News from 0 A.D.

Well I certainly didn't see this coming, but 0 A.D. has decided to switch their game-play concept and turn the game into a Diablo like hack and slash RPG (while keeping the historical accurateness of course). For the first teaser pic see below:



Ok bad phun, I admit...in reality they decided to turn it into a FPS game, which I really can't understand at all :( I mean, just look at these horrible screen-shots they are putting out as a 'proof of concept':


However, unrelated to these shocking news... check out this boring new alpha 4 RTS release, code named Deadalus. It features a boring new AI, and a bunch of other boring stuff (including boring additional celts stuff)... so don't bother with it until the new and shiny 0 A.D. RPG, errm FPS arrives ;)

RTS: The Romans VS. the Greek (+Chinese)

I take it my comments regarding the Spring RTS engine were not taken so well... so I will present some (in my opinion) much better and less messy to setup RTS games ;)

One, I really like to come back to is Glest! The previously featured version/fork of that game, Megaglest (Edit: Now links to their awesome new webpage, how did I miss this ;) ), just released another version (3.4.0) with quite a lot of new features.

Newest Megaglest gameplay

It now got a new build-in IRC client for multiplayer chatting, can transfer missing files from the server (useful for all those custom maps you can find ;) ), some performance and stability improvements as well as the usual assortment of new maps and map-themes. Ah and to come back to the headline: A new faction, the Romans were added ;)

The Contestant

Of course, adding Romans to the game is poaching in an other's territory... that of the Greeks ;) So lets have a look at the recent developments in 0 A.D.:

New 0 A.D. gameplay

They are progressing quickly, and the game is surprisingly playable already, given it's early beta status. But you can still help them out even if you are not a real artist or a programmer:
Their previously mentioned donation drive is still running, and they are also having some sort of competition for creating a nice video trailer of the game.

The support crew

So who is going to win the battle about the Mediterranean? Well I fear the Greeks just got support by the fleet of the Chinese Emperor:

A mod team going by the name of Scion Development is making great progress in implementing a Chinese faction into 0 A.D.; Check out their development thread here. Oh and no worries, after some initial license confusion, they seem to have decided to go for a fully FOSS compatible media license :) Edit: Well it seems like they are still not quite sure, so I can't guarantee that they will go completely FOSS... lets hope they don't go for one of those atrocious CC-ND/NC licenses.

An early Xmas?

Not very X-mas like at my current place of residence, but there are just so many good things coming to the FreeGamer enthusiast right now! But I am short on time and on a crappy internet connection... so only text for you guys tonight :p

So, as a follow up the the recently mentioned Alpha 0.3 release of 0AD and their donation drive, UbuntuGamer has now published a pretty nice interview with one of the 0AD contributors.

Their donation drive is also still running, so if you have some money to spare, head over here. They are still a long way from the target, so don't be shy :)

ZeroBallistics 2.0

So why is there an early X-mas? Well I just got the hot news that there has been a 2.0 release of the ZeroBallistics FOSS game!!! Definity some nice new features, but have a look at their release announcement yourself here.

War§ow 0.6 and AlienArena2011

Two pretty big releases also, but since I always get snubbed a bit for mentioning these games with non-FOSS media around here I will make it short: War§ow 0.6 (BIG and very nice release) and AlienArena2011 (now with ODE physics for rag-dolls).

Contributing to FPSs, RPGs and other games by sharing thoughts and spreading words

I* joined PARPG to work on game interaction (controls and GUI). This decision was made after taking a look at some projects and talking with their members about what tasks are available. Now I want to tell you about the 'open source jobs' available out there.

Radakan (RPG) is currently a solo project that uses the Python 3D engine Panda3D. Project lead Taldor would like help with the game design, GUI design, Writing (dialog & quests) and content creation (creating and converting models, managing the content pipeline). Warning: Radakan's website is currently down, best way to get in contact is irc.freenode.net#radakan.

CubeCreate (FPS + Editor) will be a Lua-driven Sauerbraten-based engine. It could use some design help for editor accessibility improvements and thoughts on asset management (model/texture import) while the developers port to Lua.

0 AD (RTS) has a a well-compiled list of tasks.

Megaglest (RTS) would like to have somebody find more players for the game. In my humble opinion it could use the help of an audio designer to take a look at some files' volume levels as well. :) A re-work of their homepage is being discussed as well.

Ryzom (MMORPG) still needs to port the world editor but also would be interested in designers to work on a 3D editor.

LinWarrior3D (Mech Action) will soon have a new release. There might be a git repository soon. I got a list of possible tasks:

• Homepage enhancing, either with Drupal or static (portions of the website should have the feeling of you-are-in-the-world rather than you-are-reading-the-website). There needs to be resemblance to the current homepage for keeping identity.
• The HUD-Displays could use an overhaul.
• Concepts for a world setting, places, factions for (GTA-like) emerging gameplay - to enhance and populate the game world.
• Concepting a tutorial at the current state of interaction

Suggestions, problem/bug reports, performance reports and fan-mail are always welcome with LW3D. Contributors should be aware that LW3D is a slow-paced "lifetime" project. :)

*remember, this is a collaborative blog, I'm one of currently 4 posters :)

Atonement (or Goat's Monthly Post)

Julius' endless poking has sent me over the cliff of post-guilt, fortunately, lots of projects have been jumping up and down for attention of late, so I have quite a bit of content to redeem myself with.

RPGs

OSARE

OSARE showing off powers

Pfunked and recently released an update to the promising OSARE This brings "powers" to the game, the classic Hack 'n Slash abilities that encompass magic, melee and ranged special attacks. No skimping on them here either, intricate systems such as block-counter based attacks and time stopping magic spells definitely differentiate OSARE's powers from the more generic "Do x damage" spells more commonly found. The new powers do bring in a bit of a balance issue though, but such is the nature of RPGs

Dawn RPG

Dawn RPG

Dawn-RPG has also been updating steadily throughout the year; I kind of forgot about the project and should be punished appropriately :P Main recent additions are sound an music (from the illustrious OGA, more on that later), and "characteristics" that diversify its abilities system. Dawn is definitely a project to watch, they are a bit more "traditional" than OSARE in a few ways: Larger amounts of inventory slots and more numerous actions and abilities (albeit more generic in the terms I described earlier), along with quests (although that may be added to OSARE in a future release).

Lips Of Suna

Lips Of Suna

Lips Of Suna hit the 0.1.0 milestone as well, recently. 240 days since the last release means that lots has changed. So much, in fact, that nekotaku didn't even have enough time to list it all, so sorry if I cannot give a concise overview (the game doesn't run on my system because of GFX problems :\). From the screenshots though, one can see that the models have been improved significantly, albeit at the expense of a couple m2 of cloth ;) --edit-- Scratch that, after interrogating nekotaku with a comfy pillow in IRC I managed to pry this out of him "I worked a lot on the graphics engine, as can be seen from it not working :-P I also wrote a new AI, worked on combat, implemented a faction system, a quest system, a crafting system, etc.".

RTSes

Warzone2100

Warzone2100 going BOOM

Warzone 2100 released v3.0-beta1. Another release that keeps its changes close to the heart, it seems that v3 mainly consists of graphical and gameplay improvements and fixes rather than slews of new features. Kick the Goat if you find that his journalistic integrity doesn't meet up to the standards of your average blogger though.

0 A.D

0AD's new Celtic Faction

0AD dropped their second Alpha release "Βελλεροφῶν" (or Bellerophon). Their change log is as beautiful as the game itself; and it had better be after having recently acquired a development manager, and they're always looking for more team members so if check their open positions list and join up if you're man enough. A new faction, gameplay improvements such as fog of war and unit formations, performance improvements... Oh, and victory conditions, sothat you can finally beat your opponent!

Racing

SuperTuxKart

According to my googling, it has been over a year since SuperTuxKart has been mentioned on Freegamer! Scandalous! Anyhow, they recently released Alpha 3 of their 0.7 Irrlicht engine revision, lots of new things has been added like ODE physics and a bunch of new tracks and racers. I'd love to post some screenies/videos, but they're all of the old version. You can find a recent video here, on a German fan site :)

Odds and Ends

Wesnoth Tactics

WTactics wiki

Wesnoth Tactics... Now here's an interesting one, a collectable card game based on the Wesnoth art and universe. Loads of cool art originating from there, which is available at OpenGameArt. The game is also playable on PC using a closed source CCG game client, LackeyCCG, but they plan to produce their own cross platform client in the future. This is a very interesting example of the flexibility of open source settings instead of code; Wesnoth has spawned quite a few shared setting (Or "commundo" as a circa '09 #freegamer channel would have said) games, and hopefully the trend continues

OpenGameArt

Finally, OpenGameArt has received quite a few mentions in this post; they are still alive and very much kicking with quite a few large developments done to the site, namely: Flattr integration, sothat users can recieve micro-donations for their art, and the freeing up of quite a bit of funds for commissions due to serving costs being covered by GameBoom

An update out of nowhere!

Quite literally, as I am posting this via a satellite connection from the other side of the world ;) But if those lazy co-authors spend all their time playing games instead of bringing you the latest FreeGaming news, then I have to come to the rescue no matter what!

For those that are disappointed that the blog isn't updated more regularly... well tough luck :p There is our planet feed though, and you can also hang out on the forums... or *gasp* try to get involved in a project yourself!

Mission X, side scrolling action

This pretty nice, old school, side scrolling shooter (written in Java) can be found here. Check out the video below:

Mission X

Lots of eye-candy over at the 0 A.D. webpage

Amazing amount of nice looking stuff, and progress updates (f.e. implementation of the "shadow of war" feature) has been recently added to the 0 A.D. website. I know you are probably following that game anyways... but a quick reminder can hurt ;)

0 A.D. landscape

Red Eclipse

Sadly I can't make a video or post screens of it from this PC I have here, but only a short while ago I checked out the latest version of Red Eclipse, and it is really starting to be a quite fun game. It's even includes real player models now, and quite good looking weapon models are currently added.

It's rather easy to compile on Linux (automatic script), so don't shy away just because it is not released as a binary yet. There are even quite a few people online playing it already.

Hedgewars, JCRPG, and 0AD

Hmm, been a while, but since nobody is using my opensourcegames reddit yet, I'd better pitch in a bit here. Qubodup and Julius have been doing a stellar job in the last several months with some great posts.

Hedgewars 0.9.13 is out. It now looks better than the game it is a clone of (Worms 2) which is a pretty significant milestone. They have also started to add some features that were not in the original (also an important step - differentiation). I could reel off a list of new features since 0.9.12 but it's a futile task given there are so many. The standout features for me are the beautiful explosions, the birdy weapon, the generally impressive new graphics themes, and the trailer:

That is about as good a lesson in Internet marketing as you can get. Beautifully timed to the music, based on a very famous song, but in the style of the game characters. I found it to be very impressive and that's a trend since I originally tried out Hedgewars back when looking at all the available Worms/Artillery clones.

JCRPG

The ever-promising JCRPG has been ported from one Java 3D technology (jMonkeyEngine) to another (Ardor3D). The latter is a newer engine from the creators of the former, and seems to have taken several lessons on board with the design. The motivation for the port was difficult to debug crashes, but a number of nice enhancements have been discovered along the way and JCRPG really looks sumptuous.

Hopefully soon the game will start to get a bit of a storyline as well as beautiful scenery!

Finally, a pre-alpha download of 0ad is available. This utterly gorgeous looking historically-based RTS has so much potential. They have struggled to get more developers involved since originally going open source. I have been encouraging them to make a release and follow up with regular releases in order to expand the pool from which they may discover new contributors.

Here is a 2 year old trailer for 0ad.

Maybe they should make a new one, that could also be a marketing boost for the project.

FOSS RTS games

Hey FreeGamers!
I know, news are a bit slow here lately, but all three of us are a bit busy with real-life issues, I guess. So if you are interested in becoming a contributor to this blog drop us a line in the forum!
We have also recently gotten some readers feedback concerning this blog entry. I have to admit that our background search was a bit short concerning the Hypertension game... and it turned out that this game is surrounded by some controversy concerning the (probably illegal) use of the original Blood art assets (which were only granted by Monolith to the Transfusion project).

Are there any good FOSS RTS?

Well that depends on what you think is good :)
We have had a small discussion in our forums which resulted in a lot of links to all sorts of FOSS RTS. So if you are looking for some obscure (often unmaintained RTS) have a look.
Overall I would say however that currently there is none that can be recommended without doubt. This might change soon however!

0-A.D. Commercial grade FOSS RTS?

We have mentioned this great project before, and especially since they have gone fully open-source earlier this year all eyes of the FOSS community are probably on this gem.
So far a consumer ready release seems to be still distant however, even though some parts of the game look quite playable already:

0-A.D. Gameplay

Development is progressing though and you can have a look at this interview with the current project leader for some background infos and nice new screenshots. Further news can be found on Moddb.com.

Upcoming Warzone2100 developments

Warzone2100 is one of the few really playable FOSS RTS games out there. There are steady improvements and sometimes you can even find someone to play online ;)
With it's Playstation 1 art assets it is quite a chore to look at however. There is light on the horizon though; A new terrain renderer was recently developed for it and is expected to be released with Version 3.0.

New Warzone2100 terrain renderer

Let's hope this will reach us gamers ASAP!
Their forum has also some other nice upcoming features to offer. There are plans to update the GUI, with some really nice mockups.
Furthermore MaNGusT is working on new units:

And there is a nice mod project involving mechs :)

0 A.D. Now Open Source

Some breaking, amazing news related to one of the most exciting freeware Free game projects on the indie scene:

What is 0 A.D.?

0 A.D. is a free, cross-platform, under-development, 3D, historically-based, real-time strategy game.

What are you doing?

Switching from a closed development process to open source: making the code available as GPL and the art content available as CC-BY-SA, and encouraging external contributions. We've been working on 0 A.D. in our free time for years, and now we want to show what we've achieved and make it easier for more people to get involved.

How can I get started?

See the Getting Started guide to find more information about the game, forums for discussion, instructions for building and running the game, and links to further details.

For the full announcement, see the dedicated page for explaining why they moved to open source from the closed development model. For more media and information on the game, go to the official 0 A.D. website.

This is, of course, an exciting development. This game has been in production of some form for nearly 8 years, has 150k lines of code in the engine, and hundreds of dedicated (and now shared) models. It will be very interesting to gauge the impact this has on the open source game community. The game itself is not yet complete but it's definitely more than a tech demo, so it will also be interesting to see if the move to open source galvanises the project and gives it the push that it needs to get to a more complete/playable state.

Galaxy Mage Redux

Just as I was about to start lamenting the loss of a promising game, somebody steps up with a call to arms to resurrect development efforts.

Galaxy Mage Redux (placeholder site) will continue where the original Galaxy Mage team left off. They need pythoners and pixel artists so if that's you then make Santa's life cheaper by restoring a good Free game. There is already a forum and the game code is still available here.

His request for help has cropped up in a few places -- happypenguin.org and the FG forums are just two of them.

Another project in the doldrums is Mars: Land of no Mercy (website down). It is still available from the Sourceforge project and there's a post (from August) explaining the website downtime. SVN activity indicates that whilst the site has been down, so has development.

And... what's this... 0AD, the uber-looking freeware RTS game, may actually be released under an open source license? Too good to be true? It is, really, they won't release the whole thing, "for security reasons." (I'm not a fan of security through obscurity.)

I'm being lazy, no screenshots. There are some cool shots on the 0ad website though.

Can You Say Revival

The Widelands team put out a release candidate for their next release, Widelands build10, of their Settlers II inspired game. Check it out!

Egoboo

Now who remembers Egoboo? Or the continuation effort that fizzled out? You know, the cutesy 3D roguelike where your characters waddled around? Well, there's a new place to go for Egoboo development. Several individual efforts have been released and now those efforts are being combined. The most notable ones are Egoboo 2.2.4 and Egoboo++. Hopefully we will see a new release in very near future. :-)

Pingus, the Lemmings clone with penguins, which seemed to have died a death at version 0.6.0 - which was a promising release as well with a nice playable tutorial island - has seen development restart. The original developer, and general FLOSS game hero, grumbel has been working on porting Pingus to SDL away from Clanlib. Whether this work will culminate in a release any time soon is another matter, but it is always nice to see forward motion.

netPanzer

The community for netPanzer, the formerly-commercial-now-GPL RTS, seem to be attempting to revive interest in the game. A new community site and resource site have cropped up and activity is high. Maybe development will restart?

Another project that is threatening to revive itself is Transport Empire. I have been very vocal in my criticism on the tt-forums of the bureaucratic approach that has strangled any intended development. One of the developers has had enough too and announced a simple cut-the-crap code-first approach to make the game happen, because discussions and design documents and fine-detail-planning had drowned any previous attempts.

The exciting freeware RTS project 0 A.D., in development for over 3 years so far, has a newish gameplay video up on their site. Check it out, it looks so cool. I wish they would release a demo but patience is a virtue and this game will be a scorcher when it is eventually released. Still, the lengthy development process is frustrating some fans, to which one of the developers made this rather poignant response which is worth a read if you [as a player] want to understand what free/Free game developers go through.

I'm going to have to stop there before this becomes an essay.

Music tip:

Precioso & Libex - Xperimental Scratch