May the source be with you

I'm a big advocate of the phrase, "Release Early, Release Often." I think it is by far the best way to keep or gain community interest in a project.

Of course, that simple phrase doesn't quite sum up what you actually must do - simply uploading a release and announcing it on your mailing list is unlikely to attract interest. For example, who knew about Lincity-NG 2.9beta in lieu of the intended Lincity-NG 3.0?

Lincity-NG is in a bit of a mini-crisis. A victim of the shutdown of the Berlios developer services, all the web material is in a bit of a mess. Its home page is now on fedorahosted.org but still links back to the defunct Berlios page. There are entries on Google Code and Github that are up to date with the source, as well as an imported Sourceforge project* which is the only place you can currently find the beta, however all are unofficial / back up for now.

(* Not to be confused with this redundant redundant project)

Another game project which suffered was Battles of Antargis. It has re-emerged on Github and development seems to have resumed with C++ replacing the Ruby bits which previously encumbered the game. For a web presence, you have to use the Internet archive for its old Berlios page or external sites e.g. the LGBD entry or on Libregamewiki.

Battles of Antargis

It's not just Berlios that throws a spanner in people's works. Sourceforge has setback the oft-setback Extreme Tux Racer by closing down their hosted apps. The main communication medium was phpBB but now it is completely gone. They did manage to get an updated 0.6.0 release online before this, at least.

Since there doesn't appear to be any project communication channel for ETR, I have contacted them suggesting a FreeGameDev forum.

Speaking of FGD forums, there's plenty of activity amongst the projects there. Stunt Rally continues to gain more strings to its bow. Sci-fi hovercrafts! That ought to be interesting. Despite being one of the prettiest open source games and incredibly put together almost by one person, CryHam - well, not quite; it took VDrift's physics and Ogre3D's jazz - the project doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves.

Sci-fi overcrafts now in Stunty Rally

You can browse the tracks online. Check out this fun looking track with pyramids and chasms galore.

Another project gaining momentum is OpenDungeons. It's had its ups and downs, but seems to have gotten its footing now with regular test releases and several active contributors. The new website is coming along, but more importantly so is the game as especially Yohann Ferreira aka Bertram (of Valyria Tear fame) has come in and steadied the ship. I look forward to seeing creatures like this golem trudging dark, damp and dangerous dungeon corridors.

Of course the reality of open source game development is that it is not an overnight job. It takes years of perseverance to realise the goals of many projects. Over the course of that time, occasionally the rug may get pulled from under you. You just have to be prepared to dust yourself off, get up, and keep going.

Or you could just call it quits.

Top 10 Projects To Revive

The great thing about open source is a project can never become extinct - there is always a chance of it being brought back to life either by the original authors who re-find their motivation, by new contributors who see the potential, or a mixture of both.

Here are the top 10 games, complete with cliches, I'd like to see return to the development scene and back on the road to completion.

1. Bloodmasters

home • project

This gorgeous 3D top-down action game was released as open source last year after indie developer Pascal "CodeImp" vd Heiden found he'd lost motivation to continue with the project. It's a complete game with great graphics and needs a good C# developer to pick it up, port it to Mono, and help restore the community.

2. Project Citadel

home • project

A very nice looking turn based strategy game set in World War II.

The game reached a playable state before it's development team ByteWare stopped playing the development game.

3. Windstille

home • project

This project isn't technically dead - lead developer Grumbel occasionally bumps it with more concept work - but it's definitely in hibernation and progress is frustratingly slow.

Grumbel is actively seeking writers and developers so the prospects of reviving the project are quite good - no organizational work required.

4. Emilia Pinball

home • project

Come on, who wouldn't love a great Free pinball game? Emilia Pinball is a fairly solid 3D pinball game that is playable, if a little "bare bones" in it's current form. A better table editor, some more tables, and a bit of love to the user interface and ball physics and this game would be a corker.

Hopefully one day a pinball wizard will resume improving this game and add another table or two as well as a few more features.

5. Labyrinth of Worlds

home • project

Ultimate Underworld is my favourite ever game, and this is a project to create a new game based on it the 2nd instalment of the popular series. Since these days the world of Ultima is somewhat abandoned by it's foster parent company EA, I hoped projects like this and Underworld Adventures would have gained more support.

6. Boson

home • project

The promising 3D RTS came a long way but never quite snowballed despite having nice graphics, original gameplay, and most of the hard work already done. I think the dependency on KDE libs was hurtful to attracting contributors.

It is original, playable, has a full set of units for two sides, nice graphics. It has everything going for it except momentum. Oh but to borrow a bit of enthusiasm from the Spring project, and Boson could spring back into life.

7. MyLink / MyNet

home • source

MyLink is inspired by the rather cool game UpLink. After encountering difficulties the author started from scratch with the name MyNet, but after hitting difficulties again (with motivation this time) the project got abandoned. The author is waiting for a new maintainer to step up to the plate. Until that happens, consider this project disconnected.

8. Civil

home • project

Civil is a cross-platform, turn-based, networked strategy game, which allows players to take part in scenarios set in historical battle theatres. The U.S. Civil war was the primary focus before they started losing the battle and development stopped in 2005. Written purely in Python/Pygame, there should be plenty of people able to help out.

Battle simulations, how could that fail to be fun? When development dies, that's how!

9. Slickworm

home • project

An innovative FPS where the terrain was deformable. It went through a few rewrites before the lead developer went silent. He was obviously talented and probably snapped up by a commercial company - a shame for the open source game community as it blows a big hole in the future for Slickworm; this potentially brilliant game looks like it'll never be more than a tech demo.

10. Battle for Antargis

home • project

An original game that mixes elements of strategy and role play, this project enjoyed sustained development for several years and looked very promising before development tailed off as 2008 began. Hopefully somebody will pick things up again as this is one of those projects that counters the 'open source can only copy' popular criticism.

It had another original edge to it, it was probably the first significant Ruby game project, which probably doesn't help when it comes to attracting developers.

Honorable Mentions

Here's a few that I thought also had potential:

• SilverTree RPG
  
  The lead developer of Battle for Wesnoth started to make an RPG! There was joyous celebrations and wide eyed expectation as SilverTree was unleashed on the public. Then he moved on to another project and the with it so went the development activity of the RPG.


• Mars: Land of No Mercy
  
  A 2D mech strategy game that could be nice if development had no slowed to a near stand still. Every now and again something seems to happen that nearly equates to activity, so it didn't quite make the list.


• GalaxyMage
  
  It once looked like a great new strategy game but the developers and the website went AWOL. Enthusiasts resumed development under the moniker Galaxy Mage Redux but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere other than the archives.


• 
  FreePop
  
  This was an attempt to recreate and improve upon the iconic Populous games of the early nineties. It never quite got to a playable state before the developer declared the project dead and moved on.


• Legacy of Magic
  
  Another very promising war strategy game with very nice 3D graphics that never managed to emerge from abyss of alpha releases.


• Fuzzy Adventure
  
  It came about at a time when the only platform games on Linux were SuperTux and XEvil. A quick burst of activity was never turned into long term development. I suspect that Fuzzy Adventure was just SuperTux with different graphics (gameplay was nearly identical) but that's never been confirmed.


• Reaper3D
  
  A space shoot-em-up, this game was neary completed before it stalled.


• OpenParsec
  
  This 3D space combat game was the darling of its time but very dated now. The developers declined to open source it for several years, and by the time they did the times, and with it the community, had long since moved on.

Another games you wished were still going?

Update: some more games that would be cool to revive:

• Dark Oberon is an original 2D isometric RTS whose graphics are created by taking images of melded plasticine models.


• Cspop, a Crystal Space populus-inspired game (svn, no homepage) previously mentioned (twice) on Free Gamer and announced on the happypenguin forums.


• Zugspiel, a 3D train tycoon game (forum) which never quite made it after the author became inactive.


• FreeTrain, a 2D isometric city & rail network building game. It needs an enthusiastic C# developer (contact me directly or post in the FreeGameDev Help Offered forum if you are interested).

The early bird

The early bird has to wait for the worm. And when he wanders off a bit bored, he gets back to find some other bird has poached the worm and his morning was fruitless. So, there you have it, you may as well lie in.

There's an update to Battle for Antargis, version 0.2.1.5 which is labelled a "developer release". The build system has been overhauled so the game should be easier to build. There have been improvements to the game too and the next version should be the first Antargis release to feature a storyline. I really like this project, Godrin is creating an entirely original game that doesn't conform to any particular standard mold.

Bos Wars pre2.5 is available for download. Improved graphics with beautiful particle explosions, new maps, and bug fixes. Sounds like this project is galvanising now that the developers don't have to focus on separate Stratagus releases.

Nimuh 1.0, "searching for the andalusian treasure". Interesting looking isometric puzzle game. I don't think the game data is open source but it looks like the engine is and the game is still free to download as a whole so, well, it depends on how ideological you are.

I came across an interesting site that seems to be collecting [links to] downloads for open source Linux games. It seems to be mostly Suse entries, probably saying more about the people responsible for the site than the fact that Suse is the most popular distro. Ubuntuers can always go to GetDeb for a few game options.

Want awesome 3D effects? FXExpression is an LGPL library for Ogre3D. Maybe you don't use Ogre3D but it's LGPL so surely some of it can be ported. Got some cool looking effects there.

Release Early, Release Often

Wormux<

I had a go at Wormux last night. It's a Worms clone, closest to Worms II. I'm impressed, this is a well done game although it lacks is AI. Once it has AI, it will be one of those awesome games that everybody should have (like Frozen Bubble).

There was a game looking for testers... I forgot what it was though. :-(

Another game that needs a bit of help testing new developments is Battle for Antargis. Development seemed to have stopped earlier in the year but fortunately it has restarted. A bit of testing and ironing out of any major issues and they'll make another release, so go help out if you have time.

Battle for Antargis

Battle for Antargis is one of the more original FLOSS games (inspired by Powermonger which older readers might remember), so it would be nice to see it progress further.

Now that FreeTrain in English development has begun, I might make another project to resurrect another FLOSS game. At the moment I'm thinking either Emilia Pinball or Eat the Whistle. Both are playable games, the former lacks good pinball tables and the latter needs a bit of debugging to run more reliably plus it's graphics are a little too retro. Any preferences? Please comment - feel free to suggest other games that you think need attention too.

I think I finally talked the Vega Strike people into making another release after years without an update. The development has always been active but just lacks focus. The new release should be an awesome game although may be a little rough around the edges (read: have a few bugs). In the mean time, people continue to produce jaw-dropping media for the game.

Not quite FLOSS, but the rather cool freeware transport sim Simutrans is close to another stable release. It's development has been impressively steady and the latest version is much improved over the current stable version.

In more personal news, I started hacking together a Football Management game, entitled Soccer Boss (in homage to the ancient Spectrum game Soccer Boss). At the moment it's just a UI sandbox. When it's useful, I'll comment some more.

Music tip:

68 Beats - Replay The Night (John Dalhback mix)

New Mistlands Download

What is Mistlands? It's a graphically impressive 3d open source rpg! At the end of July they released Milestone 5, just over a year since their last release. It's online-only, I think, which is a shame. Single player games just aren't the flavour these days.

I feel obliged to mention Gusanos. Thanks to Amos ML for the link and apologies for taking more than a month to post it. Gusanos is a Liero clone for modern operating systems. (Liero requires DOS or DOS emulation.) Whilst the Windows download was easy to get to, I couldn't see an obvious download for non-Windows platforms despite the homepage promise of portability. For those not familiar with the classic Liero, here's some gameplay videos of Gusanos. Think Worms vs Quake.

There was an update to Trackballs, making it more fun for younger kids which is good news for me and my 6 year old.

For the adventurous, there's a 0.2 pre-release of Battles of Antargis which is coming along nicely.

There's two new interesting 2d platformers, both of which are at a very alpha stage of development so don't expect too much: Zelda2D (er, Zelda in 2D), Wasteland (kinda Jazz Jack Rabbit crossed with Mario)

In my enforced abscense there's been a number of updates to a lot of good open source games. Here's a few notable ones: Globulation (notably new AI!), Blob and Conquer (lots of new levels), Sturmbahnfahrer