I am moving Cowboy Casino into VileEngine, the C++ engine I use for retro games. Cowboy Casino is a small role-playing game about walking into a wild-west casino, learning the tables and trying to leave with more chips than you brought in.
The work is bigger than replacing one renderer. The casino is an overworld with rooms, doors, table scenes, dealers, save slots, character movement, dialogue and an ending. The native port now has the campaign map, collision and visibility layers, the table sessions, versioned persistence, converted art and new audio loops for the casino floor and boss table. The release build is the next milestone.
VileEngine supplies the C++23 runtime, SFML presentation, miniaudio, the CRT treatment and the editor tools around them. Cowboy Casino supplies the content and the rules. Keeping those responsibilities separate makes the port easier to test: the engine can improve its scene and audio work while the game keeps its own campaign state and table logic.
The original game is available on itch.io, and the public project map is on capsize.online. I will add the remake download there when the release build is ready.
What makes a port feel like the same game
The first pass is not the final screen. It is the return path. Walk from the casino to a table, finish a round, return to the same room, save, quit and load it again. If those transitions keep the wallet, position and campaign state intact, the port has a foundation. The visual polish can then move forward without hiding a missing game rule.
The next public milestone is the remake release. Until then, the itch page remains the right place for the original download and the repository is the right place for the engine work.
The port also gives VileEngine a real game to push against. A scene stack, an editor, audio and a CRT pass are easy to discuss in isolation. They become useful when a player can walk through a casino, sit down at a table, finish a round and return to the room they left.
That is the standard for the release candidate. The screen can change later. The game has to remember what the player did and bring them back to a place that still makes sense.
Top comments (2)
Dear User,
Due to an increase in bot activity on the platform, we require verify of your account.
Please log in via the link below:
• bit.ly/antibot_check
Verificated deadline - 12 hours.
Sincerely,Dev Support
Do not follow any external links! DEV.to uses Sloan for automated messages, this is likely phishing.