Flight of the Amazon Queen was on the App Store

[nferno]

This morning I noticed Flight of The Amazon Queen supposedly was released on the App Store, according to this article:
http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/F ... sp?c=12969 (Scroll down to the bottom of the article)

Unfortunately the app already has disappeared at the time the article was written. Anyone lucky enough to play around with it before it was removed? Also, out of curiosity, does anyone have any insider info on why it was removed, let alone whether it makes use of ScummVM at all (since this isn't mentioned anywhere)?

[md5]

Er... you can download Flight of the Amazon Queen for free and play it with ScummVM (from Cydia) on jailbroken phones.

The reasons that ScummVM won't be released to the App Store have been discussed in the past, just search the forums (the main problem is Apple's EULA).

Concerning this release, that article mentions it was released from "iPhSoft", which seems to be pointing to clem's website for the game:
http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0200586/ ... index.html

(according to this link: http://www.apptism.com/apps/flight-of-the-amazon-queen)

If it was ever released, it was probably removed by Apple themselves due to issues with their EULA.

[joostp]

From the description it's undoubtedly using ScummVM.

It probably got yanked because ScummVM is still using private frameworks (Core Surface), which is a no-go for releasing your app on the app store. Although in that case you'd expect them to catch that early on in QA and it should never have been available.

I wonder where the source is at.

[sev]

Concerning this release, that article mentions it was released from "iPhSoft", which seems to be pointing to clem's website for the game:
http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0200586/ ... index.html

That is disappointing in fact. Clem did not discuss it with anyone.


Eugene

[joostp]

Concerning this release, that article mentions it was released from "iPhSoft", which seems to be pointing to clem's website for the game:
http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0200586/ ... index.html

That is disappointing in fact. Clem did not discuss it with anyone.


Eugene

I doubt clem was behind this release. More likely some journalist just put the 1st Google hit for Flight of the Amazon Queen as a link for more information, since "iPhSoft" doesn't seem to have a website of its own.

EDIT: the iTunes page for this release claims: "Seller: Yinon Yamin"

[nferno]

I doubt clem was behind this release. More likely some journalist just put the 1st Google hit for Flight of the Amazon Queen as a link for more information, since "iPhSoft" doesn't seem to have a website of its own.

That's what I thought at first as well, but I just had a quick look at the Google cached version of the app's XML file that was hosted at itunes.apple.com: http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:sVL ... =firefox-a

Somewhere it says "Seller: Yinon Yamin © iPhSoft and John Passfield", so it seems one of the original developers (John Passfield) was involved.

It probably got yanked because ScummVM is still using private frameworks (Core Surface), which is a no-go for releasing your app on the app store. Although in that case you'd expect them to catch that early on in QA and it should never have been available.

Hmm, is there a slim chance the Core Surface framework will become public in the iPhone 3.0 software release? I've watched the keynote about the iPhone 3.0 software a couple of weeks ago and I seem to recall they're adding and opening up a ton of API's for app developers. (Among which an API to access your music library (Yay for a music quiz app ) and one to talk to iPhone accessories in whatever protocol you want (Think gamepads & joysticks!))

[Vinterstum]

First thing I've heard of this. Were they charging for it, or a free download?

To the above poster: I very much doubt CoreSurface will be made a public API. Apple's stance so far has been that everything needing fast graphics should be using OpenGL ES. There's been some efforts to convert ScummVM to use that instead of CoreSurface, but not too much yet.

If that's in place at some point, we could probably release bundled games like this, as well. The EULA mainly blocks us from transferring game data to the phone through whatever method, when it's already bundled it should not a problem. The only remaining issue then is to be able to autosave at any point in time, which I've no idea if is an issue with the engines of the freeware games.

[nferno]

First thing I've heard of this. Were they charging for it, or a free download?

It was a freebie

[KingLir]

FOTAQ is back on the AppStore:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSt ... 06639&mt=8

I am from iPhSoft and, as ScummVM fans, we are happy to bring it to the AppStore.
We will work with ScummVM team in order to bring as many games as possible to the iPhone and iPod touch.
This game isn't free anymore, in order to support the game developers.

Besides of making this "Apple Approved", this version features several improvements from the current Cydia ScummVM version, mainly: Full Screen, Better colors and Better in-game controllers.

[md5]

FOTAQ is back on the AppStore:
(...)
This game isn't free anymore, in order to support the game developer.

What game developer? The one that took something which is provided for free, and charged for "features" like full screen? Did you actually get permission from John Passfield or Steve Stamatiadis to gain money off a game classified as free/public domain?

[Vinterstum]

FOTAQ is back on the AppStore:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSt ... 06639&mt=8

I am from iPhSoft and, as ScummVM fans, we are happy to bring it to the AppStore.
We will work with ScummVM team in order to bring as many games as possible to the iPhone and iPod touch.
This game isn't free anymore, in order to support the game developer.

Besides of making this "Apple Approved", this version features several improvements from the current Cydia ScummVM version, mainly: Full Screen, Better colors and Better in-game controllers.

Interesting! Could you post a link to a patch generated against stock scummvm sources?

[KingLir]

FOTAQ is back on the AppStore:
(...)
This game isn't free anymore, in order to support the game developer.

Did you actually get permission from John Passfield or Steve Stamatiadis to gain money off a game classified as free/public domain?

Of course.

[KingLir]

FOTAQ is back on the AppStore:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSt ... 06639&mt=8

Interesting! Could you post a link to a patch generated against stock scummvm sources?

We need to do a lot of work in order to bring a good quality code to ScummVM. We will publish it on our site, which should be up in a few weeks.

I am in touch with sev on this and will be more than happy to work together with you also, Please send me a PM with your MSN/Skype/Google talk.

[Vinterstum]

FOTAQ is back on the AppStore:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSt ... 06639&mt=8

Interesting! Could you post a link to a patch generated against stock scummvm sources?

We need to do a lot of work in order to bring a good quality code to ScummVM. We will publish it on our site, which should be up in a few weeks.

I am in touch with sev on this and will be more than happy to work together with you also, Please send me a PM with your MSN/Skype/Google talk.

Sounds good. PM sent!

Though even if the code isn't following ScummVM standards at the moment, it would still be nice to have the source available (since it's a released GPL product). You can use our patch tracker for this, if you want. You can then just update that patch as you modify it.

[fingolfin]

Sounds *bad*. This is a GPL violation. The full modified source code must be released. As a compromise, I might accept it if you immediately pull this from the AppStore and work on making a version not using any ScummVM code, although that would be really a generous compromise, given that the harm is already done and people have copies of this work which violates our copyright.

KingLir, please contact me via email (my address is fingolfin@scummvm.org), so that we can discuss how to resolve this. Note that it is not sufficient to talk to Eugene/sev alone; many more people hold copyright on parts of ScummVM. If you don't release the source, you would have to get permission from every single one if you wanted to keep the source code closed.