Aleph One ported to the browser!

Have a question, suggestion, or comment about Aleph One's features and functionality (Lua, MML, the engine itself, etc)? Post such topics here.
Post Reply
toxicsham
Spazeroid
Posts: 2
Joined: Sep 19th '15, 21:22

Hey there!
I'm very happy to say that I've been able to port Aleph One to javascript thanks to Emscripten. This means we will be able to play games and scenarios directly from the browser!
This is an alpha and there are still a lot of bugs to be solved, but I've been able to run Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity.

I've uploaded them on my server for now:
http://95.85.29.146/marathon2.html
http://95.85.29.146/marathon_infinity.html

Please wait even if you see the 'All downloads completed' status. This refers to the Javascript code only. The browser still has to download around 50Mb of data, so that would probably take a while.

Here's a list of known bugs:
  • The first Marathon is not working
  • Preferences are not persisted
  • In-game mouse support is not working
  • Intro music does not play
  • Font-related issues such as wrong characters and wrong container heights
  • Sometimes sprites seem to be drawn over liquids
  • No trasparency for GUI theme elements (SDL_SetColorKey unimplemented)
  • No preview image for save games
This port should in theory run on mobile too. I've been able to run it on my Android device but it is too slow to be playable at the moment. Further optimization may change this.

I will publish the source code shortly, as I'd like to simplify the building process first. I had to do heavy modifications of the Emscripten source by porting many SDL functions which were unimplemented, and I don't know how to integrate my fork with the Emscripten installation scripts right now, but I hope to sort this out soon.

Just a few questions:
  • Would it be okay in the future to host Aleph One somewhere, including the assets of the original Marathons, or would it be against the assets license?
  • I'd like to post the source code to github for convenience, is it ok or do you prefer to have it all under the same SVN repo on SourceForge?
I hope this port will help these wonderful games to reach an even bigger audience!
Top
$lave

I haven't actually properly tried this out yet but it seems like a super cool project at least, so hell yes.
Top
User avatar
Zott
Vidmaster
Posts: 1666
Joined: Jul 1st '06, 21:14
Location: Earth
Contact:
Contact Zott

I just wanted to chime in so this gets more attention. This is some good stuff! Keep at it.
Top
User avatar
Hopper
Mjolnir Mark IV
Posts: 585
Joined: May 10th '09, 17:02
Contact:
Contact Hopper

Extremely cool! Terrific work so far.
toxicsham wrote:Would it be okay in the future to host Aleph One somewhere, including the assets of the original Marathons, or would it be against the assets license?
Unfortunately, there is no formal license to judge against. Despite multiple attempts, Bungie refuses to clarify the assets situation. I guess they figure there can't be any loopholes if there isn't any contract. All of the current hosting and distribution has been cleared under one-off oral agreements with Bungie.

Unfortunately, that means I can't really offer guidance beyond "talk to Bungie", and that's not easy -- I've been trying for months to re-establish contact. Probably nobody will care as long as no money or ads are involved.
toxicsham wrote:I'd like to post the source code to github for convenience, is it ok or do you prefer to have it all under the same SVN repo on SourceForge?
You can have it both ways now: we moved from SourceForge to GitHub, so we can create a repo for you there under the Aleph One organization. PM me your GitHub user name.
Top
Post Reply

Return to “Aleph One Discussion”