So, I tried bringing the concern to FreeBASIC developers, that “fbc should be added in Ubuntu’s and/or Debian’s upstream”, but they don’t see this as an issue. I think they only see FreeBASIC as a hobbyist’s tool. I waited years for them to actually have it submitted to no avail.

Quixie’s dependency on FreeBASIC is an anchor for the project. It’s about time to move forward and leave the BAS source codes behind.

I’m currently porting Smack in C++ with IrrLicht as the graphics engine. Carefully building what would be a Kage Library, then add the scripting capability along with the game to finally have a brand new Quixie, in the hopes of making Quixie more portable, and available to Ubuntu Software Center. Fingers crossed.

With IrrLicht, 3D would be available in Kage as well.

I’m quite happy that it’s actually easy to port the game itself given the similarity of KonsolScript and C++ in syntax. Pretty much proves that KonsolScript/Quixie is a very good prototyping tool for any gamers with brewing idea. I only had to write the functionalities of loading and rendering of PNG files. Handing mouse and keyboard inputs are okay. Some others are still not implemented, especially handling sound. If you know a free and open source sound library that is compatible with IrrLicht’s license, please comment below.

~creek23

In this regard, you might have noticed the Amazon link on the right side of this page. That is to help this project become self-sufficient in the sense of maintenance expenses like having to renew this site’s domain name, etc. So…

Just to let you know, we’re still working on libKage for Android.

~creek23

This is due to String:Split bug which we haven’t fixed and a latency and/or fidelity problem with Quixie’s network capability. This fidelity issue is noticed when a server is trying to send a string content to a client in a fast, real-time-like manner. The message is not properly received on the client that some of the text contents are missing.

It is, however, possible to make turn-based game since polling would take lesser processing. With this, I was wondering if it’s actually possible to make a multiplayer poker game like the ones available at partycasino.com. Although one would need a huge amount of moola to operate the server.

We’ve almost released the third installment of v0.4 series during the last week of March but sadly, we can’t. We didn’t have time to fix the problem since we got busy writing libkage for Android last April.

If only we have enough funding so this project’s progress would go smoothly as planned. Like, how expensive is it to buy one of our Smack mugs? Each mug you buy would help fund KonsolScript game programming competition, which would in turn make the competitors-to-be a possible member of the community who would help finish tutorials and document other stuff while I get busy developing the engine.

By the way, a quick shout-out to a friend who has been in Spain for quite some time now, Ghie Esporton, who — in her own little way — spreads the word about KonsolScript — yes, she did talk about it in español.

Hasta pronto, Ghie!

~creek23

So to realize a KonsolScript for Android, on 7th of April, we started writing libKage for Android which is pure Java (again, Java for Android — not the standard Java).

libKage is a framework which would require you to extend upon to create your Android games. It contains functions and function names as if you’re still writing KonsolScript game for Quixie. This way, you can still retain the game logic you wrote for KonsolScript and run it on Android. And vice versa.

Mouse events, or Touch events rather, are already handled for you — except for keyboard inputs. Only the built-in buttons Up, Down, Left, and Right (also known as BU BD BL and BR) are available.

As a demonstration, we did a test on Smack! and here are the screenshots of the result.

Filipino’s pride, Pacman, on deck.

What better way to test Smack on Android than fighting Droid himself? (him or it? :P)

As part of libKage, we will be writing a KonsolScript to Android translator to make it even simpler to write Android Games. And possibly make use of Android SDK to automagically generate an APK of your KonsolScript game. Fingers crossed.

libKage will be available when it’s ready. It will be ready onced we release Smack for Android on Google Play.

~creek23