Let’s write about the future of “Giana’s Return”.

The next step will be v0.998 – For now we use different playback methods for different system releases. Goal is to use just one good working (hence the “good working”) engine which plays our .XM files in a proper way. Extended Modules are a lot smaller and allow us to drop the streamed music part. Some releases which are over 20 MB in size, will reduce easily by 50%.

Also in theory streamed music, depending on the quality, takes more CPU power than playing tracked formats. At least this is the result of an interesting experiment, which allowed us to run “Giana’s Return” on a 133 MHZ ARM CPU handheld without any major problems. This means that if the new playback library is integrated, the additional CPU power will be used for the game itself, people who loved to overclock their handheld to get a better result will not need overclocking anymore.

So far there were no major bugs reported for v0.997, so the next release will be probably just having the internal change discribed above.

ZodTT has sent us an interesting video link showing off the OFFICIAL “Giana Sisters iPhone” game application.

Our unofficial “Giana’s Return iPhone” version, ported by ZodTTD, is on ice for now. Maybe a few weeks or months after the official release, there might be something possible from our side.

Christian has made a “Trainer” for Giana’s Return. It’s inofficial and might not work for everyone, still we don’t want to hold this information hidden under a heavy brick. Please check the third post here: https://www.gianas-return.de/?p=716#comments

Attention: This is a third party add-on, we DO NOT and WILL NOT give support for it.

Thor had to fix the Ubuntu release, you can find the updated archive in the download section.

Anti ( http://blog.omni-mad.com/ ) has updated the MacOSX port, please get it from the download page.

This update is only relevant for the MacOSX port, other versions are unaffected.

If so, let us know! Please be as detailed as possible and mention the system you were playing on!

Dear all,

This is more or less a help request as many people we have asked, did not have a solution either yet.

We are in need of a PORTABLE .XM playback library which is available for many platforms or easily portable (considering the source is available).

The standard which comes with SDL is (lib)mikmod, but it can’t handle .XM’s the way it should.

The use of many different libs in different ways just makes it more difficult to get the game ported. Due to the bad playback of mikmod, some systems we support even had to use a “streamed music” solution.

Streamed music unfortunately eats more CPU power and limits the possibilities of possible ports.

In short: If you know any GOOD .xm playback lib, preferably open source, and it’s not bass.dll, fmod or mikmod, please let us know :)

For the final release, we would really like to stick with one playback version.

Seems we got rank number six within the Superlevel.de’s years “Clicks of the Year”-Games resume :)

Link: http://www.superlevel.de/intern/superresuemee-2009

Happy New Year everyone!

Giana’s Return v0.997 hits the web! New initial version arrived for MAC OSX, Dingoo Linux (Dingux), Ubuntu Linux and Dreamcast. The GP2x, Wiz and Windows version were updated too! Please note that the MAC OSX version is a quick port/hack, also OS v10.6 is the minimum requirement.

Our heros for the updated ports: Thor, Pickle, Slaanesh, Anti, Indiket – Hail the coders!

Changes:

General changes:
– modified trainer (hidden)
– updated greetings (hidden)
– modified vscroll
– enabled vscroll by default (if config.cfg is not present), otherwise change value vscroll in config.cfg manually to 1
– added “fast” option to config file
– level improvements: 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 43, 51
– reverted desert background to a previous version
– hidden diamond boxes have a flashing animation now
– fixed appearance with the spanish “well done” screen
– various graphic fixes
– fixed text in german language version
– rain or snow effects were gone after bonuscave, fixed.
– ending shows an extra screen now with final score information
– fixed screen shake if you get a powerup at the end or beginning of a level
– backgrounds hue correction

Computer Versions only:
– improved joypad/joystick control
– keyboard support for entering name in highscore and passwords
– added icon; by cmoses (thanks!)

Console & Handheld versions only:
– improved music quality (reencoded music)
– added icon

We’ll be releasing an additionally unannounced release tomorrow, but it wont be for the Pandora :)