ArmagetronAd on Spoon

[Z-Man]

It is now possible to play Armagetron Advanced from your browser, just go here (and be aware that there is a small delay between pressing the 'play now' button and something actually happening, don't click twice). It's neat tech. What run there is the regular Windows binary, it just runs in a sandbox that catches game file reads and maps them to network reads. Similar to running the game off a network share, only faster due to local caches. User configuration files are still stored locally on your PC in the usual location (and user data files can be placed there, too).

Requirements:
1. Windows
2. a free account on spoon.net
3. a plugin installation
The plugin also installs a sandbox manager autostart entry in the start menu. It doesn't take too much memory (14 Mb), but if you don't plan on visiting spoon.net often, it seems safe to delete it. Doing so just slows down your first spoon.net start.
Yeah, it's probably nothing for the veterans, but if the requirements are already met, it's quite a comfortable way to go for a test drive. What do you think about putting this among the download links on the main website?

[Mkay1]

cool!

[teen]

Hey cool! what made you decide to put it on a site? You guys told me no before and that i had to put it on a usb this is so much better !

[Z-Man]

Well, I didn't know it was possible until about a week ago. The spoon guys contacted me. It's a relatively young service and they apparently seek out freeware devs to kickstart their library.

And it probably won't help you, teen You still need to be able to install the browser plugin.

[Word]

Played it, and i liked it...but there should be some way to store your settings online.

[Blammer6]

Hello All,

My name is Blake and I work at Spoon. I just wanted to say we're excited to have a game as cool as ArmageTron Advanced up on Spoon.net. Our app lab team certainly had their fun with it while we were virtualizing it.

I wanted to respond directly to the question from Word, though, and let everyone know that data sync and storage is a feature we are working on and hope to have up in the early part of this year. You'll not only be able to play ArmageTron Advanced without installing it, but you'll also be able to save settings and game information to the cloud through your account.

Stay tuned for updates and thanks for your interest.

-Blake
SPOON

[syllabear]

it just runs my armagetronad.exe... is it supposed to do this?

[Luke-Jr]

Stay tuned for updates and thanks for your interest.

Hi Blake. I had a couple of questions....

1. Is this GPL compatible? Specifically, the GPL requires that when you distribute the game (which you have to be doing, or it wouldn't work), you must also include the source code or an offer to get it from you for 3 years. Merely linking to our site does not fulfil this requirement. Also note that the GPL defines "source code" in such a way that it includes the complete build system and compiler (not necessarily the source thereof, but the binaries to build it). Whatever packaging/compilers required to produce Spoon Armagetron must therefore be freely redistributable.

2. Does Spoon have any plans to support non-Windows and/or non-x86 platforms? I was thinking WINE might be of use here... but I'm not interested in relocating to Washington (though if you want me to work on it remotely, contact me privately for rates)

3. Could Spoon possibly be available as free software itself someday? From what I understand of your business model, a viral free software license (that requires programs using it to be free software also) shouldn't be a problem for you.

[Word]

Hello All,

My name is Blake and I work at Spoon. I just wanted to say we're excited to have a game as cool as ArmageTron Advanced up on Spoon.net. Our app lab team certainly had their fun with it while we were virtualizing it.

I wanted to respond directly to the question from Word, though, and let everyone know that data sync and storage is a feature we are working on and hope to have up in the early part of this year. You'll not only be able to play ArmageTron Advanced without installing it, but you'll also be able to save settings and game information to the cloud through your account.

Stay tuned for updates and thanks for your interest.

-Blake
SPOON

wow that's cool, thanks for the reply

edit:
Here's an idea, in case you're still checking this thread: You could offer some sort of moviepack switcher on your site to make it more interesting for people that don't install it (but i think it is up to Z-Man to decide if this is good or not).

[Ratchet]

Word; let's not get too far ahead of the game at this point. If he is (which I doubt) keeping around to monitor where this goes, I seriously doubt he'll have any idea what a moviepack is, or probably care.

[Magic]

Word; let's not get too far ahead of the game at this point. If he is (which I doubt) keeping around to monitor where this goes, I seriously doubt he'll have any idea what a moviepack is, or probably care.

ah I don't know I doubt he would just pick some random game

[Ratchet]

I wouldn't go as far as to advertise it as a 'Random Game'

After a few seconds of searching anyone with the recessive gene, Common Sense, can locate the first 'Desktop Application' game of tron.

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=e ... fc6f926f13

Edit: Not aimed at you, of course, it's just I feel the game is probably pretty well spread, regardless of its lack of advertisements, and I think there are many more people aware of the game than one might expect.

[Z-Man]

1. Is this GPL compatible?

I'd say so, otherwise I would have objected to the distribution in this form
Specifically:

Code: Select all

  3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
    (a and b snipped)
    c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
    to distribute corresponding source code.  (This alternative is
    allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
    received the program in object code or executable form with such
    an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)[code][/quote]If no modifications to the code are made (which is the case here), a link to the homepage suffices. The GPL doesn't specifiy what 'noncommercial' means, but I neither see (external) ads on the page nor the need to pay, so I'd say it clearly applies. Ads would be fine, too, IMHO.

Now, you can say the distribution isn't really just a verbatim copy, you get it attached to a virtual machine and can't readily 'free' the game and its data from it. Well, that doesn't matter, reversibility is not a requirement of the GPL :) The Spoon tools (Server and Studio) are available (not for free, but again, not a requirement), so you can set up a service just like spoon yourself if you want to and put AA on it. Only if nontrivial configuration files to Studio are required to repeat the process, they'd need to be published as well. Note the 'nontrivial'. Look at our winlibs package; it contains all the libraries AA uses on Windows (and the corresponding package for the Mac), ready in compilable form so the build process is as easy as it can be. None of that would be required, we could just give a list of libraries and leave it to the user to assemble them, which would be a lot of work.

But it's *linking* AA to the virtual machine! Isn't the whole thing, virtual machine + AA, to be interpreted as derived work? Well, not necessarily. Spoon and the VM can be seen as an extended operating system (extending Windows), making the VM part of the OS and thus giving it the same status as other operating system files. (Though, I have to admit, if you really want to make a case against it, this would be your most promising route.)

[quote="Word"]Here's an idea, in case you're still checking this thread: You could offer some sort of moviepack switcher on your site to make it more interesting for people that don't install it (but i think it is up to Z-Man to decide if this is good or not).[/quote]Technically, that would be possible, but I don't think it'd be a good use of resources. If we had a T2O style moviepack switcher, then yes, sure, installing a ton of moviepacks by default would be the way to go; only those the user actually wants to see would be downloaded then. As it stands, however, you'd probably need to build separate packages, one for each moviepack.

[2020]

only windows?
damn

nevertheless
nice advancement

[Magic]

I wouldn't go as far as to advertise it as a 'Random Game'

After a few seconds of searching anyone with the recessive gene, Common Sense, can locate the first 'Desktop Application' game of tron.

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=e ... fc6f926f13

Edit: Not aimed at you, of course, it's just I feel the game is probably pretty well spread, regardless of its lack of advertisements, and I think there are many more people aware of the game than one might expect.

Oh yeah I was implying he wouldn't have picked just any game I bet he's atleast played it