Introduction

As for every year, we hold a general assembly for the Solarus Labs non-profit organization. We take advantage of it to look back on past year and establish upcoming projects.

Projects Completed in 2022

Ocean’s Heart on Switch

Ocean’s Heart has been released on Nintendo Switch, thanks to std::gregwar hard work who ported Solarus to the hybrid console. Max Mraz’s game is available on the Nintendo eShop, and is going to get a material release.

Visual Identity Refresh

Olivier worked on the project’s visual identity.

Solarus is adorned with a new logo, in line with the previous one, but more modern.

The website has been redone from scratch, using the Hugo framework, and now use automatic deployments.

The documentation is being migrated to the new documentation site, made with MkDocs. The old one, generated by Doxygen, remains available, during the transition.

Gitlab Repositories Organization

Hhromic cleaned up and reorganized the repositories on Gitlab. Obsolete projects have been archived, and still active projects have been classified into subgroups: games, resource-packs, etc.

In addition, the projects now all use the release system, and for each release is associated one or more packages to download, as well as the associated checksum. Package names have been standardized, and each release displays its changelog.

Student Project

IMT Altantique, a French engineering school, asked its students to collaborate with an open-source project, as part of a study project.

We were honored to have a group of students choose Solarus for their project. Christopho guided them in solving an engine bug during a pair-programming evening. This allowed them to learn the basics of contributing to an open-source project.

Video Tutorials

Christopho continued to provide video tutorials on Youtube, both in English and French. The playlist now has 61 (!) tutorials about Solarus 1.6.

Projects Still in Progress

Game development continues.

  • A Link to the Dream, led by Binbin, seems on track to release this year.
  • The development of Mercuris’ Chest resumed thanks to the motivation of Metallizer.

The development of Solarus 2.0 is progressing slowly but surely:

  • The new showcase site uses the releases API on GitLab to get the latest versions of games.

  • The development of the new launcher has progressed. The launcher will use the site’s new API, mentioned above, to retrieve games and their updates.

  • The new documentation site will be converted from Doxygen to MkDocs.

  • The engine itself has progressed.

Projects in Slow Motion

  • The Android port, initiated by std::gregwar, has been slowed down for some time. However, players were able to test the beta version and share their feedback. It works fine, and only requires some UI improvements.

  • The WebAssembly port, also initiated by std::gregwar, is slow. It is well advanced, and needs tweaking.

  • The Qt theme for Solarus Quest Editor, initiated by Olivier, is at a standstill due to lack of time.

Projects Planned for 2023

Solarus 2.0 could be released in 2023 if we have time. This new version of the engine will include multiplayer features, a new launcher, and ideally Android and WebAssembly ports.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Dream, the Solarus-made Link’s Awakening remake, is on track to be released in 2023.

Conclusion

2022 was less productive than 2021, which had been exceptional, but the projects still progressed well. Thank you to all community members who make this project possible.