About – Rockbot

So, what is this Rockbot about?

Well, putting it simple is a game made in the spirit of Capcom’s classic Megaman (Rockman in Japan) game series (1-6 and 9-10), that have original storyline and graphics, besides an editor where the user can edit their own stage and enemies, allowing other people to distribute their own versions of the game.

The game itself is made with SDL library, and ported to Linux, Windows and Playstation 2. There is an experimental build for Nintendo DS and, with help, it can be easily ported to Mac, PSP and XBox. The editor is made by using Nokia’s Qt toolkit and is available in Linux and Windows.

Who are we?

We are Megaman fans. We like the game. We feel sad that Capcom did not bring the game do old consoles such as Playstation 2 and DS, thus we wanted to create a tool that allowed us to play those games in those platforms, but also wanted to create an original game baserd on it. Iuri Fiedoruk – programmer analist working to HP Brazil throught T&T contractor, graduated in Conputer Science. Creates initial concept art, organizes the system structure, develops and port the game engine to different platforms. Arismeire Kümmer Silva Fiedoruk – graduated as literatura specialist, develops artesanal and computer artistic works. Creates concept and instruction manual and press art material. Rodrigo Machado Hahn – in course to become graduated as computer master, develops pixel art. Demétrio K.M – starting his graduation with computer science, helps to develop and fix bugs.

About the game

Rockbot is a game engine, similar to classical (1 to 6, 9 and 10) Megaman (Rockman in Japan), programmed in C with the multi-platform library SDL, counting also with a stage editor made in C++ with Qt library from Nokia. Currently it have ports to Linux, Windows, Playstation 2 and Nintendo DS. The possibility to port to other platforms such as XBox, Mac, PSP and Dingoo, but as we lack the hardware, we need help to port the game to it. The game code is under GPL v2 license, the graphics and music under creative commons share-alike. The game happens inside the imaginary universe of Megaman, but does not make use of names or marks of Capcom, being placed in the city of Kyoto instead of Tokyo, both from Japan.

What is the main objetcive of the project?

When Capcom decided to ignore players of Nintendo DS, Playstation 2, XBox and computers by launching Megaman 9 and 10 only for XBox-360 and Playstation 3, we decided it was the time to show that it is possible to support those platforms with games in old school style, but instead of simply trying to create a Megaman-like game, we decided to incorporate the creation of an editor, so anyone can create their own adventures, or even port the original games (remember that, for this, you must own the original game).

What is your relation with Capcom?

We are fans of the 8 and 16 bits generations games created by Capcom. We really enjoy Megaman, but we have no link with the company.

Witch feature from Megaman games Rockbot will have?

Rockbot engine will gradually support all features from classic Megaman. As, contrary to original ones, we want that almost all aspects of the game can be changed from the editor, the time needed for that is much greater than adapt an engine made with Game Maker, for example; plus our engine is cross-platform and written in C++ from scratch from a single person. That said, ideia is that version 1.1 have all features from megaman 1 and part of 2, while 1.2 will feature all from megaman 3 and part of 3 and so goes on until is is possible to create, through the editor, a faitful version of the games from Megaman 1 to 10 with out engine.

What happened to the Nintendo DS port?

As the DS SDK have critical issues with SDL, mostly in the sound part, it is very hard to develop a multi-platform with DS in mind, having to deal with the memory, speed and resolution limitations; thus, the DS port will only retaken when the engine is mature enought so we can focus exclusively on optimization and reduction.

What is the game’s story?

No ano 20XX, várias máquinas com forma humanóide e Inteligência Artificial começaram a ser construídas para auxiliar as tarefas que os humanos precisariam de maquinário pesado e dificuldade para realizar, no entanto, algumas pessoas passaram a roubar e utilizar-se destas máquinas, reprogramando-as, para seu próprio interesse. Enquanto em Tokyo, dois robôs protegem a cidade e um cientista malvado, o restante do Japão conta apenas com a polícia para sua proteção, o que nem sempre é suficiente.

É quando, na cidade de Kyoto, um jovem cientista, chamado Canotus, inspirado pelo exemplo dos robôs heróis de Tokyo, decide criar sua própria dupla de robôs, que serviriam junto com a polícia na proteção da cidade. Mas antes que ambos estejam plenamente completos, uma ameaça atingue a cidade: oito robôs subitamente começam a atacar a cidade! Sem opção, o Dr. Canotus decide enviar seus dois robôs para o combate, antes que as forças de defesa da cidade não consigam mais controlar a situação.

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