging for other maemo users) thanks to clean codebase.  Trickiest (for me) was compiling xerces.  To give due credit, I have always linked to the enigma project page, my sources have been made available for download since they became viable/playable installs, and i distribute appropriate gnu license notices. I had thought about posting news of port to the forum but those posts seemed mostly about game content itself (and i wasnt familiar with devlists).  Let me know if theres anything you would want me to do now to be more compliant.

 

The maemo.org software directory previously linked suffers from availablity issues due to poor caching, so the page might have failed to load at that instant but it is actually there at http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2008/enigma/.  It merely redirects to a download page i made at : http://wardenclyffetower.com/MaemoFiles/enigma/enigma.htm. The screenshot is windowed merely for ease in making the screenshot itself... the status is visible in fullscreen which is how i use and recommend playing it.

 

The port was was well worth it, and my reward is being able to (personally) run it on my tablet device (anywhere/anytime/solidstate/with arm cpu efficiency 'read 1 watt enigma'). 

 

Maemo platform is growing exponentially so when i first released very few people probably even noticed.   But maemo userbase is growing in popularity and more persons are becoming familiar with enigma through this port (estimate proabably 500 maemo users will play enigma on this device generation).  As such i will stand up and say thanks for all the fish!   Although i am learning more and more and this is first development list i've ever joined, i am primarily a c# developer and have only been coding linux (entirely for tablet) for about... 3 months.  So Till, if your interested you are more than welcome to take over the port if I begin to slow you down as I'm sure you probably have more experience integrating into upstream projects. 

 

Enigma works fairly well on maemo devices (Nokia N800, N810 Internet Tablets) however those devices have 400MHZ arm cpu which sometimes get bogged down in high animation environments.  I'd estimate 80% of the levels play well on maemo devices so due to hardware/speed limitations its not a 100% port.  My modificiations primarily consist of eliminating some world collision animations, elimination of mouse movements over... say 40units to avoid jumpiness from touchpad stylus lift/reset... basically disabling functionality... things i did not expect would be particularly useful to contribute back.  I did try an 800x480 resolution mode (native) using the (32x32?) tileset which 640x480 uses, however that is the extent of my pursuit of widescreen since I realize levels were designed for this aspect ratio and most depend on it.  Main advantage of widescreen (currently) is in extending they surface area of screen in which stylus input is accepted. 

 

I also am interested in seeing how well enigma runs with such a tilt mechanism as Till is working on... there are actually slowdowns which occur when using the touchscreen that i believe to be driver issue with touchscreen and/or touchscreen behavior in general.  These manifest in minor freezing of display updates (hitches) occasionally however most of the time its rather smooth.  This might also be that the touchscreen might be re-registering MOUSE1 sdl inputs throughout the stylus drag (which i believe i ignore) but still fills the input queue.  I think any input device especially a tilt mechanism would bypass that slowdown and make even more levels playable without slowdowns.  I would think a (addon?) 'Tilt' pack with the best tilt-friendly levels would be in order for something like that.

 

So thanks again Enigma Devs (especially Ronald Lamprecht) for the game... truly - First Class - 

 

And sorry for not finding a way of notifying you about port in case you were interested.  That might have been useful if not nothing other than having context to Till's tilt mechanism inquiries.  I'm glad to bring enigma to one more platform, although i expect future hardware revisions would require little more than ./configure make install dpkg due to speed increases. 

 

Amazing to see versatility of linux wherein a single (worldwide) managed codebase could support such a broad range of devices.

 

Thanks-

Dave Easterday