Thanks to Seleuco and all for this wonderful game. This thread has everything you need to make Gridlee a very deep and satisfying addition to your iOS library. Thanks again to all...
Anyones knows how to rename the app to be "iMame" or something like that? It could be cool change the app icon too.
Well, I've finally decided that this is the thread that I'm finally going to make my first post on, and let me say thank goodness that I had a second chance to get this emulator on my non-jailbroken iPhone! The only issues I have is that I'm using an iPhone 4 (wow, yet another reason to upgrade) and I haven't been head-on into the goings-on of MAME in years, so many of my ROM sets are outdated. (Don't worry, I'm not asking for anything; If I was able to find it before, I know I can find it again now.) As a guy who grew up with the golden age of arcade games (my first app purchase was Pac-Man), it's a thrill to play the games of my childhood on my phone... and now I can play the others that haven't yet (or never will be) released in the App Store. Oh, and before I forget, if it wasn't for the Touch Arcade app sending me a push notification about Gridlee's release, I'd have never known. Thanks, TA! I'm still wondering why Galaxian needs such a huge frame skip to run at near 100% while Bottom Of The Ninth runs at virtually full speed, but beggars can't be choosers...
Well, given that even Microsoft allows true (non-disguised) console emulators into the Windows Phone store (let alone Google with Android), Apple's not allowing emulators is just pathetic. You shouldn't have apologized - Apple's rules ARE pathetic and really outdated.
"the selected game is missing one or more rom or chd images" guys i keeping getting this when trying to load a game can anyone help?
Now dont get me wrong i love emulators, have a fair few on my PC. BUT its a difficult one, companies own the rights to these old classics, yes its frustrating that 30 year old games are just gathering dust and we cant 'legallly' play them but its some companies IP, they own the game, they paid for the graphics designer/coder 30 years ago to create that game. Its theirs, not ours. But i must admit IF a games not available on the app store i dont feel guilty if i play it on an emulator. But emulators can do harm, take Raiden, someone here said 'doesnt work with this app, thats okay as i can buy the raiden app' which is good, but say if Raiden did work, how many of you are going to pay 3 dollars for the legal legit app ? I'm sure many wont. I play games on iMAME, if i can get the original game on the app store i'll buy it, if i cant i dont feel guilty playing it on mame. I do wish more companies would release a back catalogue of their games though but its often quite a tangled web of who owns what. Eg theres some classic 80's Spectrum 8 bit games by Ultimate, they became Rare, who then were bought up by Microsoft. I cant contact anyone at Microsoft to ask for these old games to be re-released or made 'legal'. Microsoft dont care, but as they own it they'll keep hold of it forever. Theres no way for me to play those old 8 bit Ultimate games 'legally'. But saying 'not allowing emulators is pathetic' is totally wrong. If Apple allowed emulators then they would lose a lot of money, devs would also lose a lot of money (Look at Dotemu for examples - Raiden, Metal Slug etc). Wish more companies would let devs such as Dotemu create their games for iOS and share the profits I wish we had more legal apps like Namco Arcade (but not silly prices) or Midway Arcade/Vectrex/Atari Anthology etc. But its obvious why they wont allow emulators, obvious. At the end of the day there is money to be made from retro gaming, so why on earth would they allow their games to be free and used by emulators on the app store ? Is there some 30 year rule saying software is free for us, 30 year old music is free or 30 year old films we can download for free ? Course there isnt.
Well, I think the end users' needs should also be taken into account. We pay a LOT of $$$ for our devices and find it really saddening when both Microsoft and Google allow a lot more apps into their respective appstores. We would except NOT being handled as third-class citizens by Apple (MS' and Google's customers being the 1st/2nd, without a particular order). Emulators are just one examples of Apple's being really pathetic and stubborn. Another example is hardware video playback acceleration. Both MS and Google allow that - Apple doesn't, in order to protect their (pretty low-quality and overpriced) iTunes Store movies. Or should I mention Apple's removing anti-aliasing in iPhone emulation modes from both the iPad 1 and 2 (and only keeping it in the iPad 3/4) and, then, blatantly lying to even developers (including me) that anti-aliasing in the iPad 1/2 under iOS 3.x / 4.x was a "bug"?
But over the last 30 years i've bought some games for 5 different devices, i've bought a game on my 8 bit Spectrum (Bubble Bobble), the same game on my Amiga, then on my NES, then my Gameboy, Playstation II and now iOS device. Buying it once over the years doesnt let me have a copy on any device i want. Again i love MAME, love it, i think the people who created mame have helped companies make a lot of money as theyre one reason why retro is popular, same for other emulator authors when those old 80's games might have just died/gathered dust But either way we havent got any right to say 'well we've paid $$$'s , its ours for free now'. Imagine if you made some old classic game 30 years ago, perhaps you need some money and you're thinking of re-releasing it on iOS, but then you see a bunch of kids downloading it for free saying 'well we're allowed to' , what would you think ? If an old arcade game is an iOS app i'll buy it, but i worry that too many people will think 'nah i'll just play the free one on iMAME and wont get the version by Dotemu' etc. I dont really care about the anti-aliasing etc, i just love iOS products and i enjoy playing on them. I'm sure if i bothered to look theres things Apple does which isnt perfect but looking at the bigger picture i think things are mostly great. At the end of the day if you're not happy with Apple get an Android device
I too - otherwise, I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't have purchased the latest-and-greatest iDevices (e.g., iPhone 5). However, no matter how much I like using the iPhone / iPad, I still hate being considered an idiot by Apple - this is I'm pretty angry when I see them either directly lying to their developers (see the question of their removal of anti-aliasing in iOS 5) as if they (the devs) were 5-year-old ones. I also hate their protecting their (compared to BR rips you can do yourself, low-quality) iTunes Store movies by not allowing acceleration. Or, in this case (letting emulators in AppStore), I really hate being handled as a third-class citizen with both MS and Google both allowing emulators in their appstores.
You don't have "needs" as a consumer of luxury products, you have wants, and no, those wants don't need to be taken into account, and no, you don't need to be given everything you want. As far as money goes, what you paid for your device is 100% irrelevant to the issues at play here. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if we start seeing comments like that (i.e. "I'll just play the free version emulated through the Gridlee app rather than pay for the legit one!"), then that's a sign the thread has outlived its usefulness and needs to be locked.
1, people will prefer the new version if it's updated / optimized for iOS (and most re-released titles are). Just two examples: the native version of both Metal Slug 1 and 3 run far faster and far better than in iMAME. The old textual Infocom adventures are far better and easier to play than in a DOS emulator etc. So is Bolder Dash XL. 2, most old games aren't re-released at all as a native app. For example, none of Legend Entertainment's absolutely great games (Time Quest, the Spellcasting series, Eric the Unready etc. - these are way better than most current adventure games on iOS) are rewritten for iOS. It's only via emulators (or interpreters, if any) that you can play them under iOS.
Well, they indeed don't need to absolutely be taken into account. I just will leave iOS if this trend continues. That is, Apple being far more restrictive in a LOT of areas - not just emulators - than MS / Google and deliberately dumbing / slowing down their old models (an example, in addition to removing iPad 1/2 antialiasing in iOS5: deliberately slowing down the iPhone 3G in 4.x) to make hardware upgrades sometimes a necessity.
Can anyone answer my question, I can't even get the emulator started, I hit start and coin together and nothing. What am I doing wrong?? On an iPhone 4s. Someone said something about portrait but the game only flips around in landscape.. Please help Edit: derp I had the roms in the documents folder for some reason, not the roms one ugh, thanks!
You need to put another rom in. Completely off topic but following on from psj above. I would pay good money to play those Ultimate games legitimately. Still great games every one.
It shocks me how many people aren't reading what's already been posted, as they're asking questions that have been answered at least 10 times.
"the selected game is missing one or more rom or chd images" guys i keeping getting this when trying to load a game can anyone help?
I was the one you quoted, but what I said wasn't "I can buy the Raiden game". I bought it on release day, and would have done so even if I had it in Mame.. Otherwise, I agree with your assesment in your full post, Copyright holders of some of these great old games may wish to release the games on iOS on a future date, they have a reason to be afraid of lower sales figured if the game is already available in mame for iOS. That being said, a lot of iOS gamers will have trouble getting this app to work, getting correct roms, (or even any roms), trouble transferring the roms to their device etc. And a lot of people will buy an official release like I would, simply to support the devs in the hope of future releases or just to own a legal, non hassle copy.
Good on you for buying the Raiden app. I reckon a fair few people wouldnt though so thats one big negative about MAME. But again i wish devs would release more, take Bubble Bobble, the official Bubble Bobble app is pretty poor, if there was a new one with the sequels etc it would be great, i would buy that in an instance. But i cant so all that remains is the versions in MAME. I'm a hypocrite in a way as i wish they would release a NES or GB emulator onto the app store disguised as some single game app!
