The Dragon Blog

After seeing a post on SFGHQ about a new Sonic fangame for GBA I wanted to know more about developing for GBA. I know from before of the Sonic fangame for GBA called Sonic Epoch which uses the SV4 engine made by Rob Showalter who also is making Sonic Epoch. I didn’t realise until earlier today that the engine was released to the public.

So I received a copy from USC from the SFGHQ forum since the official site is down. Apparently it is a set of tools and a pre-compiled runtime. So it will let you make the game much easier than programming it all. From what I know it makes all the project files into a object which is then combined with the pre-compiled runtime. This seams like a good and easy way to make a game for GBA.

But I also want to try a C / C++ devkit first for comparison. So I found a lib called HAMlib. I downloaded it and installed it.

So I will know create a small game and see whether HAMlib or SV4 is the better. It’s pretty obvious that HAMlib is the more powerful , but if SV4 can speed up development time and also have the necessery features to make a great game I don’t see why not to use it over HAMlib.
As it is stupid to use a lib just because of its features if you dont use it.

And I thought about creating a review of them. I will update this entry with my experiences along the way. Also I will start with HAMlib since I haven’t got a hold of some documentation for SV4 .

These are the criteria’s I will look at : Features , development time , memory handling , speed , sprite and general graphics handling, and a overall rating.

Just got started with HAMlib and I must say I like it already. It’s easy to use and powerful at the same time. SV4 will have a hard time matching it. The handling of graphics are great and it supports rotation of both bg’s and sprites.

Update: Haven’t done anything on the review today as I have been busy with real life stuff. If I have time tomorrow I will try to finish the HAMlib version.