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GBA Gets Unofficial Sierra Adventure Game Emulator

Posted by simoniker on from the questin-on-your-gba dept.

Thanks to ShackNews for pointing out the Game Boy Advance Adventure Game Interpreter (GBAGI) webpage, which features an "interpreter/emulator/software that runs... Sierra's original animated adventure games on the Nintendo Game Boy Advance." The software's maker flew down to meet with Sierra owner Vivendi regarding official GBA releases, but mentions: "VUG(Vivendi Universal Games), who are affiliated with Blizzard Entertainment, had just released two classic ports to the Game Boy Advance, The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne, which both did not do too well. This is why they were now a bit standoff-ish about [official GBA carts]." Therefore, the downloads page includes "GBAGI ROMs packed in with demos that are freely available", as well as instructions on how to "to build GBA ROMs with AGI games [that you own]."

29 comments

  1. Holy crap, that's awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't have a GBA, but this will be a system seller for me.

    1. Re:Holy crap, that's awesome! by ru-486 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I just got through playing with the demos on the site and it works pretty good. Give it a try on the excellent emulator Visual Boy Advance. Seems like the official emulator site is down, but you can get the latest visualboy emu here

    2. Re:Holy crap, that's awesome! by edwdig · · Score: 1

      If you're downloading VisualBoy Advance, get version 1.5. 1.6 had bugs in the BIOS emulation. In 1.7, several of the choices in the Tools menu would cause VBA to crash on me. I didn't use it long enough to find out if the BIOS bugs were fixed.

  2. Fun but frustrating by Randar+the+Lava+Liza · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I just gave this a whirl on my GBA SP (I have a flash cart & linker at home). While it was great to see Space Quest again, I forgot just how annoying some of these games can be. While you're presented with a visual of the layout of the room, you have to walk up to each item you want to mess around with, then find the right text combination to activate it, search it, etc.

    Don't get me wrong, I loved these back in the day, and this is an amazing emulator, kudos to all. It's just reminding me of how nice it is these days to not have to find the exact phrasing of "turn on computer" to get the in game computer to work (in this case, "look screen").

    The emulator does a great job though, and presents a popup menu that you can use to insert words into the game automatically, built from the vocabulary lists for that particular room.

    Still, if you want to play these games again, this is a fantastic way to do it. I was able to fit 4 space quest games (space quest 1 & 2 and the two homebrew spacequest games) plus my NES roms all on a 128M cart.

    --
    Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin
    1. Re:Fun but frustrating by Trillian_1138 · · Score: 1

      This is OT, but you touched on it in your post. I just recently got a GBA and am loving it, but it sounds like you have a flash reader and linker (and presumably GBA-compatible emulator) to play NES games on your GBA. That would simply kick ass and be worth some expendature of money to get the required hardware. I was wondering how that worked and if you had any advice for where or how to get equipment.

      Thanks!

      -Trillian

    2. Re:Fun but frustrating by Randar+the+Lava+Liza · · Score: 1
      I have the Flash2Advance cart from http://www.success-hk.com. I got one with a usb link device to write to the cartridge. You put the cart in the GBA, link it to your pc from the usb linker, then start up the writing software. That software boots the GBA with a special program so it can write to the cart.

      The best way to organize the files on the cart is with PogoShell. PogoShell lets you create a filesystem on the GBA, you can use it to read text files, play GBA roms and play NES roms. It has a built-in PocketNES emulator, so all you have to do is put the NES roms into a folder in the filesystem before you create a ROM image for burning. Works great!

      --
      Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin
    3. Re:Fun but frustrating by Trillian_1138 · · Score: 1

      Sorry to keep bothering you. Just want to make sure about what I'm getting into before I spend money.

      I realize this is obviously not going to give accurate performance, but I downloaded a GBA emulator to try PogoShell in. Unfortunatly, it keeps crashing. Is this just a symptom of the emulator?

      I get tantalizingly close to it working (shows the PogoShell shell, and I can select roms) but they crash when I attempt to play 'em. It really does work for you?

      Any other information or suggestions you can think of? (I'm pretty sure I've talked myself into buying a flash cartridge...)

      -Trillian

    4. Re:Fun but frustrating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The old Lucasfilm Games adventure games had a way better parser, where instead of typing you pointed-n-clicked to construct phrases using a wordlist and elements in the game.

      I would love to play Maniac Mansion or Zak McKracken on a Gameboy. Or Last Crusade, Loom or Monkey Island...

    5. Re:Fun but frustrating by AndyBusch · · Score: 1

      PogoShell uses some neat hardware tricks that are in no way emulated correctly. So, it won't won't won't work on an emu, but works incredibly on a real flash cart and hardware. And PogoNES runs at speed in 99+% of games. It's simply incredible. Well worth the cost of a few GBA carts.

    6. Re:Fun but frustrating by Trillian_1138 · · Score: 1

      I'm just going to keep picking your brain...

      I got my Flash2Advance cartridge today, and the USB linker. I've had much fun loading games onto it, and you're right: it definitely rocks. One last (I hope) question. With the USB linker and the software provided (F2APowerWriter 1.00b) the cart is akwats automatically pre-written with the Flash2Advance file navigator. You seemed to indicate PogoShell should be the only thing written to the file, but this looks impossible with the software they provided me with to link to the computer. Am I missing something?

      Thanks again for all of your help so far! It's awesome beyond belief to be playing NES games on my GBA.

      -Trillian

    7. Re:Fun but frustrating by Trillian_1138 · · Score: 1

      Actually figured it out. Downloaded another flash loader and got it working.

      Thanks again for all your help!

      -Trillian

    8. Re:Fun but frustrating by Trillian_1138 · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry. I really, honestly am. But I keep running into trouble. I bought the Flash2Advance 256 Ultra, which (as I said) comes with F2APowerWriter 1.00b. Unfortunatly, it's a POS software. I can, SOME of the time, get PogoShell working if I upload it with an older version of the Flash2Advance writing software, but more often than not I can't upload it. Am I simply forced to upload it through F2APowerWriter and then open PogoShell from the F2A default file menu? That seems cludgy and not very graceful.

      Again, I'm sorry to keep bothering you. But it's so close to working!
      -Trillian

  3. Lost Vikings Didn't Sell Well? by veritron · · Score: 1

    Hell, if I knew a GBA Lost Vikings existed I DEFINITELY would have bought it. Definitely one of the more kick-ass games on the Super NES - I think it's one of Blizzard's SNES era games.

    1. Re:Lost Vikings Didn't Sell Well? by Lord+Graga · · Score: 1

      Actually, there is a SNES emulator for GBA in works in these days. Watch Gbadev, it will probably be posted there when it's released.

    2. Re:Lost Vikings Didn't Sell Well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Interesting, since the GBA has barely enough power to emulate the NES. I'm thinking you'd have more luck with that porting technique discussed here a couple months back. Wish I could find the article.

    3. Re:Lost Vikings Didn't Sell Well? by Lord+Graga · · Score: 1

      Oh yeah? No wonder why it's actually 'loopy', the author of PocketNES that writes the program. I have a non-released binary of the emulator, and it's running pretty good, using all the GBA hardware. But there is, off course, no sound.
      Believe it or not, but it's true.

    4. Re:Lost Vikings Didn't Sell Well? by einTier · · Score: 1
      Same here. I think Lost Vikings has suffered from terminal under-marketing. It's the greatest "puzzle" game that no one has ever played.

      I know a fairly hard core group of gamers, and not one had heard of this game before I mentioned it. I hadn't heard of the port to GBA until now.

      Why won't they market this game? It's a great game, fun to play, and just challenging enough to be fun without being frustrating. I can't understand why it isn't more popular. The only thing I can come up with is that no one knows about it.

      --
      -------------------------------------------------- $665.95 -- retail price of the beast.
    5. Re:Lost Vikings Didn't Sell Well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoops, a little unclear. I meant that rather than emulating the SNES, you'd have more luck porting whichever SNES games you wanted to play. I don't think the GBA has the ram or power to emulate a SNES. Even if someone got it to work, there's the problem of a button shortage on the GBA. You'd have to use weird button combos to get X and Y button presses.

      I'm surprised people have managed to emulate anything on the GBA. Everything I've read about PocketNES is impressive.

  4. Official site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not down, just moved. It's here now.

  5. saving problems by hiroshi912681 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of a Sierra AGI interpreter for GBA... but I think it's too early to dive into a game of Space Quest on your GBA. The save game feature does not work properly... the whole screen is glitched. Some games it just freezes outright when you try to restore. Also, in SQ, it seems to be missing the "you think you hear footsteps" warning... and it becomes much more frustrating when you have to start over from the beginning. I also couldn't pick up the "gadget" in the left closet.

    It certainly does bring back memories, though. I haven't really played this since I was a young child. I really missed all of the subtle humour that was in the games. I first experienced the Space Quest series on my Tandy 1000 in its 16 glorious colours.

    Personally, I think these Sierra games would have never sold in their current state. However, I believe that the VGA remakes of these games would probably sell much better (as they had a point and click interface and much better graphics)... and would fill a gap in the adventure game genre that we have today.

    I believe a point and click adventure game came out early on for GBA or possibly GBC, does anyone remember the name of it?

    1. Re:saving problems by SealTit · · Score: 2, Informative

      I believe that the game you're thinking of is Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templar. It had a very well designed point and click interface which would popup an intuitive menu when an item was selected. It was also a fun and interesting adventure game well suited to the GBA.

      It was refreshing to see a new adventure game such as this after I thought the genre to be long dead.

    2. Re:saving problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The saving issue was fixed right after GBAGI got slashdotted. Download the latest version!

    3. Re:saving problems by hiroshi912681 · · Score: 1

      just tried it, it works great! I'm going to try and conquer Space Quest, now...

      still doesn't warn me when I'm about to get shot, though =(

  6. The Lost Vikings by ArmorFiend · · Score: 3, Insightful

    had just released two classic ports to the Game Boy Advance, The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne, which both did not do too well

    Hey, I've got a good idea! Lets release a ten year old game at full price! But wait, there's less! Lets remove all the cooperative multi-player that made the game actually worth playing! No wonder The Lost Vikings bombed. It was decent as a 1-player game, but only truly great as a 2-player game.

    1. Re:The Lost Vikings by edwdig · · Score: 1

      Hey, I've got a good idea! Lets release a ten year old game at full price! But wait, there's less! Lets remove all the cooperative multi-player that made the game actually worth playing! No wonder The Lost Vikings bombed. It was decent as a 1-player game, but only truly great as a 2-player game.

      As much as I want to agree with your logic, I can't.The GBA probably has almost as many ports of NES & SNES games as it has original games. Most NES & SNES ports are selling well on the GBA.

    2. Re:The Lost Vikings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can I join you in the dimension where $25 is too much to pay for a great game? The whole reason I love the GBA so much is that the games are actually priced fairly: $15-$35 USD.

      I'm fairly certain Lost Vikings originally retailed for $60 on the SNES.

    3. Re:The Lost Vikings by ArmorFiend · · Score: 1

      I love super mario 3 as much as the next guy. They added some network play goodies, and I shelled for it. No complaints there!

      But with Lost Vikings, they subtracted network play. That was the best thing about it on the SNES, for crying out loud! So, no, I won't be buying this particular game.

      Granted, on SNES it was not so much "network play" as "having two controllers", but on the uni-controller GBA that translates as network play. They were just too lazy to do any original coding on the project. Cheapskates.

  7. GBA Flash-cart linker? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a flash cart, but I lost the linker! Aaaaah! For the life of me I cannot find it (I think I might have thrown it out when I moved dorms).

    Anyway, does anyone know where to get JUST a linker? I've tried ebay, and they usually only sell either the carts or the kit. Lik-sang doesn't seem to carry them anymore either...

    any help?