Everything is so cheap after Christmas. I mean, look what you can get for FREE! :-)
The FreeOrion project just released version 0.3.11, which comes with some polish of existing features and a few small new ones. Here's the announcement. Only a Windows binary is up at the moment, bah, source only from SVN. I complained. (I'm good at that.) There are statically compiled SVN binaries for Linux but you have to go digging to find them. Still, when digging you can find treasure, like this ship development thread. Purty!
UPDATE: here's the Linux binaries and here's a quick play guide - which you really do need, there's so many clicky thingamajigs.
Platinum Arts Sandbox, the game design tool based on the Cube 2 engine, saw version 2.3 released a few days ago. From the announcement:
Here are the awesome new features!
* New 3D sidescroller Mario like mode! Also there is a seperate RPG project, check the wiki! [link - note it is aimed at kids and in concept stage]
* Hotkeys that make it easier to save games, add materials, and lots more!
* New in game help section that displays all of the binds/key commands!
* Snow has been tweaked and updated :) Be sure to check out the new version of house :D
* Maps now generate cfgs on save! Also many various map tweaks.
* New main menu theme! To try other themes check out the options menu.
* Loads of new textures and new player skins.
* Tons of under the hood bug fixes and features.
* Thanks to ZKAT of virtualdarkarts.net there is a brand new great looking launcher!
Here's one of the developers, Mike, talking about different aspects of developing Sandbox, along with gameplay clips. Quite interesting.
The DungeonHack team has been active lately and it is finally starting to pay dividends with a reorganized and improved codebase now coming back to life. Early days, still, so I'll leave it at that.
Vikings is an open-source RPG, presumably based on Vikings. This model of theirs is mighty nice!
Pyweek. It's one of those contradictory things in life. Some nearly-cool games get done in a short space of time, but then when those efforts can't be put into bigger and fuller versions of the concepts you see in Pygame is somewhat frustrating. Still, some nuggets in there like AFF:City, a city building game based on the Angels Fall First universe. If they can get that much done in a week, why not spend a few months on the game and it'll be awesome, surely?
A less serious but more mind-bending game is the imaginately titled 4D Maze Game. Play it online in an applet or browse the source. I didn't really conceptually understand how the maze works, thus I failed to escape after going in random directions in 4 dimensions for a few minutes. I hope I never get stuck in a real 4D maze, I'll be in real trouble!
Good thing you complained to the FreeOrion team, I've wanted to try it but linux users are kinda forgotten / excluded.
ReplyDeleteYou should try to understand the 4D maze - after having read some of the notes on the website and using it for a while, I feel like I understand 4D space in general a little better.
ReplyDeleteyou already are in a 4d maze - it's called life
ReplyDeleteWow, this vikings looks nice! The screens remind me of rendered images from inside settlers2 loading screens...
ReplyDeleteLong live linux
ReplyDeleteAs a two time PyWeek participant, I think there are couple of issues holding up continued PyWeek development. Given that you only have a week to develop, normal requirements and design procedures are thrown to the wind. Early on you try to keep things organized, but by the end of the week the code is generally a complete mess. You just don't care because you need to get it done and working. Documentation is generally 0, cut features are left dangling in limbo and just creating an even more confusing mess. Many developers by the end just don't want to see their game ever again because you get burned out over that week.. Others (like what has always happened with my team) swear to return to the project, but simply return to the F/OSS projects that they were working on before the competition.
ReplyDeleteOur last entry specifically showed a lot of promise. It had fallen so short of being a complete and fun game, we really did intend to continue with it. Problem is once you start looking at the reality, you realize that you really need to start basically from scratch. Graphics code is mixed with logic, an aborted networking attempt is still lying around, all graphics and GUI are hardcoded to a single resolution and would probably need to be redrawn.. It is sitting on Google Code though if anyone wants to adopt a PyWeek project. ;)
In the end, most people don't want to bother with these thrown together games. ;)