[bug#63435] Add vcmi 1.2.1 to games.scm

X-Debbugs-Cc: liliana.prikler@gmail.com, iyzsong@envs.net

The attached patch adds "vcmi", which is in many ways very similar to
the "fheroes2" package, in that it (currently) requires external
non-free assets, but the game engine itself is GPL2. They also both use
assets from the same game lineage (heroes of might and magic).

I struggled to get the tests to work, and they do not seem to be
terribly well maintained upstream. They are even disabled by default by
upstream. I did some very brief manual "testing" that it actually works,
at least!

I had successfully built with various qt*@6 packages, but they are not
currently building; it seems to support qt*@5 too.

Some things failed to build with gcc-11, so I tried gcc-12 and it
worked!

We probably want to try to apply Debian's "privacy-breach" patch to
disable phoning home, as well as the reproducible builds patch and some
additional reproducibility patches I am working on, but figured I would
submit the package to guix for review now, in case anyone else wants to
join me down this rabbit hole...


live well,
  vagrant

Am Mittwoch, dem 10.05.2023 um 22:43 -0700 schrieb Vagrant Cascadian:
> X-Debbugs-Cc: liliana.prikler@gmail.com, iyzsong@envs.net
> 
> The attached patch adds "vcmi", which is in many ways very similar to
> the "fheroes2" package, in that it (currently) requires external
> non-free assets, but the game engine itself is GPL2. They also both
> use assets from the same game lineage (heroes of might and magic).
Not my favourite kind of game, I must say, but under crapitalism you
get what you pay for.

> I struggled to get the tests to work, and they do not seem to be
> terribly well maintained upstream. They are even disabled by default
> by upstream. I did some very brief manual "testing" that it actually
> works, at least!
The comment you put in the source is fine for me.

> I had successfully built with various qt*@6 packages, but they are
> not currently building; it seems to support qt*@5 too.
> 
> Some things failed to build with gcc-11, so I tried gcc-12 and it
> worked!
Can you elaborate what things?  I doubt it makes elaborate use of
C++20/23 features, does it?

> We probably want to try to apply Debian's "privacy-breach" patch to
> disable phoning home, as well as the reproducible builds patch and
> some additional reproducibility patches I am working on, but figured
> I would submit the package to guix for review now, in case anyone
> else wants to join me down this rabbit hole...
Well, it won't be added to Guix without such patches, so someone needs
to go down this rabbit hole.

> +    (native-inputs (list boost
The following lines get very long, consider breaking before (list
> +                         ffmpeg
> +                         ;; Build errors with gcc-11
> +                         gcc-12
> +                         ;; googletest ; needed for tests, but tests
> are disabled
> +                         libxkbcommon
> +                         luajit
> +                         minizip
> +                         pkg-config
> +                         python
> +                         ;; qtbase and qttools @6 not currently
> buildable but may work ok
> +                         qtbase-5
> +                         qttools-5
> +                         sdl2
> +                         sdl2-mixer
> +                         sdl2-image
> +                         sdl2-ttf
> +                         tbb
> +                         vulkan-headers
> +                         zlib))

> +     "@code{vcmi} is an implementation of Heroes of Might and
> +Magic III (aka HOMM3) game engine.  It requires assets and game
> resources to
> +play; it will look for them at @file{~/.local/share/vcmi} folder.")
Use an @acronym or just spell it out.

Cheers

On 2023-05-11, Liliana Marie Prikler wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, dem 10.05.2023 um 22:43 -0700 schrieb Vagrant Cascadian:
>> I had successfully built with various qt*@6 packages, but they are
>> not currently building; it seems to support qt*@5 too.
>> 
>> Some things failed to build with gcc-11, so I tried gcc-12 and it
>> worked!
> Can you elaborate what things?  I doubt it makes elaborate use of
> C++20/23 features, does it?

Well, just retried with the default gcc, and it worked this time! so I
guess I will just switch the next patch iteration back to the default
gcc...


>> We probably want to try to apply Debian's "privacy-breach" patch to
>> disable phoning home, as well as the reproducible builds patch and
>> some additional reproducibility patches I am working on, but figured
>> I would submit the package to guix for review now, in case anyone
>> else wants to join me down this rabbit hole...
> Well, it won't be added to Guix without such patches, so someone needs
> to go down this rabbit hole.

Will try applying some of those patches now...


>> +    (native-inputs (list boost
> The following lines get very long, consider breaking before (list
>> +                         ffmpeg
>> +                         ;; Build errors with gcc-11
>> +                         gcc-12
>> +                         ;; googletest ; needed for tests, but tests
...
>> +                         zlib))

While I share your opinion, I tried changing it in various ways, and
"guix style" changed it right back. I do not really want to fight with
"guix style" too much... even if I disagree a bit with the results.


>> +     "@code{vcmi} is an implementation of Heroes of Might and
>> +Magic III (aka HOMM3) game engine.  It requires assets and game
>> resources to
>> +play; it will look for them at @file{~/.local/share/vcmi} folder.")
> Use an @acronym or just spell it out.

Presuming you mean "(aka HOMM3)" ... honestly, maybe best to just drop
it entirely; I am not sure it adds much.


Thanks for the review!


live well,
  vagrant