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Lugaid has Stand Alone in the FG forums. An RTS game for Windows, although I'm not sure if it is open source and able to download and play it yet. He says:

RTS game inspired by defence games. Project is almost finished, it needs more maps and graphic sets, maybe some more units. At first Interface is quite cumbersome, but not after you get used to it.

Fortress Logo

I will also note that we have started making progress with Fortress, inspired by the classic DOS game Castles. We have a logo, a very early prototype, and a wiki. Yesterday I compiled this list of gameplay elements that basically describe the key concepts of the game. Somebody has started working on models for the game too.

If you are interested, check out what we are doing and throw in your own thoughts in the Fortress forum. It will be an entirely open source project. A skilled artist or two would be really helpful. :-)

Despite my involvement (at the moment it looks like I'll be the main programmer) I have resisted bringing it up here since I don't want to abuse FG as a platform for pimping my own projects. However we have reached a point where there's a bit of momentum and it would be a good opportunity for people to provide some input before project direction becomes harder to influence.

Anyway, I'm actually away right now (back Sunday) so it's a short one today... *vanishes*

Gate 88 to become open source?

Before I start, a quick note of two changes made here. Firstly the main articles are linked on the front page now - they were getting buried too quickly. Secondly I reorganised FG forums to condense them a little - there were too many subforums. Also FreeForums seems to be a bit more stable now so There are handy links on the right of FG for the latest forum entries and help wanted sections. I encourage you to join in the open source game chat. :-D

I'm going to open with a Web 2.0 gripe. If you don't like gripes, skip the next paragraph.

The Ubuntu forums recently "upgraded" with a "Web 2.0" feature to display the thread tree. It's a feature of little or no use in a forum where people just want to read page by page. I have a P3 1000 laptop with 512 megs of ram. My iGoogle homepage does not seem to help matters either. Firefox becomes sluggish, sometimes hangs for 5-10s, with this new feature. Is this what Web 2.0 is? Bloat? Crapware in web pages? I remember playing Wing Commander II on a 286 10mhz. Admittedly it was slow, but it was a graphical 3D space game that came on a few floppies. As I write this, firefox grinds to a halt, consuming just short of 200megs. This is ludicrous. All to display some glorified text. Welcome to Web 2.0.

Sigh... ok, zen, be positive, karma, appreciate the better things in life...

The i-team project gets a new forum, meaning I have one less reason to browse Ubuntu's! Yay! It also got a wiki. By all accounts there has been quite a lot of coding going on by the i-team guys so I'm hopeful we'll see something fairly soon.

The rather more mature Atomic Tanks project, another game similar to Scorched Earth / Worms, just released version 2.4 of their game. The game is portable to Windows and Mac OS X although there only seems to be a Linux binary (rpm) for the latest version. According to the release announcement it also runs on DOS, which is quite interesting. Do I sense a DOS revival, FreeDOS stealing in on the alternative OS market to consign Linux to an early Internet grave? DOS was the most fun I ever had with an OS, but then again I was young and hence not very cynical. With age comes experience, with experience, cynicism. ;-)

It seems that the rather cool freeware abstract RTS game Gate88 has an open source future. I encourage people to lobby the author in a friendly manner to speed up the process. I got in touch yesterday although he has yet to reply.

Sauerbraten, Vega Strike, Project Kilo

Did I not mention this Sauerbraten update? I don't recall doing so, and I swear it was not a thread in their forum at the weekend despite being listed as posted on the 12th June. Anyway... it fixes a whole lot of bugs, adds graphical enhancements, and cleans up scripting support a little. Probably more of an update for people making mods/games with Sauer than players but, shucks, I love this project. Embarrassingly this was a 2006 release... *oops*

There's the possibility of a StarShip Troopers: Last Defense, the Glest mod, becoming available for FreeBSD.

The Java Classic RPG project has posted a snapshot for anybody who wants to play with it in it's very early stages of development. Work continues at an impressively frantic pace, soldiering away on features. Hopefully a modeller or two can start contributing to the project to make the artwork updates as impressive as those to the codebase.

I keep pestering the Vega Strike team to make a new release. I, and others, frequently get pointed to the SVN version. However it turns out that there is a Windows build of the executable made every few weeks, although you will still need a subversion client to get the latest version of the game data.

Talking of pestering projects, I'm trying to convince the Project Kilo guys to use Sauerbraten as their game engine. Project Kilo is an effort (well, currenlty mostly an idea) to create an immersive single player 3D RPG game. Sauer is the engine also behind the Eisenstern project, another 3D single player RPG effort with slightly less lofty (but still impressive) goals than Kilo.

Eisenstern

The main feature of Sauer is in-game multiplayer map editing where all map elements are defined as cubes or combinations of cubes, it makes a lot of sense to map modellers. I think the combined nature of Sauer's very easy map creation and it's development supporting Eisenstern makes it really suitable for, at the very least, prototyping a concept like Project Kilo. With little or no code the Kilo team can be up and running in no-time, and (being open source) they can build additional features into Sauer as they require them and possibly even feed back upstream. I think it's a far more pragmatic route than taking an engine like Crystal Space or OGRE3D and creating the game logic from scratch. Map modelling itself will become far more of a burden using this approach, let alone the extra effort to make a playable scenario.

I'm not saying that Crystal Space and OGRE3D don't have their place in development - they are important game creation tools - but if somebody has done 95% of the work for you like the Sauer team has, by implementing a game [engine] that not only makes map modelling easy but lets you roam around massive maps with fancy effects and is easy to customize, then surely it makes sense to start there instead of starting far behind them.

People should do as I command suggest because I am always usually right. ;-)

Debunking reasons not to open source indie freeware games

There are many significant indie game projects that are committed to creating a quality free game where the developers are afraid of the consequences of making the development public by publishing the project under an open source license.

Now I'm not saying that open source is the only way people should choose to release their indie games - different situations do need to be evaluated on the merit of the benefits brought by being open source - but frequently, when asked, the reasons for declining to open source a project are usually bogus.

One of the problems is that the topic of open source is a polarized subject - people are either strongly against it or strongly for it. Those falling into the latter category are almost always experienced with using and/or developing open source software, and in my experience those against open sourcing of their projects often do not fully understand the concept, do not appreciate the benefits it brings, and suffer irrational fears of what might befall their project should they license it as Free Software.

Over the years I've tried to change the minds of several game project developers, usually met with stubborn resistance. Hopefully this article can help projects earlier on in their development cycle before people have committed themselves to keeping their free game project as a closed source one.

Frequently cited reasons for keeping a game project closed source:

• People will cheat
• The code is a mess
• Control of the project will be lost
• Somebody will steal my/our game
• The game will be spoilt (i.e. we don't want to reveal the story)

People will cheat

True, there will always be those who try to cheat at any popular game. However do you think security through obscurity will prevent this? If anything, it is worse; the project may be less secure because the design and implementation are not under scrutiny. You are better to open it up early so people can point out the flaws and they can be addressed early - to change a design or implementation in a mature project is far more difficult and the subsequent upheaval will upset many players.

The code is a mess

I've seen this one countless times: "I want to open source my project but the code is a mess, so I'll wait until I clean up the code."

I've also seen this one many times: "My [piece of hardware] died and I lost everything :'(."

And this one:

That last one was silence. People often get distracted by real life and disappear. An exciting looking set of screenshots become vapourware and onlookers get frustrated.

Nobody writes perfect code or the perfect design the first time, even seasoned pros. Nobody cares if you have hacks or the code is a mess. They do care if you release a fun game. Guess what, if your project is open source and attracting interest, somebody may even rewrite parts of it for you. If you suffer a hardware failure or find something else that takes you away from your project or the Internet, or you even die (it happens!) then you have left a legacy that others may continue.

Control of the project will be lost

Ok, if you are an asshole this is probably a valid point. Abrasive people will upset others, beyond the point of redemption. So all you obnoxious and inconsiderate baffoons have me here, I can't debunk this for you. In which case loss of control of a project may be an indication that you should correct your ways? A blessing in disguise! However, for decent people ;-) it is a myth...

Control of the project remains in the hands of the contributors. Sure, if you stop and people continue your work you may lose control but then you are no longer working on it? If you get re-involved in the project you will find developers receptive. Otherwise you keep as much control over your game as you allow others to have (you don't have to let everybody have commit access or admin rights) and almost always contributors are very, very respectful of the original author.

As long as you work on your project, you will have significant influence. Exchanging direct control for influence is almost always going to be a healthy trade off. You will find more developers means better design decisions, better implementations. Although implicitly you lose complete control, you will still be directing the efforts of others. After all, the original game was your vision so people will listen by virtue of that alone.

If there is a rift so deep between contributors that a fork is created, the fork will be a different game, and you will be remembered for giving birth to the concept of this different game should your own project subsequently stagnate. In reality there are few forks, especially of open source games. Other than situations where development of the original game has all but completely stopped before the fork, or the fork has the blessing of the original author, I can't think of any bitter forks off the top of my head. TuxKart and SuperTuxKart maybe? When was the last TuxKart release? Are the games as similar as the names? :-)

Somebody will steal my/our game

People can't get away with stealing a project. I've seen a few cases with applications and usually the community backlash and lobbying shuts down the violators. I just can't see a commercial game company getting away with ripping an open source game. Not only will it be an open-shut legal case should it go that far, you'll have a large pool of support from a vast community of open source advocates. To be honest, I bet there'd be lawyers who'd even take on the case pro bono for you.

If it's not a commercial violation, then it'll be a fork of the game. Developing an open source game is not easy. It's a long hard slug. Forks only occur in extreme circumstances:

1. There is an impasse between key contributors in desires for project direction. The games will be different. You still were the original author(s) and still will be credited for your work as long as you were not a total asshole.
2. Your project stagnated. Isn't a fork and continuation of your work better than it bitrotting and decaying into a part of Internet history?

Ok, some of your artwork and media may make it into other open source games, but isn't that a compliment? Are you not pleased that your efforts have made the world a more fun place by contributing to another game? Hell, you can put it on your CV, that your work is in projects X and Y because it is that good.

The game will be spoilt (i.e. we don't want to reveal the story)

For a complete game, the majority of players will not go to the kind of lengths necessary to have the game spoilt for them (i.e. look at the code or research the story).

Some people will play the game early in development but they form the community that tests and contributes to the game. Somebody has to know things early, and the fewer that do, the fewer can make the project happen. The more people contribute to your game, the better it will be. Sure, a few people will not get the opportunity to enjoy a fresh experience with the final game, but they got to experience it develop, which is a different kind of enjoyment. And the rest of the world will get a better game because of the extra input.

Also people do not have immutable memory. If I play a game again after years of not playing it, I do not remember everything. It is ridiculous to be worried that people who try the game in it's early stages will have their experience ruined should they return later once the game is ready.

Afterword

There are freeware game projects where there is significant momentum and organization behind them. The benefits of making such projects open source are often not immediately that significant. However frequently these projects lose that momentum, a community that has existed on propaganda and screenshots gets frustrated and in the end the project actually upsets more people than it brings enjoyment to - you had the opposite effect! Games are supposed to please people!

If the project is open, the community can rally should problems be encountered, and the chances of your game making it become far higher than if nobody has access to your work.

If momentum is never lost, the extra contributions, the extra eyes and testing to remove bugs, the extra demand for porting to other operating systems will all benefit your project. There may be administrative hassle (forums etc) but almost always for decent projects volunteers will take that on for you. The community is a resource and open source projects can and should use their communities. Freeware titles just can not do that.

Make the smart decision, open source your freeware game. There is a good reason that those experienced with open source strongly advocate it's application. It works. It's not a miracle cure for a dying project though, so don't wait until you have already lost your way, strike whilst the iron is hot. It is never too early to open source your freeware game project!

King's Quest

I'm not a big fan of just repeating what I see on the Linux Game Tome so I'll be brief about these two: Warzone 2100 version 2.0.7 and X-Moto 0.3.0 got released. The former is a bugfix release (which was sorely needed) and the latter quite a lot of new features (notably hotseat multiplayer) and a new maintainer.

A few days ago I lamented about Adventure Game Studio not being available for Linux. I really should do my research before making such assertions... it is. Not only that, there's this groovy project to take all the hassle out of finding and installing AGS games - the Adventure Game Goddess.

Forget about boring hand tasks and enjoy the games ... One click: the game is downloaded, installed and set up. One click: you are playing

How cool is that? You can even run Kings Quest VGA I using the AGS Linux version, with a few tricks. How cool is that as well? I wonder if the same process works with KQ VGA II? So many questions...

For those unfamiliar with the King's Quest series of games, it is probably the most promininent series of the genre. There's a lot of history and a lot of hardcore fans, many of whom were disappointed when Sierra was consumed by Vivendi Universal which eventually caused a rift with the lead author and the demise of the series after 8 games.

The Silver Lining

Some fans felt so strongly that they went on to create the The Silver Lining, a spectacular looking fan-made project to create a 3-game (or 3-chapter) continuation of the series. It was formerly entitled King's Quest IX before Vivendi Universal made them ditch the official affiliation. Sadly, The Silver Lining is closed source (but freeware) and Windows-only. I did lobby a while back to make them open source it and use OpenGL instead of DirectX but it fell on deaf ears. I must say, I was not enamoured by The Silver Lining tech demo either, whilst the stills look great the animation and scene transition was shakey at best, and there was a lot of aimless wandering around with very little to interact with. Still, it's just a tech demo, so I shouldn't be too harsh.

There's even a remake of KQ III (complete but Windows only and freeware) and KQ IV (in progress - although I'm not in the mood to read up on it but I bet Windows only and freeware). Project X looks interesting - produced by the same people behind the KQ III remake, Infamous Adventures.

I would do a KQ article with more information on and screenshots of each game, but it's too much freeware and not enough open source for my liking, so this little ramble will suffice and you'll just have to take my word for it that everything I mentioned looks at least ok or possibly even rather lovely. I reckon there are enough links to keep keen adventure gamers happy. ;-)

Medieval / fantasy models required

There's a couple of newish irrlamb gameplay videos. Worth watching if you want to see what the game is like and how devious some of the gameplay can be. For me, irrlamb is definitely one of the most exciting open source game projects around at the moment, being both innovative and challenging in it's gameplay.

Expect some really nice graphics in the next UFO:AI release. A few modelling maniacs seem to have gotten very interested in contributing, which is always good for an open source game project.

OpenTTD Hi-res

As of some time last week, an interesting major change landed in the OpenTTD development trunk - loading of 32bpp graphics and levels of zoom. It's one of the big steps along the road to getting high resolution graphics into OpenTTD. Also it provides a platform for the artwork contributors to see their art in game rather than have to paste it together to showcase it. A completely Free (no TTD required) and beautiful OpenTTD just got one step closer to reality. I'm hopeful that maybe a beta of this work might appear before the end of the year. The image to the right is an actual in-game shot! :-)

Java Classic RPG, the Eye of the Beholder & Dungeon Master inspired project, gained climates this week. If only the quality of the artwork matched the quality of the code developments! I was thinking about this, along with working a bit more on Fortress, and observing Scourge developments, and realising there are very few open source / free medieval and fantasy model resources going. Most projects with good artwork in this genre are either pixel art (like Wesnoth and Daimonin) or restricted (like Planeshift and Eternal Lands).

So, yeah, I think the scene needs a bit of dedicated medieval and fantasy modelling to happen so that all the exciting medieval and fantasy projects can pull quality artwork from a common base. Maybe there already is this kind of stuff available, do you know where? Or maybe there are people out there interested in modelling this kind of stuff. Do you know any? Spread the word!

I'll end today on a coding note. I was working on a layout engine (as part of Vexi, an open source project I lead) and came up against a problem where conversion between ints and floats and back (Java) was causing the assigned space between child boxes to be less than the parent box (box being a layout construct - don't worry about it). The solution was a bit of casting voodoo. I love it. :-)

// casting voodoo to make sure we don't have leftover pixels
diff = child.contentheight + (int)(slack+total) - (int)total;

My attempts to explain that to my girlfriend were a spectacular failure! :-D

New or shiney

The FG forums seem to be experiencing more downtime, which sucks a little. Oh well, such is the risk ya take when using a free service.

There's an interesting article on the state of Linux gaming (parts 1, 2, 3 online with more to come) and, although it covers both commerical and open source games, since the majority of good games on Linux are open source games (ok, that's flamebait, but still...) most of the games in the article are open source. ;-)

Apparently Ubuntu is brilliant for gaming. Good to see people impressed by Free Software, even it's it is running proprietry stuff.

Ok, back to Free game matters, and a 3rd release of irrlamb is out. It's cool to see regular updates to this new and innovative 3D game where you control a sphere and use physics to overcome obstacles and puzzles. I tried it out on my Linux laptop and it both ran well and was fun to play. The graphics are never going to be earth shatteringly great but they don't need to be - the game is simple and the graphics in general are nice and clear and well suited to the game. There are binaries available to download for Linux and Windows. The development roadmap has a few interesting features plus a focus on making it a "fun game" - high scores, level unlocking, the kind of features that give you impetus to play it more.

After a bit of downtime, the VDrift website is back up. The next release will focus on polish - one very well done car and track with a nicer GUI. I think it is a good move and they should set a high standard for cars and tracks included in the default distribution. It will provide motivation for creating better tracks - if it's too easy to get stuff into a game then often the need is not there to keep working on a model once it has reached the "acceptable" standard. Raise the standard, and contribution standards should theoretically go up. Anyway, more information is available on the release planning page in their wiki.

When developing an open source project, there is always a trade off between developing new features and perfecting what you already have. Personally I think the VDrift guys have chosen the right moment to stop working on features and refine what they have done so far.

Which brings me to the title of this post - new or shiney. I think it's fair to state that code can never be both new and shiney. New code has bugs. Shiney code has been refined over time. New and shiney is not a concept that transfers from the tangible reality of goods to the abstract world of programming. New or shiney, pick one and stick at it. ;-)

ScummVM gains AGI support

There is a new release of ScummVM out. The adventure game engine that brought classic Lucasarts titles to Linux and other modern operating systems, now supports Sierra and other AGI based games through the latest version 0.X.0 (or 0.10.0 in standard numerical format). This brings a plethora of freeware titles, that previously could only be run on Windows or through WINE, to Linux.

There are a lot of AGI fan games out there. A lot. Of course not all are high quality but there are some gems out there. Since the games themselves don't tend to be open source I'm not going to delve too much into it so if you know any cool AGI games please comment and share them.

I was under the false impression that AGD's King's Quest remakes were AGI games, when they are actually AGS games. So you won't be playing those natively on a non-Windows system any time soon. :-(

Too many AG* acronyms... anyway, briefly back to the AGI stuff and