GSoC 2014 mentoring organisations announced, review and apply!

After sorting through almost 400 applications of mentoring projects, Google has announced this year's list of projects students can contribute to.

There aren't too many FOSS gaming related projects this time though.
These are the relevant ones:

• Blender Foundation (task ideas) Ok, not really a game
• CodeCombat (task ideas) We covered it a while ago
• Copyleftgames.org (task ideas) Anyone got details on this one?
• Crystal Space Engine (task ideas) same as every year...
• Inkscape (task ideas) Ok I am stretchning it a bit here
• jMonkeyEngine (task ideas) great java game SDK
• ScummVM (task ideas) Point&click adventure game engine
• SuperTuxKart (task ideas) Yeah!
• Battle for Wesnoth (task ideas) No need to explain ;)
• Worldforge (task ideas) Also hosting: RyzomCore, CEGUI

If you are not into game developer but would still like to contribute your programming skills I recommend you to have a look at these other selected projects (totally subjective and unsorted list):  Non-profit accounting, Mifos, Mixxx, Freifunk, OSGeo, Sahana & ProjectTox.

FlightGear 3.0 and Bombable add-on

This week saw finally saw the official release of version 3.0 of FlightGear.

Notable changes:

Highlights in this release include integration of the FGCom voice communications client within the simulator, improved terrain rendering, faster scenery loading, and improved usability. This release also coincides with the release of FlightGear World Scenery 2.0 – massively improved scenery data covering the entirety of the planet and incorporating OpenStreetMap roads and detailed terrain information from a variety of sources.

Also interesting is the "Bombable" add-on, which adds combat mechanics:

KeeperRL and OpenIG

Two interesting projects I recently came across:

1. KeeperRL:

Description from the author:

KeeperRL is a Dungeon Keeper and Dwarf Fortress inspired dungeon simulator built on top of roguelike mechanics. My vision is that you are a Sauron-like character, searching for ultimate knowledge of destruction. What makes the game different from other RTS is that you can, and are encouraged to, control your main character and lead your minions to an open war. The characters use equipment, scrolls, potions, spells, and other things you would expect in a roguelike. Combat is turn-based and very tactical. The whole world is procedurally generated, and there is adventure mode too.

See a video of the (still in ASCII graphics) action here and the GPL licensed code here. Latest development release can be downloaded here (Win&Linux).

2. OpenIG:



A real classic is being reimplemented as OpenIG (follow the development blog here). Interestingly the original developers have granted the rights to all the game's data to be freely (as in beer I assume) distributed with the new Java based engine.
Time to jump into the 4X games again ;)

DevCorner: Multiple new platforms for Torque2D MIT

I tend to focus a bit on the 3D side of things, but the recently open-sourced Torque2D (note the "2") engine is pretty cool too:



And in fact it got a whole lot better in the last couple of weeks with it being ported to Linux, Android and your browser (through Mozilla's emscripten).

So if you are thinking about developing an open-source 2D game targeting multiple platforms, Torque2D has just became a serious contender.