GemRB
Topic: Software
From HandWiki - Reading time: 3 min
| Original author(s) | Daniele Collantoni |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | GemRB Team |
| Initial release | August 21, 2000 [1] |
| Repository | https://github.com/gemrb |
| Written in | C++ and Python |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Game Engine |
| License | GNU GPLv2 or later |
| Website | https://gemrb.org |
Game Engine Made with preRendered Background (GemRB) is a portable open source and free software re-implementation of the isometric Infinity Engine that underpinned Planescape: Torment and the Baldur's Gate and Software:Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter series of games.[2]
As it is not limited by the software and hardware of late 1990's when the original Infinity Engine was written, GemRB sports a cleaner and cross-platform design, greater extensibility and several innovations.[3] It does not aim to be a bit-for-bit copy of the original engine versions. The goal of the project is to make the Infinity Engine games available on a wide range of platforms forever[4], fix or avoid old bugs, add new features and provide a superb platform for mod development.
Ports
Since it is a re-implementation with portability as a design goal, GemRB allows the games it supports to be played on platforms other than those for which they were originally released (namely 32-bit Windows and PPC Mac OS X). GemRB made them run on all common desktop[5] (including 64-bit), many niche platforms (from AmigaOS to IRIX and Haiku; x86 to PPC, ARM, MIPS and WebAssembly), some mobile systems (Android, iOS, Symbian, Maemo) and game consoles (Pandora, Dingoo, PlayStation Vita).
History
Work on GemRB started in late 2000 and by September it had a project page on the project hosting website SourceForge and several mailing lists.[1] The original author was Daniele Collantoni, a computer science student that wanted to play Baldur's Gate with his friends.[6] Seeing that there was little chance of success if he continued alone, he started a recruitment process and opened up the development. The team eventually grew and slow, but steady progress has been made ever since.[7] At the time of the project start, only the first Infinity Engine game was out, Baldur's Gate, but as new ones got released, the scope of the project widened to accommodate their support.
The commercial releases of the Enhanced editions remakes introduced many changes and expanded platform support, but their developer Beamdog praised the project[8], not seeing it as competition.
Supported games
The engine supports the eight original major versions of the Infinity Engine[2]
- Baldur's Gate (including Tales of the Sword Coast),
- Planescape: Torment,
- Icewind Dale (including Heart of winter)
- Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (including Throne of Bhaal),
- and Icewind Dale II.
(As of 2020) all the games can be completed under GemRB except for Icewind Dale II. Support for the later Enhanced editions remakes is only partial and those releases cannot be used yet with the engine.
It also bundles a trivial tech demo[9] which is the first step at trying to make free content for the engine.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "GemRB Game Engine" (in en). https://sourceforge.net/projects/gemrb/.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "GameBanshee". https://www.gamebanshee.com/news/106895-the-infinity-engine-goes-open-source-and-cross-platform-sorta.html.
- ↑ Felczak, Mateusz (2016). "Justice and Violence: the Study of Gameplay in the Infinite Engine cRPGs". The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference. http://gamephilosophy.org/wp-content/uploads/confmanuscripts/pcg2016/Mateuz-Felcza-2016-Justice-and-Violence-the-Study-of-Gameplay-in-the-Infinite-Engine-cRPGs.pdf.
- ↑ "The Grind: 1UP's RPG Blog : Play Baldur's Gate on your Phone". 2016-04-12. http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9096061.
- ↑ "How to Play Infinity Engine RPGs on Your Windows 7 PC" (in en). 2011-09-04. https://www.pcworld.com/article/239338/how_to_play_infinity_engine_rpgs_on_your_windows_7_pc.html.
- ↑ "Interview with project founder Daniele Collantoni on the 20 year anniversary of GemRB" (in en). 2020-08-25. https://gemrb.github.io/2020/08/25/interview-with-project-founder-daniele-collantoni.html.
- ↑ "GemRB Is Still Advancing As An Open Infinity Engine - Phoronix". https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI1Mzg.
- ↑ "An interview with Beamdog about Linux gaming, they say it's worth it" (in en). https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2017/04/an-interview-with-beamdog-about-linux-gaming-they-say-its-worth-it.
- ↑ Jozef, Šiška (2006). "Dynamic Logic Programming and world state evaluation in computer games". 20th Workshop on Logic Programming, Vienna, Austria, February 22--24, 2006.
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