Wii Internet Channel and Nintendo DS/DSi Browser Homebrew

And the unified community project

Early First-Person Shooter Demo for the Wii Opera

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I've been hard at work adding more graphical functionality to the Wii Opera SDK, and thought I'd create a demo to showcase some new changes. The result is a simple FPS demo engine (well FP minus the S). It works on the Wii using the Wii Remote for forward and backward motion and turning to look. It also works on basically any non IE browser but without controls (automovement instead).

Unfortunately, the Wii likes to crash after viewing the demo. It's most likely an out-of-memory error. I am actively working on cleaning up that problem. The end product may be a ray-tracing engine (no complaints there) instead of a quad-texture engine. I don't know how the speed will be, but with high-polygon levels, it will definitely be faster.

I'd like some suggestions on what to put in it. Remember that this is a Javascript-based game, so it will not achieve a super framerate and will not have graphics beyond what was capable on the SuperNES.

Controls:
Pointer up - move forward
Pointer down - move backward
Pointer left - turn left
Pointer right - turn right
Roll left - strafe left
Roll right - strafe right
Push in - zoom in
Pull out - zoom out
B - shoot
A - reload
C - cycle down weapon*
Z - cycle up weapon*
*Not possible with the primary Wii Remote

Graphics
At the moment, the early engine is polygon-based, but I plan on rewriting it as a raytracer, allowing larger levels at less processor load. The graphics will be the same as a raytracer, but that will make it harder to create features like stairs. Since the textures are PNG-based, transparency and translucncy are possible in the engine's current state, but a raytracer would not allow that due to speed issues. I know it sounds like a raytracing engine would have less features, but memory issues with the current engine keep crashing my Wii.

Multiplayer
Multiplayer will be inevitable, but I'm not sure if that will be online or split-screen at the moment. If it would be split-screen for two players, three Wii Remotes would be needed because the Nunchuk on the primary one is inaccessable.

Sound
Since this is all Javascript based, sound is not possible, unfortunately. If I was to port all this to Flash (as many people assume is possible), I would be forfeiting speed and graphical capabilities, rendering the engine worthless.

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Comments

Excors Friday, September 7, 2007 6:57:30 PM

Looks good! I can't resist pointing out my similar demo at http://canvex.lazyilluminati.com/ - it vaguely uses the raycasting approach, though it's actually much more like the Duke Nukem 3D engine than like Doom. I think that system works well in practice - I've never tried it on the Wii, but it does 20-30fps at 320x240 on the desktop. (I'm happy for other people to reuse or modify the code for any purpose, though it has suffered a bit from optimisation and may not be entirely easy to read p)

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