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[Ciardhubh]

PerennialOdyssey 2 (PO2) is a MMORPG for mobile phones. It is a demake of a MMORPG (duh!) ... you know ... the one where you always quest.

The game runs on Java ME-enabled devices (phones/PDAs/etc). You also have to be able to use an internet connection with Java applications. Alternatively you can use an emulator to run on a Windows, Linux or OSX desktop but this will ruin authenticity.

PO2's innovative, never-seen-before-ish features are:

• Beautiful procedurally generated landscapes: explore vast forests, swamps and mind-boggling underwater worlds!*
• A wide array of various known and unknown monsters!**
• Player housing will be available at release!**
• Cooperate with other players online, in order to defeat the evil monsters!
• Authentic lag due to inappropriate technology used!
• Pointless killing of monsters!
• Level your character!
• No boring and tedious quests!
• No quests at all!
• Die!

Screenshot

Requirements
A java-enabled (J2ME) mobile phone that supports:

• CLDC 1.0
• MIDP 2.0
• A fast connection. GPRS works but is horribly slow. UMTS should be sufficient.
• A vertical display (horizontal and square screen layouts are not supported, yet)

or
An emulator capable of the above.

Installation
On a mobile phone:

• Download the PerennialOdyssey2.jad and PerennialOdyssey2.jar.
• Transfer them to your phone (e.g. via USB).
• Install and run the application.

or

• Point your phone's browser to PerennialOdyssey2.jad and follow its instructions.
• This may not work on all phones.

In an emulator on Windows, Mac or Linux:

• Click the following link to start PO2 via Java Web Start (requires Java): http://microemu.org/webstart/ciardhubh.de/games/po2/PerennialOdyssey2.jnlp
• Unfortunately this emulator has a few shortcomings: screen layout during login is ugly, it does not show which field is selected, it does not display dashed lines in the game screen, it does not splay sounds and does not vibrate on attack. However, it is easy to use and install .

Instructions
After starting the application you are asked for a character name and password. New characters will be created automatically. Once on the game screen you can start playing:

• Move with left, right, up, down (if your device has some sort of joystick/pad you can use that or you can use 4, 6, 2 and 8 ).
• Attack by pressing the fire button (e.g. 5).
• Switch the info display (name and level) of player characters with game buttons A and B (e.g. 1 and 3); only works if other players are present.
• Press * to return to login.

The black dot is you. Blue dots are other players. The other coloured dots are monsters. Monsters are yellow if they are your level. The higher they are, the redder they get. Lower level monsters are green.

This is the carebear rule-set. There is no PvP.

The game does actually play online, so you have to consider data transfer in case you pay per kB (i.e. no flatrate). I tested it on a GPRS phone and playing for 5 minutes costs about 90 kB. Faster connections like UMTS may generate more traffic.

Download
PerennialOdyssey2.jad
PerennialOdyssey2.jar
or
Run in an emulator via Java Web Start.

PerennialOdyssey2 on a Motorola SLVR mobile phone.

* May require some imagination.
** May require lots of imagination.

[increpare]

heh heh heh

[Don Andy]

Needs to be on Apple App Store :D

[Ciardhubh]

Needs to be on Apple App Store :D

Since Apple is even worse than Microsoft, when it comes to proprietary environments, that's not going to happen. The iPhone has no JavaVM as far as I know.

Anyway, that's what it currently looks like:

The "one pixel per player/monster" approach didn't really work out, so I have to make them bigger.

[Don Andy]

Needs to be on Apple App Store :D

Since Apple is even worse than Microsoft, when it comes to proprietary environments, that's not going to happen. The iPhone has no JavaVM as far as I know.

Yes, I know, it was a joke because the iPhone is somewhat of the current mobile phone fad.

I totally dig the simplicity of the game.

[Hideous]

I don't dig that it will cost me money to play this game 

[Ciardhubh]

I don't dig that it will cost me money to play this game 

If you don't have a data flatrate for your mobile phone, you'll have to pay for the traffic the game generates. I'll give an approximate amount of kb-traffic/time-played when I'll release a playable version.

However, you can also use a free emulator like http://microemu.org/microemu-webstart/index.html . It runs on Win, Linux or Mac. In this case it will use your normal desktop computer's internet connection and it's free (unless you don't have a normal flatrate either).

Another option might be to use your normal internet connection with your mobile via bluetooth/USB/Wlan or whatever your phone might support.

[Ciardhubh]

Things are progressing ... acceptably:

Dying, moving, levelling, monster respawning, fighting, logging in/out, etc work. After a bit more bug squashing, special effects adding (Java ME is ... well ... I miss OpenGL) and server fondling, a first version will be ready for release.

Since the server is based on open web services, everybody can write his own client (as if anybody would want to do so :D).

[Ciardhubh]

I've finished a "playable" version. See the first post for instructions and download links.

Admittedly it's not the pinnacle of fun and playability but it was a nice technology learning exercise :D

[mildmojo]

Thanks for this.    I love that it's MM, and it's for J2ME.  Boils a hack-n-slash down to its elements.  Very nice.

It runs fine on my phone (Moto V505), though I only have GPRS, so it's deathly slow.  I typically just keep pounding buttons until I end up where I want to be or the monster's dead.  Maybe multiple actions could be cached, with the game predicting the results (not unlike regular networked games), and the results could be checked against the server in a batch?  That would save the overhead of the connection creation and teardown.

I tried the java emulated version and saw how it's supposed to play.  Much nicer.  Wish I had EDGE. =)