Octoate's News - CPCtelera v1.4 – Amstrad CPC game engine for C developers

[seanb]

So learning C would help with using this programme?

[ronaldo]

This has left me confused. I need some clarifications.

Ask as many questions as you need to. It is always important to be sure of what we do .

Do I have to include everything in the /obj folder when I distribute it?  Or was that for the old license? Does "terms of my choice" mean I don't have to if I don't want to?

Previous license was GPL, that technically forced you to distribute source code or, at least, provide a way in which people asking for the source code can get it.

New license works same, but does not force you to distribute source code, but object code. Object code are .rel files in de obj/ folder. Anything else can be safely deleted. Same as previous license, you are not forced to distribute de object together with the game: you can put a notice telling people how they can get it if they want to. For instance, you may put a ZIP in archive.org containing object files (and whatever else you wanted) and add that link to your distribution, be it physical or digital.

Also, remember that you can always ask for permision not to do this if it is inconvenient for you. License is a general agreement with everybody using CPCtelera, but that does not prevent particular agreements.

Also I am not comfortable opening my source code as it's pretty bad. When I get better at C then maybe I will consider it but for now its staying closed. But I would still be unlikely to open it to the public.

That's a common feeling amongst developers, even if when your code improves and it is not so bad. As a personal recommendation, I would tell you to share the code no matter what. Most of the time, people will not be critizising you about your code. If an experienced programmer sees your code, it can give you advice or ideas on how to improve. Normally, good programmers are not willing to critizise others, but help.

However, that's up to you. If you don't feel confident enough yet, I understand it perfectly (I felt same feelling many times myself).

Where do I stand if I was to produce a hard copy of the game? If I did it I would sell at cost price, but in the extremely unlikely event if any profit were made would I legally be obliged to give you a cut (I would give you a cut of any profit regardless, just wanted to know).

No, license lets you make as many profits as you want from your game, and you are not forced in any way to give my a cut. Of course, any contribution is welcomed, but that's always up to you. Your game is yours, and you can do whatever you want with it, in particular, winning millions if you find a way to do it .

I understand you own the rights to the libraries and the code included in cpctelera. But surely I own the rights to my own code? I guess this is why licensing is needed.

Of course. My rights only refer to my work, as others' rights also protect the many parts and third party tools included in CPCtelera. For instance, @lachlank owns RGAS's rights, and he gave me special permission to distribute it along with CPCtelera, but his rights remain his no matter what .

Does the "created using cpctelera" credit need to be in the actual program or is the documentation adequate? Or does it not matter where, as long as it is mentioned? I had no space for credits on Prelude so I put it on the manual. It will be in both on my current game.

Normally, you would put that in a credits.txt file or something similar. It does not have to be in your game. Again, if you wanted to put a big splash screen with CPCtelera logo, I would be grateful for that, but one or two lines ni your credits.txt are more than enough. Technically, something like "This work was created using CPCtelera. CPCtelera's copyrithg is owned by CPCtelera authors" and a link to the authors page (remember that CPCtelera is composed by many authors, not only me, and even you are mentioned there ).

Now don't misunderstand me here, this is not in any way understating the effort went into creating cpctelera. Without it many games would not exist for the CPC. But the creators of the game put as much effort into making their games, as you did putting into creating cpctelera. Which I guess is why you went for the fairer license and I'm glad you recognize that. Having more control over the finished product is only fair, but I do strongly feel credit should always be given and if any money is made then you should get a reasonable cut of the profits.

I perfectly understand you and more than that. As I said before, the intentions here are to preserve software and be respectful to authors. We decided to change to LGPL to let authors keep source code if they don't want to distribute it. As I said before, there were arguments in favor and against this decision, such as wanting knowledge generated to be widespread. However, I think is preferably to let authors decide on their code. The only thing we agreed was to preserve our code and any future modifications/additions free and accessible for everyone. That's the reason for staying with LGPL instead of moving to MIT or BSD licenses.

Which leads me on to the last point. I just distribute my games for free and have never bothered with any license. I guess I cannot use "all rights reserved" but I have always copyrighted myself in my games. What license are / can / should they be distributed under?

You actually can do that, referring to your game exclusively. In fact, you legally own all rights with respect to your game, and have the only restriction to give access to object code if someone requests it to link against an own version of CPCtelera. Honestly, that last thing is unlikely to happen. That LGPL clause is thought for applications rather than games. So, in the credits of your game, you can safely mark it as "all rights reserved" regarding your game, and adding notes to credit other authors by their contributions (tools, engines, etc). I normally advice anyone to collect names and links of authors of any tool/software/asset used during development and try to credit anyone. Being grateful to people encourages people to continue doing more and better things, and sharing them.

When you feel more confident on sharing your sources, I'd advice you on using any of these licenses: GPL, MIT or BSD. All of them have pros and cons, but are great for legally sharing code and letting people build on top of it, learn from it or just play with it.

[ronaldo]

So learning C would help with using this programme?

Yes, definitely. Moreover, you can do like @EgoTrip suggests: you can learn C while you learn how to code games with CPCtelera. However, take into account that it requires time and effort, and starting takes effort. Later it makes more sense, but you have to insist and beat the "give up demons"

[seanb]

Cheers fellas.
Understand how hard it is to get going and easy it is to give in to the give up demons.
I'll look for somewhere to start and give it a go when my spare time is less cluttered.

[EgoTrip]

So learning C would help with using this programme?

C is a better way to learn than jumping straight in with ASM. To be perfectly honest I doubt I'll ever bother with ASM. CPCtelera provides all the routines, and C glues them all together to make a functioning game.

[remax]

C is a better way to learn than jumping straight in with ASM. To be perfectly honest I doubt I'll ever bother with ASM. CPCtelera provides all the routines, and C glues them all together to make a functioning game.

And when you see the final result in term of speed, it doesn't make it obvious that you need ASM to go fast (contrary to the previous game engines on CPC).

[Fessor]

CPCTelera 1.4 was also mentioned on heise...
Retro Computing: CPCtelera Version 1.4 freigegeben | heise online

[Arnaud]

CPCTelera 1.4 was also mentioned on heise...
Retro Computing: CPCtelera Version 1.4 freigegeben | heise online

Is a well known deutch web site ?

[Fessor]

Is a well known deutch web site ?

It's THE Website for IT-Professionals in Germany. heise is the publishing company of the c't-Magazine

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

Nice work Ronaldo, thanks for all your efforts with the library. I hope to find time to use it one day in the future!

[ronaldo]

Thank you @Sykobee (Briggsy) , hope you can delight us with a new great Amstrad CPC game in the future