BennuGD for Wii RC1+ (mod_chipmunk integrated!)

Today I'm refreshing the BennuGD for Wii binaries with a very nice addition: Chipmunk physics library integration. Just in case you missed earlier posts, mod_chipmunk is a wrapper for BennuGD created by Prg that allows you to unleash the full potential of the Chipmunk physics library with a BennuGD friendly syntax.
You can see some examples of what Chipmunk can do in this video:

The cool thing about this library is that creating a reallistic physics simulation is quite complicated even for those with a clear understanding of what's going on and this library manages all the physic interactions easily and effectively.
I've adapted one of the examples Prg includes in his package so that you can run it directly from the Homebrew Channel in your Wii.

Download Chipmunk physics demo

I'm asking if any of you can create a little video of this demo, so that I can embed it in this post. I cannot do it with a good quality myself so I'd thank it if anybody can help me with that.

You can get the refreshed BennuGD binaries with mod_chipmunk integrated here:

Download BennnuGD for Wii RC1 Refresh

Please, understand that physics simulation can be a very processor-intesive process. If your game slows down too much, try reducing the number of active processes.

BennuGD for Wii RC1!

It's time to release RC1 of BennuGD for Wii.
You can seed a list of changes below:

• The code is now much easir to mantain thanks to a slightly redesigned design (more on this to come) and is fully up to date with the upstream sources and overall, the port should feel much more stable.
• Finally found the reason to why some FNT files weren't loading: seems like there's a bug in zlib for Wii that prevents it from working as documented (try to open file as gzipped, if that fails, try to open it as a raw data file). Somewhy it ends up reading from the file in incorrect places. To avoid that, always make sure your FNT files are gzipped. You can know that they're gzipped if you open them with your favourite uncompressor and they open correctly.
• Small bugs fixed here and there.

I'm calling it RC1 as I consider it to be ready for public consumption, even there's a problem triggered with multiple Wiimotes that I must fix.

To sum up, here's a full list of things that you must know when porting your existing game to the Wii.

• Make sure you've read the Getting Started page on the Google Code project site.
• Make sure your FNT files are gzipped. They'll also take less space. To be on the safe side, also gzip you FPG and your MAP files.
• OGG might work, but it's safer to use MP3. Also, recode the MP3 and WAV files @48KHz. You can use a program like Audacity to recode your music. Module tracker formats such as S3M, IT, XM... work just fine.
• The builds don't include mod_debug. If you need it and cannot compile the code yourself, send me an email and I'll send you a copy of the runtime with mod_debug enabled.
• If you need a more integrated experience, you can always use the bundled mod_wpad. That way you'll be able to query info about the controllers such as battery levels, accelerometer input, available controllers...
• You can open websites on the user's Wii.
• If something goes wrong and BennuGD crashes badly, you can send me a photo of the crash and that'll be helpful!

Get BennuGD for Wii RC1 from here.

So what now? For the next releases I'm planning on:

• Trying to fix the joystick bug in SDL. Right now SDL seems to give wrong info about the number of present joysticks and when they were pressed.
• Improving mod_wpad to support button state reading and include Wii MotionPlus support.
• Integrating mod_chipmunk into the build for reallistic physics simulations.

Hope you liked the news! Have fun.

Vigoroth le livreur

Beredezebe lets me know that user blabla (cool nick!) has posted a note in the French BennuGD forum about a game he's ported from microlua to BennuGD. It's called "Vigoroth le livreur" (Vigoroth the delivery man, if I'm not mistaken) and you can read all about the game here [fr].

My french is not as good as it used to be, but from what I can understand, this is a collection of 4 mini-games where you must help Vigoroth with his deliveries.

As I'm still busy with my university exams, I haven't been able to test it just yet but I promise I'll write a post about the game after I've played it.

Meanwhile, you can get it from here, and you can see some screenshots for the game below:

I'd like to congratulate blablabla for his game and thank beredezebe for letting me know AND for packaging the game for the Wii.

Also, as I said in the last post, the project is far from dead and right after I finish my exams I'm planning on doing a few nice improvements to the port. Right now I'm using the little free time I have to clean up the monolithic design I created so that it's much easier to mantain. I'll try to write more on that later.

Also, forum user Prg has created a physics module (wrapping around the Chipmunk physics library) which seems pretty cool. I'll try to bring that to the Wii, too.

You can have a look at what Chipmunk can do in the video below:

Happy coding!

PS: Sorry for the off-topic, but IMHO it's important.

Just using the screenshots I've posted above might be considered a copyright infringement and might be used as a reason to close this blog without any judiciary intervention once the new Sinde law [en] is passed in the Spanish Congress (even if the Congress rejected it last december, the two major parties have brought it back to life). They say it's a way to fight "piracy" but it could just as well be used for censorship. This is not good. If you live in Spain, you might consider not voting for PSOE, PP, CiU or any other party that supports censorship in the upcoming election.

[Update] And the law just got passed today. As I said, if you can vote in Spain, don't vote for them [es].