Making a standalone OS X ACK game app

[jjsonick]

The ACK manual already covers how to make a standalone ACK game app for Windows. Since it seemed a little trickier, my initial plan for standalone OS X ACK game's would be to have the game creator send me their game, and then, time permitting, I'd make a stripped-down, custom-version of the Launcher for their game.

Well, that makes me a bottle-neck, as well as the issue that the game creator might have an altered/patched ACK, newer version of DOSBox, etc. SO thanks to Applescript, I've made a shell of an ACK game app that then the game creator can fill with their game, ACK version and DOSBox version. Kinda tedious, but better than having to wait for me to make a specific Mac Launcher version.

Directions:

1. Download shell of game app here:
http://www.mozomedia.com/ack/wp-content ... eShell.zip

2. Extract shell, and then control or right-click it and choose “Show Package Contents”

3. Navigate to Contents/Resources

4. In a separate window, control or right-click on the ACK Launcher and choose “Show Package Contents”

5. Navigate to the ACK Launcher’s Contents/Resources folder

6. Select everything in the ACK Launcher Resources folder, copy, and paste it all into the ACKGameShell Resources folder. When done, the ACK folder, DOSBox and several other small files should now be in your ACKGameShell’s Resources folder.

7. Close the ACK Launcher Contents/Resources window

8. In ACKGameShell’s Resources folder, do the following:

9. Delete “Revolution.icns”, “Revolution.rsrc”, “RevolutionDoc.icns”, and the applet files “c”, “f”, “g”, “i”, “m”, “n”, “o”, “p”, “r”, “t” and “x”

10. Duplicate “dosbox.conf”

11. Rename the duplicate “game.conf”

12. In ACKGameShell’s ACK folder, do the following:

13. Delete all the folders in the GAMENAME/ACK/GAMES folder except for your GAMENAME (whatever your game is called) folder (ie, delete TUTORIAL, BRIGANDS, etc.)

14. Delete the ACK/KITS folder.

15. In the ACK folder, delete ACK.BAT, ACK00.EXE, and ACK04.EXE through ACK10.EXE. (leave ACK01 through ACK03 alone).

16. Navigate back to the ACKGameShell Resources folder, and open game.conf.

17. In game.conf change the last line to “ACKMOD -r GAMENAME -exit” where GAMENAME is the name of your game

18. Make any other DOSBox configuration changes you’d like as defaults for your game (shader used, etc.) and then save this altered game.conf.

18. Navigate to Resources/Scripts/ and double-click main.scpt. This should open up the Applescript editor.

19. The third line of the script should read:

set the resources_path to game_path & quoted form of "ACKGameShell.app/Contents/Resources/"

Change “ACKGameShell” in that line to what you want to call your standalone game app (the name of your OS X app). Note you need to retain the “.app” after the name. E.g. Let’s say your ACK Game is called “Zork Space”, you’d change that line to read:

set the resources_path to game_path & quoted form of "Zork Space.app/Contents/Resources/"

20. The fourth line of the script should read:

set the dosbox_path to game_path & quoted form of "ACKGameShell.app/Contents/Resources/DOSBox.app/Contents/MacOS/"

Change “ACKGameShell” to match EXACTLY what you used in the previous line. So for your example game, we’d change it to:

set the dosbox_path to game_path & quoted form of "Zork Space.app/Contents/Resources/DOSBox.app/Contents/MacOS/"

21. Save your changed main.scr (File --> Save in menu or command-S).

22. Now navigate back to whatever folder is containing the ACKGameShell itself. Rename ACKGameShell to match exactly what you entered as the name in main.scpt (you’re just doing a file rename like you would with any other file in OS X). Following our example, you’d rename “ACKGameShell” as “Zork Space”

23. Now if you double-click your game app, it should launch DOSBox and your game! If this doesn’t work, go back over the steps above and make sure you didn’t miss somthing.

24. After you have your standalone ACK game app working, if you want to give your app a custom icon, follow the steps here: http://loekvandenouweland.com/index.php ... icns-file/

And yes, my to-do list for 2013 includes the ACK game B-Movie Monster Madness, so hopefully that will happen :P

[Garth's Equipment Shop]

:cool: Stickied!