Hi everybody. My name is Kcasey. This question has probably been asked before (is there a search for the forums?), but would it be possible to port doom onto the virtual boy? It was ported to other 32bit systems, 16 bit systems, and even graphing calculators. I was wondering if: A) it is possible B) Has it been done, and C) If it hasn’t would someone want to?

*edit*
Doh! i just saw the forum checkbox under the search bar.

A) Probably, but it’s not very straightforward. The other systems to which it’s been ported each have a fairly standard frame-buffer to which pixels can be rendered. Besides having two sets of front and back buffers (i.e. four total), the VB also arranges its buffers differently; it organizes them into vertical columns, rather than horizontal rows. Even if that is overcome (probably not that hard; it may actually be beneficial to the engine’s efficiency) there would still be the stereoscopic aspect to consider. Most anyone would agree that the point of the port would be to have a stereoscopic DOOM, although a straight port wouldn’t technically require it (and, yes, I know there are already stereoscopic ports/mods).

B) Not to my knowledge, but there seem to be a few “closet” VB coders out there who don’t appear to want their work to be seen.

C) 1, 2, 3, not it! 😉 Too many other projects on the back burners, at the moment.

I hope someone eventually pulls it off, though. DOOM was never really my thing, but it would be fun to try it with real depth.

Oh, yeah… Welcome to the forums! 😀

I’ve looked at it a couple times… probably wouldn’t be too difficult (but definitely time consuming), but I personally would rather see Descent… much more immersive IMO, and one of my favorite games from that era (and puking from motion sickness on the VB would be just that much cooler 😉 ).

DogP

really any shooter like that is what I’m looking for. But I’m pretty sure you can get the DOOM source code somewhere. I don’t know if you can get descent’s. If i knew how to make virtual boy homebrew I’d give it a shot, but the closes I know is action script.

Yeah, Descent src is available, along with a lot of games from that era (though some have a lot of ASM, which would take a lot of effort to port).

DogP

[RunnerPack]

@kcasey:

ActionScript, ActionScript 2, or ActionScript 3? ActionScript 3 is practically JavaScript, which is practically Java, which is practically C, so you really already know C… practically… 😉

I’ve programmed both AS3 and C, and there are only minor differences related to specifying data types of variables and function return values (and C doesn’t have the OOP stuff, of course) but the basic stuff, like program control, operators, etc., are extremely similar between the two. You just have to learn the VB way of getting graphics on the screen and capturing user input and you’re home free! Sure, it’s more difficult to program the “bare metal”, but you have plenty of experts here willing to help you up the learning curve! If you have time, give the DOOM (or Descent ;-)) code a look. I bet you’ll see a lot of familiar stuff…

• This reply was modified 14 years, 8 months ago by RunnerPack.

(Sorry for the double-post, edit button is gone…)

I just found this site:

http://fly.thruhere.net/

It has an open-source, cross-platform 6-DOF game engine capable of rendering Descent and Forsaken levels. There’s also YouTube footage showing someone using it to fly around a Forsaken level (inside and out!) in (Red/Green anaglyph, but still watchable) stereo 3-D! That alone almost makes me want to work on this… 😛

I don’t know forsure what actionscript it is, but I think it is actionscript 2.0. In a few months when I have time, I’ll try, but i might not have time to finish it. I imagine that this is a big project, and programming in a language i’ve never used before, for a system that isn’t especially easy to program for will take a while.

AS2 is still a lot like JS, it’s all in the syntax. I myself have had a hard time going to C or C++ while I know JS pretty well, though, but that’s probably just on a personal level. Stuff’s hard.

I’d love to see something like Descent on the VB!

Yeah so DOOM would be pretty cool and… ah… AH…… CHOOO WOLFENSTEIN 3D!!! Wow -sniff- sorry guys it’s this damn cold. 😛

If someone did Wolfenstein, could it actually be posted to this site, or is that still banned in Germany?

DogP

Try this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a

DogP wrote:
If someone did Wolfenstein, could it actually be posted to this site, or is that still banned in Germany?

DogP

Easiest way around that would be to change the contraband on the walls to something else that means nothing. I could do that with my graphics editor in ten minuets 🙂 On the Super Nintendo version they just cut it all out completely. They also changed voices on the characters from German to English which could also be easily done with a sound editor. 🙂