Albion for N900
 

Is in extras-devel :) Its a ported version of M-HT's release for GP2X (http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/...,0,0,0,20,2404). Its working very well, the only feature not implemented is ambient midi effects (Albion uses 2-3 midi tracks simultaneously while SDL currently only supports one, so only music is played).

Instructions:

General
On the first run, the config file will be copied to ~/.config/albion/albion.cfg
It contains the game files directory location, sound config and keybindings. You can run the game once and then change the game directory at your will. The default is MyDocs/games/Albion.

To find out what's gone wrong in case of an error, run /usr/games/albion from the terminal and see the output.
If you can't figure out the solution yourself, post the output from the terminal along with your question.

Note: Because of some hacks to simplify the installation process, the game will now always exit with an error (after you quit it). Normally it doesn't affect the gameplay. It will mention that you should look into the error.log file, but this file is suppresed and will not be created. That is to prevent it from growing over time. It doesn't contain useful information anyway. If you see an error like this after you exit the game:
Everything is OK :)

New Installation Instructions:
To play the demo, just install the Albion Demo package.

To play the full game, copy the directory ALBION/XLDLIBS from your original CD to MyDocs/games/Albion (so you should end up with MyDocs/games/albion/XLDLIBS directory). That's all you need now, the few other required files will be created automatically.

The old instructions, kept for refence:

Demo
You can download the english demo here: http://www.bluebyte.net/eng/products/albion/p_demo.htm
And the german one here: http://www.bluebyte.net/ger/products/albion/p_demo.htm

The german one seems to be working out of the box (unzip and set the path in the config file). The english demo is different, though by performing the following steps it seems to be mostly working (It still crashes on exit and I only tested starting the game, nothing more):
1. create a target directory:

Code:

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mkdir Albion

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2. unzip the archive (it will extract to current directory):

Code:

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unzip albidemo.exe

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3. copy the necessary files to the target directory:

Code:

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cp -r ROOT/ALBION.EXE DRIVERS XLDLIBS SAVES Albion

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4. create empty setup.ini file:

Code:

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touch Albion/SETUP.INI

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5. copy some files to a different location:

Code:

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cp -r Albion/XLDLIBS/INITIAL Albion/XLDLIBS/CURRENT

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6. copy the target directory to N900, set the path in the config (or put it to the default MyDocs/games/Albion) and run the game.

Full Version
1. Install Albion on your PC (using DOSBox for instance)
2. Copy the ALBION subdirectory from CD onto harddisk (into the Albion directory tree)
3. In file SETUP.INI change the path (SOURCE_PATH) from CD to the copied directory on disk (using relative path)
4. Copy this directory to N900, set the path in the config (or put it to the default MyDocs/games/Albion) and run the game.

Note that I have not tested this process because my CD is not readable since ages ago... If that's your case as well or you just want to escape the hassle of installing on your PC, you can also download the game files. But it is illegal unless you actually own the game.

In any case, it may happen that you do not have ALBION.EXE in the game directory (and the game crashes with "Please start ALBION from the ALBION directory."). In that case rename LAUNCH.EXE to ALBION.EXE:

Code:

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mv LAUNCH.EXE ALBION.EXE

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Controls:
All keys with special actions ingame are remappable in the config file. The default is as follows:
SPACE + CLICK = RIGHT CLICK
'.' (PERIOD) = Show map
',' (COMMA) = Pause the game (as in 'emulation', ie. it will minimize CPU usage)
CTRL + 'q' = Esc (go to menu, etc.)

The game runs fullscreen, use CTRL + BACKSPACE to switch applications.

Note these are my left-hander keybindings. I hold the phone in my right hand and so this is a good setup for me. If you're a right-hander, you might wanna change it. I'm open to suggestions for a right-hander setup, but I'm afraid there's not enough 'free' keys on the left side for a comfortable control.

Known issues:
1. Sometimes the game will speed up to maybe twice the normal speed. Just save and restart the game.
2. The game does not always exit properly. If you're unable to close it, open a terminal and run:
Todo (in no particular order):
A setup application allowing to change game dir, keybindings, etc. Maybe also help with setting up the game files.
Improve right mouse button emulation
Pause music playback on game pause
Pause the game when it loses focus
Fix the bugs

Re: Albion for N900
 

Just got the demo working. Although I've never played Albion before this looks great, the graphics are very nice and it seems like a pretty involving game. Thank you for getting this working on the N900! :D

Re: Albion for N900
 

Looks really nice, I got in the first room on the planet but I have no ideea what to do :p

Re: Albion for N900
 

Yeah, the 2d looks great. Just run around and talk to the Iskai :) you'll bump into the clan chief sooner or later. He'll give you key to the cellar (first dungeon). Its in 3d and its harder to move around.. don't panic :) its not that bad once you get used to it..

Oh, and a tip: Search the metal scrap in the cellar, there is a clock in one of them (quite important to have)

Maybe I will attach some screenshots later...

Re: Albion for N900
 

Another think I suggest are a customizable overlay keys. We should consider that there are already a few games that fully rely on the keyboard and not all Maemo/Meego devices will have one. I suggest a customizable keyboard that can show button on the screen on top of a running application.

Also I "found" my "original" cd and the game installs without DOSBox.
Also in case you have an image of your original CD you can just copy the content and install it from there, no need to mount or anything.

Just make sure to copy the XLDLIBS folder from the CD/image into your installation folder and empty the SETUP.INI file.

Re: Albion for N900
 

Yeah. There actually already is some implementation of that in the code, since the GP2X devices don't have a keyboard. I didn't check that yet as its not important for N900. But if its ever to run on a keyboardless device, there would be problems because you simply need at least a few keys to play comfortably. But, at least on N900, where there is some free space on both sides of the screen, buttons could be displayed there that would emulate Esc, Tab (for map) etc. I'm kinda planning to implement this, but dunno if will get to it..so not promising anything.

Re: Albion for N900
 

To make it clear, you did have to install it? Without DOSBox, that means on a windows system? I should investigate what is actually the easiest setup.. (just having XLDLIBS from the CD and empty SETUP.INI works?)

Re: Albion for N900
 

It installs in XP SP3 with no issues, default folder "C:\ALBION" but the movies and main data (XLDLIBS) stay on the cd, those have to be copied manually.
The only reason you have to install it for, is to get ALBION.EXE

Basically what you need is:
ALBION.EXE from the installation folder
XLDLIBS folder from the cd
SETUP.INI empty, created by the user
SAVES folder - I think it gets created automatically.

I suggest you create a demo (including the demo files) and a full version that includes ALBION.EXE, setup.ini and the SAVES folder in \games\ALBION so that the user only has to copy XLDLIBS from the original CD, hence no more useless installing trouble ;)

Re: Albion for N900
 

Ok, I'll have another look at it. Though when I was testing the english demo it was crashing on me due to DRIVERS folder missing and if SAVES was missing it was not able to save a game AFAIK.

I could create empty SETUP.INI and SAVES dir in my executable if its missing.

But I'm not sure I can distribute the ALBION.EXE since its part of the original game. Unless its the same file as in the demo I guess..

Re: Albion for N900
 

Well it is part of the demo but I think the demo one could be different. As long as the XLDLIBS is not included I don't think distributing it would be much of an issue.