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Palm Pre and WebOS Get Native Gaming

Posted by Soulskill on from the break-out-your-rocket-launcher dept.

rboatright writes "WebOS developers have been waiting, and with the 1.3.5 release, Palm's open source page suddenly listed SDL. Members of the WebOS internals team took that as a challenge and within 24 hours had a working port of Doom running in SDL on the Pre, in a webOS card. 48 hours later, they not only had Quake running, but had found in the latest LunaSysMgr the requirements to launch a native app from the webOS app launcher from an icon just like any other app. At the same time, the team demonstrated openGL apps running. With full native code support, with I/O available via SDL, developers now have a preview into Palm's future intent with regard to native code SDK's, and a hint of what's coming."

11 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. I'll be honest by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm not a good representative of the average phone consumer, but I honestly can't find myself playing any games on my phone besides the ultra simple ones, like Bubble Breaker and Solitaire. Even Teeter, (get the ball in the hole by tilting the phone around) seems to demand too much attention and battery to really play it often.

    How many other /.ers use their phones for games? What kinds of games, and how often do you play?

    Just curious of the demographics for this crowd.

    1. Re:I'll be honest by str8edge · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't game on my phone, as I use a corporate cell phone. But I do game on my Nokia N810. ScummVM, some solitaire games, and Simon Tatham's puzzle collection are installed. I play when I'm usually stuck somewhere waiting for something beyond my control, like a doctor/dentist appointment.

    2. Re:I'll be honest by Enderandrew · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Using the traditional buttons, I phone gaming to be an absolute pain in the past.

      Using tilt functionality and a touch screen on the iPhone is a whole other story. I really do love it as a gaming device.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    3. Re:I'll be honest by rickb928 · · Score: 2, Informative

      On my G1 I play Solitaire, occasionally a Mahjongg solitaire game, Jewels which is Bedazzled knockoff, Tetroid (obvious) and my current fave, Bonsai Blast.

      On a typical G1, you can drain the battery with 3 hours of Bonsai Blast. 2 hours if you have an original battery now.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
  2. SDL by Hatta · · Score: 3, Informative

    SDL is awesome. Thanks SDL.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  3. Re:native sdk - its about time. by the_archer666 · · Score: 2, Informative

    apple started off with "web" only development - then finally released a native SDK. google utilized it's Java like language (dalvik) - then finally released a native SDK (NDK).. there has been a native SDK since day one available for the Palm Pre

    The Android NDK is different from the Palm Pre SDK - NDK can only be used for number crunching. Front end still has to be implemented in Java. So no "recompile, deploy" as in the Palm Pre SDK.

  4. Lots of games are pretty good by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I play a fair number of different things on the iPhone - the whole category of tower defense games work pretty well, and there's unique stuff like Peggle (of course) and Doodle Jump and ZenBound and JellyCar and others...

    Interestingly, almost all the games I end up being least happy with are commercial games from big development shops. Some of them look impressive to be sure, but I just don't find myself coming back to play them. Star Wars Trench Run is a recent example, where the game looked and sounded good but really I thought the gameplay was over simplified (for instance turrets shooting at you can never hit you).

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  5. Re:ScummVM by rboatright · · Score: 5, Informative

    We have scummVM working now, a release should happen tonight.

    See the webos-internals.org wiki

  6. Re:Get Real... by rboatright · · Score: 3, Informative

    It is not a tech demo. It is a fully playable app. The app launches into a demo. Backswipe in the gesture area to bring up the game menu. Full details of keybindings are on the webos-internals.org wiki. As of this morning, we are using part of the screen for a simulated joystick, which eases gameplay.

  7. 2010 will be the year of Linux by daemonc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Forget the desktop...

    2010 will be the year of Linux on your phone!

    --
    All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
  8. Not just a tech demo... by dtzWill · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hi, I'm dtzWill--the developer who ported quake over.
    This is not just a tech demo (well opengl, for now, is) but quake is/very/ playable!
    Much effort has gone into making this more playable over the last two days or so-- the beta seemed to hit news sites, that was back when I was fighting things like the compiler breaking my code on anything other than -O0.
    See the wiki for almost latest information.
    Note that instructions to try out the latest before I release are on the wiki.
    Finally, a release is probably going to be made tonight so those that own a pre... beexcited!