Sauerbraten, Vega Strike, Project Kilo

Did I not mention this Sauerbraten update? I don't recall doing so, and I swear it was not a thread in their forum at the weekend despite being listed as posted on the 12th June. Anyway... it fixes a whole lot of bugs, adds graphical enhancements, and cleans up scripting support a little. Probably more of an update for people making mods/games with Sauer than players but, shucks, I love this project. Embarrassingly this was a 2006 release... *oops*

There's the possibility of a StarShip Troopers: Last Defense, the Glest mod, becoming available for FreeBSD.

The Java Classic RPG project has posted a snapshot for anybody who wants to play with it in it's very early stages of development. Work continues at an impressively frantic pace, soldiering away on features. Hopefully a modeller or two can start contributing to the project to make the artwork updates as impressive as those to the codebase.

I keep pestering the Vega Strike team to make a new release. I, and others, frequently get pointed to the SVN version. However it turns out that there is a Windows build of the executable made every few weeks, although you will still need a subversion client to get the latest version of the game data.

Talking of pestering projects, I'm trying to convince the Project Kilo guys to use Sauerbraten as their game engine. Project Kilo is an effort (well, currenlty mostly an idea) to create an immersive single player 3D RPG game. Sauer is the engine also behind the Eisenstern project, another 3D single player RPG effort with slightly less lofty (but still impressive) goals than Kilo.

Eisenstern

The main feature of Sauer is in-game multiplayer map editing where all map elements are defined as cubes or combinations of cubes, it makes a lot of sense to map modellers. I think the combined nature of Sauer's very easy map creation and it's development supporting Eisenstern makes it really suitable for, at the very least, prototyping a concept like Project Kilo. With little or no code the Kilo team can be up and running in no-time, and (being open source) they can build additional features into Sauer as they require them and possibly even feed back upstream. I think it's a far more pragmatic route than taking an engine like Crystal Space or OGRE3D and creating the game logic from scratch. Map modelling itself will become far more of a burden using this approach, let alone the extra effort to make a playable scenario.

I'm not saying that Crystal Space and OGRE3D don't have their place in development - they are important game creation tools - but if somebody has done 95% of the work for you like the Sauer team has, by implementing a game [engine] that not only makes map modelling easy but lets you roam around massive maps with fancy effects and is easy to customize, then surely it makes sense to start there instead of starting far behind them.

People should do as I command suggest because I am always usually right. ;-)

It's The Future, Stupid

I wasn't going to post today 'cos I'm busy, but I can't resist...

There's an update on the combat plans for space game SFZ, as well as new screenshots. Direct from the DevBlog:

After experimenting a bit we decided against making sfz combat based on fast reaction time and dogfight navigation, which quickly leads to frustrating "where is the enemy" problems. Instead weapons won't have to be aimed manually, they'll work like turrets, and if the enemy is in range you will be able to hit him without effort.



The deciding factor in combat will be stuff like weapon ranges and strengths and weaknesses of different weapons against different shield-types, homing missiles and counter-measures, maybe also a bit of energy management. This makes positioning, tactics and equipment a more interesting component.

I can't stress how much I agree with this. Think about it, it's set in the future. Auto-tracking should be a given. Surely space combat will be about decision making not faster-than-light reactions, so it's nice to see they are emphasising this and reducing the efforts required to target enemy ships.

Anyway, they still have a long way to go but it's nice to see well considered design decisions early on and, if they can get some models the quality of those frequently contributed to Vega Strike, they will have a very good game indeed if they can execute their plans.

No sooner had I posted about 8 Kingdoms yesterday, than somebody commented with a link to a Ubuntu .deb they had created, so have a go. I did, although it did not hold my attention for too long (it's late, I'm busy, etc) but it looked good from what little I saw of it. Not quite my style of game - seems much more rooted in table top war games than I like - but should definitely interest quite a few stategy fans.

Not game specific, but this online book on producing open source software is a very good resource for anybody running an open source project. Developers should check it out.

Another good resource, for open source friendly licensed music, is Jamendo.com so anybody looking for music for their game might want to check that out.

Castle Pascal

The Castle is a rather intriguing looking fantasy FPS where your main weapon is a sword, so combat is generally very short range. Currently this open source game only comes with 3 levels and 5 types of enemy, but is very well documented for prospective contributors. The game engine is a custom one written using Pascal and compiled with FreePascal. The game runs on Linux, BSD, MacOSX, and Windows (LBMW). :-)

Whilst originally created for one of the Pascal Game Development (PGD) annual competitions with the current [realistic] scope as the game focus, the author's long term ambitions make for interesting reading:

Basically the game is intended to be like FPS but with some nice storyline. This also means that it should feel more like RPG (in more-or-less fantasy setting) — large world, many items, weapons, some character stats and levels etc. Also I want to utilize my engine to make levels more "interactive" — some objects on the level are able to move etc. There are many such games, some very old, some quite new. I'm just going to do this once again, in the way I want, and make it really good :)

The game engine behind The Castle looks pretty decent considering it's homebrewed and the author has created a few other games (well, demos really) to show it off - malfunction (where you blow up alien space ships) and let's take a walk (where you, er, walk around) which are both available for LBMW.

There are also a few interesting links from The Castle website. The game uses textures from the Golgotha Collection which is a massive collection all in the public domain (I think).

Going back to the PGD website and there seems to be a lot of information on creating games with Pascal as well as lots of entries in the game competitions - 18 this year - which last 3-4 months. Perhaps a few more open source jewels to be found there. ;-)

There are now Linux and Mac OS X binaries available for Privateer Gemini Gold 1.02 rc1 if you want to try that before they release 1.02 final. I ran into a few problems - related to the Vega Strike engine that PGG uses - getting it to run on my rather recently setup Ubuntu Feisty Fawn laptop.

Still, more cool models for VS continue to be made. I hope they focus on a new VS release after PGG 1.02 because there's just so much change since the old 0.4.3 which was years ago.

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)

Utilizing The Community

Before I get onto my main topic for today, I'll note that Kimboot 1.00 got released today. You swing a ball and chain around and bloodily annihilate stick men. Lots of violent fun without being too gross. :-)

I spoke to HellcatV today. For those who don't know, he's one of the original Vega Strike developers and pretty much the guy in charge of VS.

Vega Strike has not released an update for over 2 years. On the face of things that might be a sign of inactivity but that is the opposite of the truth. The community and developers have been continuously active and there is massive change between the last version (0.4.3) and the current version. I'm trying to push them to release an update.

"It's imperfect!" they lament. "It needs playtesting and bug fixing!" they decry. Commercial game companies have QA testers. Open source games have a community. Make a release, label it beta, and people will be happy to try it and report bugs. That's the nature of Free and Open Source Software.

I tried to talk HellcatV into labelling the next release 0.5.0beta instead of 0.4.4beta. There's been so much change in SVN and x.y.z is major.minor.bugfix and this is not a bugfix update. People are often far too conservative with version numbers (Torcs being another example). Let the version numbers reflect development activity! Not how perfect the game is. The utopia of a perfect 1.0 software release never, ever happens. It's better to aim at milestones and forget perfection as anything other than a distant goal. The only Free Software project I have seen pull off a decent versioning system with a lofty near-perfect 1.0 release goal is Inkscape and they keep it very, very simple - 0.x where x always increases 1 with every release - no point releases (well, ok, 0.x is a point release... but no 0.point.point releases) except for critical bug fixes. That works. The rest just make the software look less mature than it actually is and turn away fickle users and users are almost always fickle.

Perhaps I care about version numbers too much. :-)

Anyway... music tip:

Babylon Robot - Dop4m1n (Delicious & Errick mix)

By the way, almost all the music I (will) mention builds up. Don't listen for 5s then judge it, unless you want to miss out! ;-)

Angels Fall First

If you thought yesterday's news was big, Free Gamer comes with an equally impressive post for today!

Angels Fall First

The prolific artist Strangelet has not been inactive, and has made a special request of the Vega Strike community. Angels Fall First started out life as a Homeworld 2 mod. There is a plan for a UT2007 release in the future but the AFF team are looking for an official game engine to embrace.

The models are spectacular and, with work on an impressive VS 0.5 release progressing at a steady pace this, this could be type mod to really compliment VS and really make waves in gaming circles. The artwork is nothing short of A-grade commercial quality.

Anyway, people have volunteered to assist the VS:AFF mod, so it is a case of watch that space (pun intended).

Snippets and Tidbits

Due to personal reasons Free Gaming has been a bit slow lately. Here's a few snippets...

• Next version of True Combat: Elite will have HDR lighting making it the first Free Software Linux game to ship with HDR lighting (thanks Albert Santoni)
• VegaStrike gets network deathmatch support - go register and play on the online server
  
• ManiaDrive 1.2 bugfix release "no more crashes"
• Warzone Resurrection 2.0.4rc2
• OpenArena 0.5.0 - btw it's now a standalone download (and has been for a while, I think)
  
• Scourge! 0.15 which should be much more playable than previous releases with lots of work on making the character movement better
• Frets on Fire makes guitar playing fun ;-)

I'm off to suffer having lost my gal to her desire to be free! If only the female mind were open source...

Dedication's What You Need

...if you wanna be a record breaker! Oooo ooo... </singing>

One of the great things about Free software games is that people are free to dedicate themselves to whatever makes them happy. Check out this ship, the Atlantia, created for a Vega Strike mod [not yet published].

Speaking of Vega Strike, the musings over the last couple of weeks suggest a new 0.4.x release [the current engine] later on in the year. I don't think the real juice [the 0.5 OGRE-based engine] will come until 2007, but when it does it will be good. Check out the screenshot to the right, a sample of planet shaders that VS developer klauss is working on. More images here.

That's simply beautiful.

There's a new dungeon game in town. Sadly it is a Doom 3 mod so it's not really free, but we know what happens with iD engines so there is hope! The game is Dungeon Doom and hopefully it will evolve into a stellar Free game in the future.

Another interesting mod [UT2004 this time] is Air Buccaneers. It looks innovative but again is based on a non-free engine. I wish people would create mods for free engines like Sauerbraten. Can you imagine the syndicated power of mod developers being focused on Free Software engines? If only I could control people's minds, the world would be a better place.

I tried a few games today.

Secret Maryo Chronicles is a high resolution remake of old-school Super Mario. It's fun for a bit but I don't have the patience to learn levels like I used to when I was younger. The game has no music and the way Maryo responds to controls doesn't quite feel right. Some parts of the game look great while others look distinctly amateur, but it has a lot of potential.

Ri-Li is a cross between a wooden train set and Snake. It's probably more aimed at kids, but the gameplay seems to get very hectic very quickly. Also I could swear that the train does not always go the direction you tell it to go. I tried pressing before junctions, pressing at junctions, pressing both before and at junctions, or just holding down the direction, and it felt hit-and-miss.

Then I tried Pang Zero and Don Ceferino Hazaña. The gameplay of both games revolves around throwing up a dagger or spear to pop balloons (?) that bounce around the screen and kill you on-touch. It's like a simpler version of asteroids. Don Ceferino is the more entertaining and polished of the two, even if the gameplay is essentially the same, with a nicely presented story despite the awful spilleng mistakes.

The Don Ceferino website is all in Spanish. I hate to say it, but the language of the Net is English. If you want maximum recognition and traffic, you had better translate your musings. Otherwise obscurity and International exile loom for your project.

Open Source 3D Space Games

Welcome to a space game special on Free Gamer!

No Gravity

Vega Strike

Oolite

Parsec

Crimson Space

At the heart of open source space game development is Vega Strike, a 3D space trading and combat game. With a dynamic universe and dynamic econmies, there is massive depth to the game. However the current stable version (0.4.3) is aging. While there is an update to the development version, it is not yet stable nor easy to try but does include some great new models and art on top of various gameplay improvements. Feature-wise it rivals commercial counterparts and the next releases should restore Vega Strikes position as one of the showcase open source games.

Vega Strike is highly moddable and has spawned some excellent mods. There's something for Babylon 5, Star Wars, and Star Trek fans, with the latter moving forward nicely.

The most well-known mod is Privateer Remake, a modernization of Wing Commander: Privateer - an offshoot of the Wing Commander series. Privateer Remake was forked to form Privateer Gemini Gold, a version more true to the original Privateer. Both games breathe life back into a popular franchise, dragging it into 20th century gaming with vastly superior graphics to the original. There are more Wing Commander game remakes being developed out of the Vega Srike mod stable, springing from the meta-project Wing Commander Universe that spawned Privateer Remake.

No Gravity is a 3D arcade space shooter set in a fantastic universe made of 5 intergalatic worlds. The website is one of the best looking sites I've seen for an open source game. The game itself does not look as pretty as more recent titles like Vega Strike, but it looks fun nonetheless. It's gameplay reminded me of X-Wing vs TIE Figheter although it's been a long time since I played that so I could be mistaken.

Another space game whose progress has been steady is Oolite. It is basically Elite for the modern PC and was developed as a response to the withdrawl of Elite - A New Kind from the Internet (although it is still available from a few freeware sites). Oolite continues to exceed Elite in many ways and should delight fans of the original as well as attracting new players to the Elite brand.

Then there's FreeSpace 2. I was somehow under the impression that the whole game had been made Free Software. However, I could only find the FreeSpace 2 Source Code Project which did not contain much useful information, let alone a useful download. Increasingly convinced that the original FreeSpace 2 data was required and not Free, my interest quickly waned. If I'm wrong then could somebody please correct me.

Sadly there are those game development efforts that never quite make it. I came across Reaper whilst poking around the Internet. It's development ceased in 2002. Another space game whose candle went out a while ago is Andromeda 9, so it joins the echelons of once-promising projects.

Then there is Parsec. Once a darling of Linux gaming, Parsec suffered from being closed source. By the time the developers realised their mistake and open sourced Parsec, it was too late to interest a future maintainer.

Update: I have stumbled across Crimson Space that looks intriguing - you can enter a planet's atmosphere, it has several ships - although I'm uncertain of how complete it is and development ceased in 2002.

For people wanting an immediate fix, I would suggest No Gravity, Oolite, and Privateer Gemini Gold. No Gravity has the polish, Oolite has the depth, and Privateer the great 3D graphics. For people who are not afraid of rough edges, Vega Strike and it's burgeoning mod scene will push your 3D cards and engross you at the same time; Vega Strike is the open source future of this genre. One thing is certain, the open source 3D space game scene is very healthy.

Please comment if I missed an important open source 3D space game.