Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

karx11erx · May 30, 2005, 10:59 AM

Hi,

I am maintaining a project around an old 3D game named Descent and have created a WinXP specific version containing a lot of bug fixes and new features.

Take a look here to learn more.

A Mac port for this game exists, but is based on an older code version, lacking a lot of features of my version. The Mac version still has several hundred and maybe even over a thousand users, judging by the download count of the latest version.

As I neither own a Mac, nor know how to program on it, I am looking for someone who'd be willing to take a look into the source code and port it to Mac OS X. I'd gladly help where ever needed.

Regards

karx11erx

itistoday · Jun 4, 2005, 05:54 PM

Wow, I remember this game... it was really great, a port would be awesome! (I actually have it somewhere lying around for OS 9...)

karx11erx · Jun 5, 2005, 01:46 PM

It doesn't look like I will find someone to port it.

techtrucker · Jun 5, 2005, 05:09 PM

Man, I'd love to give it a shot, I'm very fluent in Cocoa/ObjC and am also familiar with Windows development...I'm just not a game programmer, and have no experience with OpenGL. I will grab the source and see if I even stand a chance...I too remember the game and would love to see it ported!

karx11erx · Jun 8, 2005, 08:53 AM

techtrucker,

I am ready to help you in any way I can to understand the source code and fix incompatible stuff (like window specific code). There's quite a Descent 2 community still in the Mac world, and I can guarantee you: They would *love* you for making D2X-W32 operational on Max OS X.

There shouldn't be much to change about the OpenGL stuff anyway, as it is standard code. Mostly you will need to get the SDL library running together with D2X-W32, and fix networking stuff and byte-sex related things.

You can reach me under karx11erx at hotmail dot com. We can also meet in IRC in some descent channel or talk in Skype.

I am from Germany though, so we need to get around our time zone problem.

Greetz

karx

itistoday · Jun 8, 2005, 09:08 AM

BTW, if you guys need more help, you can ask around at the forums at macosx.com. They also have a developer section with their own community.

karx11erx · 04:37 PM

Thanks for the hint. Just created an account and put up my message there.

Edit: No reply on macosx.com after several days ... die already, hope ...

toffe · Jun 22, 2005, 04:55 AM

Have you got any coders yet? Can't help you myself (at the moment) since i have recently swithced to mac and not gotten into developing for it yet.
it would be fun though to see a post.

karx11erx · Jun 28, 2005, 06:53 AM

Negative.

PBG4 User · Jun 28, 2005, 11:25 AM

If the game is no longer for sale, where does one get the content files? From looking at your site, the only downloads you have is for the actual game engine. How would a developer test without the content (map) files?

Maybe I'm just missing something?

Also, where is the Mac download? All I see are Win32 executables & VC++ source code.

karx11erx · Jul 3, 2005, 06:55 PM

If I had a Mac D2X exe, would I be looking for someone to port the game? I have neither a Mac D2X exe nor Mac D2 data files. I could however provide the Windows D2 data files.

There is another guy having a D2X port for Max OS X. It just lacks a lot of features and bug fixes my Windows version has. I had asked that guy whether he wouldn't like to port my version, but apparently he refused to do it.

shucks · Jul 3, 2005, 07:38 PM

Hi,

My company is currently also porting a Windows game dev environment to the mac platform. Its not an easy task I must say and to get the relevant coders is even harder. I ended up just taking the "idea" and build it ground up which is progressing much better!

Maybe you can plan out and see if that choice is for you. You may look at some engines out there that may be as close as possible to meet the requirements for Descent.

If you need some help in rebuilding, I have a few coders that can help.

Regards
Dzulkiflee Taib
----
1.67 GHz 17" AlBook (with sudden motion sensors-ROCKS)
Beta test the marketplace where mac developers find other mac developers at http://www.takethisdeveloper.com

shucks · Jul 3, 2005, 07:44 PM

Oh BTW before i forget.

Try the mac game developement section in the forums at http://forums.takethisdeveloper.com on to of the macosx forums stated by it is today. Its new but has a Game Development section for Mac platform.

You can also try the idevgames forums if you haven't yet.

Regards
Dzulkiflee Taib
-----
1.67 GHz 17" AlBook (with sudden motion sensors-ROCKS)
Beta test the marketplace where mac developers find other mac developers at http://www.takethisdeveloper.com

karx11erx · Jul 4, 2005, 06:06 AM

shucks,

D2X already contains Mac code, and there is a Mac port. This is more about making it up-to-date, adding my new features (most of them OS independent), and finishing UDP/IP support for the Mac. There's not that much Windows code in it, and not very much OpenGL code either (as D2 is an old game, there is not too much fancy graphics stuff in it that would require a heck of a lot of OpenGL coding).

Nevertheless I can't do it as I do not even own a Mac. The Mac D2 community is pretty big though, at least looking at the number of downloads of the current Mac D2X port.

Btw, I am not looking for a coder I would pay. D2X is an open sourced project, and I am doing it for the fun of it and because I like the game. So if someone would port it to the Mac, he/she would have to do it for free, the only reward being the gratitude of the Mac D2X users.

shucks · Jul 4, 2005, 08:38 PM

Aha,

I see the light now

. Hmmm interesting. Have you tried sourceforge yet? Donno how good it is to just start a project there and then announce needing mac developers and see the response. Sourceforge is free AFAIK.

You made an interesting point too in the sense that there are many people out there looking for open source coders too. Hmm i wonder whether i can improve my pet marketplace takethisdeveloper to cater for that. I guess you can still do it by put an RFP and putting the budget as $0 and stating that its opensource clearly in the proposal.

Something to think about.

Anyway in other times of the year i will volunteer

but sort of have my hands tied too much that its in a granny knot.

Cheers

a2daj · Jul 20, 2005, 06:56 PM

Did you try http://www.idevgames.com?

karx11erx · 05:53 PM

Thanks, I'll try that.

Edit: idevgames is down for days now. Some problem with the Apache server being denied access to somewhere ...

karx11erx · Nov 30, 2005, 06:22 PM

D2X-W32 is now D2X-XL and has been ported to both Linux and Max OS X (10.4).

Detrius · Dec 1, 2005, 10:01 PM

What about Descent 3? I beat the others under OS 9, but OS X came out shortly after Descent 3. I had no intentions of booting back into OS 9 to play the game... Any word on a Carbonized version?

karx11erx · Dec 2, 2005, 08:08 AM

I have nothing to do with Descent 3 ports.