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Porting Zelda Classic to the web

hoten.cc

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Re: Porting Zelda Classic to the web

#61

Post by hoten »

MasterScrat wrote: post #59

It reminds me: a decade ago, I had the idea of porting Baldur's Gate 2 to the web: http://lumakey.net/labs/battleground/demo1/ I initially played with EMSCRIPTEN as well, starting from GemRB, an open-source reimplementation of the engine. But that was boring, as I wasn't really getting any sense of how things were working under the hood. So I started reverse-engineering the various file formats (a website called IESD…

That was literally how I first approached this problem of getting Zelda Classic quests to work in the browser. I had initially failed to port it with Emscripten, so I reverse engineered the quest binary format and started painstakingly recreating the engine in JavaScript [1].

I got pretty far but there would have been years and years of tweaks to get it just right, so I gave up.

[1] https://hoten.cc/quest-maker/play/

Re: Porting Zelda Classic to the web

#62

Post by hoten »

ilaksh wrote: post #52

Is there any work to unbundle web assembly applications from the browser? And further, break apart the monolithic web platform API bundle into something like device drivers? Because let's say you just wanted a 2d game engine using SDL without shaders and using the mouse. Why do we need to drag the entire browser with 1000 APIs and features into it? Just add something like a framebuffer and mouse input to web assembly…

Well, you need some sort of underlying platform to run primitives on. Wasm just isn't enough, and isn't meant to be.

But yes, Wasm is not just for the browser, you can run it in Node. Or a custom runtime: https://wasmer.io/

Re: Porting Zelda Classic to the web

#64

Post by chriswright1664 »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #4

I remember about 20 years ago there was a (IIRC) Java Applet-based multiplayer clone of Zelda: A Link to the Past that was sort of a forerunner the to MMORPGs we see today. It changed names to Graal Online because of the lawyers. Thinking back to it, it was really ahead of its time, not only because it was massively multiplayer, but it had a great level editor and was doing user-created content in the late '90s. --ed…

I’m Chris Wright, mentioned in the 2nd link. I had the original idea, as the article says I commissioned Stefan to write it for me as I had next to no coding skills back then (apart from HTML and PHP). I ran a fairly successful SNES emulation site (I knew the teams behind Snes9x and Zsnes well) and was looking for a gimmick to boost traffic. Stefan took things off in his own direction with the Graal makeover (we never actually got threatened by Nintendo legal) and we lost touch. There was a house in the game that was ‘mine’ and credited me with the idea.

Half related fun fact: I was also behind the very first leak of the SNES Starfox 2 ROM onto the web. One of the devs, which I prob shouldn’t name (though I think it is common knowledge now) was a fan of the site. He got in touch and we did an exclusive interview and ROM release.

Re: Porting Zelda Classic to the web

#65

Post by electriclizard »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #4

I remember about 20 years ago there was a (IIRC) Java Applet-based multiplayer clone of Zelda: A Link to the Past that was sort of a forerunner the to MMORPGs we see today. It changed names to Graal Online because of the lawyers. Thinking back to it, it was really ahead of its time, not only because it was massively multiplayer, but it had a great level editor and was doing user-created content in the late '90s. --ed…

I played Graal for 10+ years, mostly on Valikorlia, but I tossed around Era and Maloria too; I started some time between 2002 and 2005.

But I didn't realize its main website had been taken down, as I was literally on it a few months ago. Did it die completely? I am no longer able to login with the client.

That's too bad. It really was ahead of its time technologically; it's where my programming life got started and I was intimately familiar with graalscript and GS2.

Re: Porting Zelda Classic to the web

#66

Post by electriclizard »

chriswright1664 wrote: post #64
marginalia_nu wrote: post #4

I remember about 20 years ago there was a (IIRC) Java Applet-based multiplayer clone of Zelda: A Link to the Past that was sort of a forerunner the to MMORPGs we see today. It changed names to Graal Online because of the lawyers. Thinking back to it, it was really ahead of its time, not only because it was massively multiplayer, but it had a great level editor and was doing user-created content in the late '90s. --ed…

I’m Chris Wright, mentioned in the 2nd link. I had the original idea, as the article says I commissioned Stefan to write it for me as I had next to no coding skills back then (apart from HTML and PHP). I ran a fairly successful SNES emulation site (I knew the teams behind Snes9x and Zsnes well) and was looking for a gimmick to boost traffic. Stefan took things off in his own direction with the Graal makeover (we neve…

Hey man. Graal was an intimate part of my life growing up. I had thousands of hours logged on Valikorlia and a few hundred on other playerworlds. It was a good idea. It's where I first started programming; graalscript was my first language.

It's sad to see it go. I really wish we could have a game experience that had the community graal did. There's not much with that level of involvement for players anymore; it's all now downstream of ivory towers and extremely restricted.

Re: Porting Zelda Classic to the web

#67

Post by na85 »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #39
Arrath wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Here's a nice writeup: link OP of the writeup: "Goatse" Ah that takes me back.

Our generation's Herodetus will be some random account named xXxPoopFeast420xXx

Yeah and historians will pore over the annals of /u/PM_ME_UR_BUTT

Re: Porting Zelda Classic to the web

#68

Post by evouga »

causality0 wrote: post #63

Considering how DMCA-happy Nintendo is I'm surprised this is till up.

I was the main developer and webmaster of Zelda Classic for several years in the mid-2000s. Nintendo knew about us because disgruntled users reported us in retaliation for forum drama, but they never came after us. Probably because we were never prominent enough for them you care, but we liked to imagine we were protected by someone high up at Nintendo.

Re: Porting Zelda Classic to the web

#69

Post by and0 »

chriswright1664 wrote: post #64
marginalia_nu wrote: post #4

I remember about 20 years ago there was a (IIRC) Java Applet-based multiplayer clone of Zelda: A Link to the Past that was sort of a forerunner the to MMORPGs we see today. It changed names to Graal Online because of the lawyers. Thinking back to it, it was really ahead of its time, not only because it was massively multiplayer, but it had a great level editor and was doing user-created content in the late '90s. --ed…

I’m Chris Wright, mentioned in the 2nd link. I had the original idea, as the article says I commissioned Stefan to write it for me as I had next to no coding skills back then (apart from HTML and PHP). I ran a fairly successful SNES emulation site (I knew the teams behind Snes9x and Zsnes well) and was looking for a gimmick to boost traffic. Stefan took things off in his own direction with the Graal makeover (we neve…

Seconding graal being hugely formative for me, and I still think of it often.

It was my first real social experience online, and inspired in part the hobby projects that led me into software as a career. Thanks so much :)

Re: Porting Zelda Classic to the web

#70

Post by xwdv »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #4

I remember about 20 years ago there was a (IIRC) Java Applet-based multiplayer clone of Zelda: A Link to the Past that was sort of a forerunner the to MMORPGs we see today. It changed names to Graal Online because of the lawyers. Thinking back to it, it was really ahead of its time, not only because it was massively multiplayer, but it had a great level editor and was doing user-created content in the late '90s. --ed…

I remember Graal, but where I really sank time in was Era, a modern day mod of Graal. It was so cool, like if Zelda and GTA had a baby. You could get an assortment of weapons, join gangs, get in violent shootouts, I even remember getting blown at a beach house by someone playing a hooker. I think they eventually introduced cars or something. For a middle school kid it was super cool, even though the city was kind of small there was tons of role playing opportunity and emergent gameplay.

Although I’d probably get bored of such a game these days, I’d probably have a lot of fun building it out and watching a community grow from playing it.

I sometimes wondered about the developers who built this game. Maybe they were the age I am now when they wrote it. Is it my turn now to build a game like this for some new younger generation? A circle of life? Eh, I don’t know, I feel like kids these days just don’t play these kind of games anymore on a PC.

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