Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!caen!news.cs.indiana.edu!widener!dsinc!bagate!cbmvax!jesup From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Lemmings - a tutorial Part V (last) Message-ID: <20390@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 5 Apr 91 05:44:30 GMT References: <1991Apr2.090315.27856@starnet.uucp> <1991Apr4.070030.21792@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 42 In article <1991Apr4.070030.21792@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >sschaem@starnet.uucp (Stephan Schaem) writes: > >> And why would use a C compiler when you know you will never port your >> code? > >Sorry, Stephen, but that's an argument for the other team. The quite >successful Starflight 2 game has never been ported to the Amiga because >it was written in a low level, non-standard language (a homebrew Forth), >and no one has been found crazy enough to sign a contract to try to >port it, even though the much less interesting Starflight 1 game sold >respectably when ported to the Amiga. Bingo. I was offered that port (actually Starflight 1, then still in metacompiled Forth). I was smart. I turned it down and came to commodore instead. BTW, I've written multiple Forth implementations before (IBM 370 and 68000 (Amiga) versions), subroutine threaded with inlining. Mine (never polished up for release) was around as fast (faster in some cases) as JForth, which is a really speedy Forth. >Fact is, a big part of the reward for doing a good game comes from porting >it to other platforms, and you're a lot farther from that reward when your >game is in 68000 assembler and the target machine runs an 80286. If we're talking market realities here, kent's right. You must assume as a game designer that in most cases, it's better to have versions of your game for other computers, even if they're inferior to the one it was designed on. This is again some of the game design/implementation spearation. If it either written in C or in mixed C/asm (preferably with working but slower C versions of most of the downcoded asm), then the porting costs will likely be far lower, and thus you get more money in your pocket. How much better must a pure asm game be in order to justify the extra porting cost? I dunno, but I bet the publishers out there can give you fairly firm opinions. -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Disclaimer: Nothing I say is anything other than my personal opinion. Thus spake the Master Ninjei: "To program a million-line operating system is easy, to change a man's temperament is more difficult." (From "The Zen of Programming") ;-)