I wrote a command line utility to load AMGC2 plugins, making it easier for me to test and develop new plugins without having to load the GUI each time. The benefit of course is that it doesn't require me to use MASkinG and allows me to play the game.
I've tested it with all the plugins on Miran's page and they all work except Blocks and Chess.
This is not to circumvent Miran's work however and for the full experience it's recommended that you use AMGC2. But it could help others that don't have MASkinG or no desire to install it to play and enjoy the games. And hopefully entice other developers into creating more content for AMGC2.
For more information check the page below or the archive.

Links:
Web Page
source

Feedback is appreciated.

[edit]
Added the archive in case the links don't resolve.

Updated the links, hopefully they'll go through.
If not then there's probably an issue with no-ip.com.

It does offer a menu for doing the settings and save them in a .cfg file. You can also create key bindings manually for it like you do in amgc2 in the .cfg file. I don't see the need for keeping highscores so I left that out. It does however print out your highscore on the cl when you are done.

One thing to note is that many of the games, mine included, are dependant on the location from which they are started. ie they look for their data files and what not in ./games/pluginname
so most of them need to be setup just like they were setup to be used in AMGC2.
I was hoping that the SetGamePath() and game_path were to be used for that reason, that way plugins can just use "game_path + resource" to load their data and there wouldn't be a problem. But that's just hopefull wishing.

The webpage works for me.

As I said, could be a firewall thing on my side. I'm at work and there are some pretty paranoid people here, so half the internet doesn't work half the time...

EDIT: I get this when running buildme.bat:

Creating directory obj/...
Creating directory dep/...
Building...
Compiling main.cpp...
Linking amgc2load.exe...
c:/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc-lib/mingw32/3.2.3/../../../libmingw32.a(main.o)(.text+0x
97):main.c: undefined reference to `WinMain@16'

EDIT: Adding END_OF_MAIN() fixed that. It works but it crashes on shutdown...

When I build in debug mode it says it can't load the dll...

Otherwise this is what it prints:

Initiating Allegro
Loading game numbers.dll
Successfully loaded Numbers
This plugin has no configuration settings
Couldn't init sound. Please check your configuration
Disabling sound
Opening in window
Allocating screen buffer
Please wait while game initiates . . . . . done!
Your score was: 1
Unloading Resources
Shutting down

I'm home now, on Linux, and the program doesn't work! Any game I try it says this:

Loading game template.so
Failed to load games/template/template.so

Doesn't matter if I build in debug or normal mode. When run in debug mode the main.log file looks like this:

main.cpp, main (203)
amgc2_wrapper.h, GetPlugin (319)
amgc2_wrapper.h, GetPlugin (322)
amgc2_wrapper.h, Plugin (244)
amgc2_wrapper.h, Load (262)
amgc2_wrapper.h, Load (265)
amgc2_wrapper.h, Load (274)
amgc2_wrapper.h, Load (280)
amgc2_wrapper.h, Load (289)
amgc2_wrapper.h, Load (294)
amgc2_wrapper.h, Plugin (246)
main.cpp, main (218)

I just compiled the source, put the binary in the AMGC directory and ran it with amgc2loader games/template/template.so. Doing the same on windows works (although I haven't tried all games) except for crashing on exit...

Btw, I noticed the following passage in your readme.txt:

I'd just like to say that you don't need to have MASkinG installed to play games with the original AMGC2 either. You just need MASkinG if you want to build the source code, which is only really applicable on Linux...

I think you don't need to change anything in the code, just recompile. The zip on the AMGC2 homepage has a windows exe that is already compiled with the latest specification.

Yeah, you're right. I'll make it so in the next revision while trying to keep backwards compatibility.

They're not crashes, the plugins simply fail to load. I took a look at your code and it doesn't seem like you're doing anything any different than me. I really have no idea why simply loading a .so wouldn't work in your program when almost identical code works just fine for me.

There is dlerror?

I grepped through juvi's code, and didn't find one, so I had to ask.

Attached is the fixed version of Blockman, runs fine with AMGC2 Loader (tried MingW), except... the loader seems to reset and/or ignore the configuration ?
Blockman attempts to WRITE in the config file to save the last played level.

push_config_state();
char path[1024];
snprintf(path, sizeof(path), "%s%s.cfg", game_path, GetName());
set_config_file(path);
set_config_int("settings", blocks_settings[1].name, blocks_settings[1].value);
pop_config_state();

Works fine, and is generic enough to suit any installation (game_path and GetName())

Ok I've updated it once again. Fixed tons of stuff and cleaned up the code. It's at version 1.8.

Audric: Blocks works great and the configurations save correctly now with the latest changes.

miran: I'm developing this in linux, I don't know what could be wrong. It re-uses your amgc2 code to properly handle the plugins. Could you try the latest version and see if it fixes any issues? Could be that the plugins need to be recompiled?

Thanks all.

That is very strange it shouldn't have a problem, especially if the plugins are being built against the same source.
Well hopefully the latest one works for you, if not I'm at a loss and I can only guess the best thing to do is to put in some more error checking for the .so loading routine. Also evaluating where specifically it's crashing might help too.

[edit]
Hmm I just posted and it seems you did too.

template.so?
template.so isn't loading then.
Hmm could be a problem with cwd and paths, I had issues with that before I thought I fixed it.
Try passing 'amgc2load ./template.so'
Because if the plugin loaded fine it would have given you another error msg.