For the first time I heard of Vegan on a Desert Island I assumed it was some kind of bad joke, and frankly this impression lasted with me for a while. However, through some amazing persistence and determination from the developers, this upcoming title is slowly capturing the hearts of the libre development community through sheer charm and wits.
Determination might really be the key word here; lead developer Alex Gleason claims he's set out to answer one of humanity's most sought after existential questions: "What would a vegan do if stranded on a desert island?"
Taking it from there, the game promises action, puzzle solving, and more drama and plot twists you can (literally) shake a stick at, because everyone knows that the best way of getting answers for some real world problems is through the semblance of a Zelda-like RPG.
Yes, you read it right, this game will be an action RPG at its core, and this should come at no surprise; after all, Vegan on a Desert Island is being developed with the Solarus engine under its hood, meaning we can expect some solid Zelda-like mechanics to go along with the formula.
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| We have all been there. |
The game is also notorious for using a considerable amount of recycled Creative Commons artwork sourced from Open Game Art. Notably its level assets are almost entirely consisting of the Zoria Tileset, which has been ported to Solarus since the last major release. All unique art crafted exclusively for the game will also be licensed under Creative Commons.
While the game hasn't yet seen an initial demo build, it attracted considerable attention (and laughs) after a short presentation by Gleason himself on Libre Planet, last March. The effort and dedication being put forward to sell a seemingly absurd concept have it stand out of the crowd, and for that, it deserves much needed credit. As for the rest of the game, it will remain a mystery for the time being, unless, of course, you wish to go ahead and compile one of their source packages.
A release is estimated for later this year, although no fixed dates have been presented yet. So let's hope this one turns out to be worth the wait, unlike most vegan food.
Code license: GPLv3
Assets license: CC-BY-SA 4.0