Developing Games Takes Time

Zero Projekt

FIFE is starting to come of age. Although their tech-demo collaboration ended after a dispute between the two parties, Zero Project have continued their efforts and have settled on FIFE for their game project which has so far been two years in the making. To celebrate their second birthday they've put up an array of WIP screenshots. FIFE got a nice new layout for it's wiki too.

The Castle 0.8.1 has been released. "The Castle is a first-person shooter game in a dark fantasy setting. Your main weapon is a sword, so the fight is mostly short-range. Three main levels are included, packed with creatures, items, and sounds. The game engine is based on VRML, OpenGL, OpenAL, and all shadows are done by the shadow volumes approach." Interesting but not quite there yet.

Remember the classic game Theme Park (it started off the whole dang 'Theme X' genre)? Followed by the Rollercoaster Tycoon series (1-3)? Well these guys do and they are aiming to recreate, in open source glory, the ultimate theme park game. Theme Park Builder 3D just got it's inaugural source release.

Speaking of projects to create 'the ultimate of their genre', Transport Empire has come back to life. Started by members of the Transport Tycoon community, it had languished for years in the depths of design documents and decision making. Well last year somebody decided enough was enough, grabbed the bull by the horns and started coding - basically throwing the overbearing bureaucracy out of the window. Code is available from SVN and can now be compiled on Linux (for the brave only at the moment). It'll be interesting to see where that one goes in 2008.

Last but not least, one of my favourite projects GemRB released a new version, 0.3.0 and now you can [mostly] play through a bunch of Infinity Engine games (i.e. the Baldur's Gate series). Hopefully somebody will start creating a Free game that uses GemRB. :-)

On to a freeware game, The Silver Lining (a massive fan effort to make a top quality freeware game based on the King's Quest series) have a journal update where they show how they build up the 3D scenes used in the game. It's both pretty and interesting and shows just how much effort is involved for just a single aspect of the game. It's a Windows only game but I guess that's becoming less of a problem these days.

Glest 3.1 invaded by aliens

Glest: Alien Invasion

Gearhead2

Chromium BSU

Hot on the heels of Glest 3.0 is... Glest 3.1! Great to see the rejuvenated development of a poster Free Software game. This version continues to add multiplayer features such as in-game chat. Oh, and a new menu background. Eye candy! :-)

The mod scene for Glest has also never been healthier. The latest mod to show up (although currently just a WIP) is Glest: Alien Invasion. Pictures speak etc - see the images.

In the grand scheme of things, websites aren't that important. Or are they? Gearhead2 is a mech-based rogue-like. Maybe you like the sound of a [mech-based] rogue-like. To everybody else, the term 'rogue-like' tends to mean 'no graphics', so when you visit a web page like the homepage of Gearhead2, combined with the knowledge of it being a rogue-like, I bet the vast majority of people go no further. It looks awful, the screenshots link doesn't work, and because in the lay visitor's mind the game isn't graphical, it's game over already.

The shame of it is, Gearhead2 looks like a really promising game. It has a 3D version with a snazzy UI (it's predecessor Gearhead does not). Mechs are cool. There is a well supported forum. Somebody needs to just delete every bit of HTML on that Gearhead2 homepage and put up something 1. functional (i.e. working links) and 2. web layout !circa 1998.

Last but not least for today, Chromium BSU, the frantic top-down shooter, is under new maintainership. The Debian maintainer of the game has access to the Sourceforge project for Chromium BSU so will be applying patches that have been collecting for a few years in the various distros. Whether it'll see further development of the game is unlikely but it's good to avoid the usual bitrot of forgotten projects. Also I noticed the sequel project Chromium BSU 2: Second Strike, but despite there being source in SVN, it didn't really get off the ground.

In Internet-lameness news, I can't believe my Portalized exclusive barely made a dent on digg. I mean, utter rubbish which is merely a Portal influence gets 1000s of diggs. How come a [possibly open source] improvement on Portal's game dynamics not even break double-digits? I mean, I got more damn "diggs"* on FSDaily! The Internet won't do what I want. It's officially lame. Want to correct this ludicrous aberration? Go forth and DIGG!

* Is digg a new verb? What would you call it on FSDaily? FSDailied? :-?

Times of War

Warzone 2100 2.1-beta1 is out, with plenty of new features (changelog). Internationalized, improved/additional AI, 64-bit support, in-game video options, and multi-turret support are the picks of the bunch.

"Additionally there are many parts of the game that have been completely or partially rewritten. So old bugs may have been made completely irrelevant and new ones most certainly have been introduced. So new bug reports are most certainly very welcome, even [for] bugs that where present in 2.0.x already. Any suggestions are welcome as well of course."

You'll have to compile the beta yourself. Here's a slightly out of date youtube showing what the fuss is about:

LordsAWar

Freelords

LordsAWar 0.0.8 is also available to download. The LordsAWar homepage is a bit spartan. It's a continuation of the C++ version of FreeLords, which has since been rewritten in Java and recently released 0.0.2 of the Java version. The games are not going their different ways graphically with many new tiles and other artwork added in recent LordsAWar releases, which has a top-down view. FreeLords is now isometric. This is what is good about Free Software. From one project, we now have two; after the original author changed direction, others could continue the initial effort.

Both games share the goal of creating a modern Warlords style of game.

Anyway, it's a sunny day, no time for computer games!

Tactics with lasers and lite space

Laser Tactics is the new name for Nuclear Graveyard. It's a turn based 3D squad tactics game, originally a remake of Laser Squad in 3D that has since transcended the initial goal of being a remake. The author is fairly frustrated at the lack of interest in the game because it doesn't fit the standard mold. If you want to try something a bit tactical and a bit different to the usual FPS or strategy style of game.

There were quite a few links in the last post with little description of them.

OpenFracas

Pathman

Asteroid Wars

OpenFracas is like an advanced version of Risk. What it actually is, is a rebirth of the game Fracas which was open sourced but is writtin in VB6, which is frankly a bit of a rubbish language for anything other than win32 forms.

There's a new development release of Oolite (announcement + Mac, Linux, Windows), the 3D space flight adventure game. I'd seen in many places concern that Oolite development was dead, so this is a delightful reminder that it is still going. It's definitely an underrated game, given the stature of Elite in gaming history and how much Oolite improves upon the original concept. The 1.70 release was actually at the start of December 2007 but, as is the case with many open source projects, it went beneath the radar for a while.

The OpenTTD community are putting together a basic free release for the low-res verison of OpenTTD so it can be included in Linux distros etc. Good to know that the game will no longer require non-free media. Anyhow, anybody interested in getting involved can find all the relevant info in the Graphics Replacement wiki page.

And finally two cool looking new Free games.

Pathman is, "a 3D first/third person re-interpretation of Namco's popular 1980's arcade hit Pac-Man, arguably the most popular computer game of all time." Not much more to say other than check it out if that sounds like your cup of tea.

Also cool looking, but unfortunately missing any kind of project page or cross-platform availability (Windows only) is Asteroid Wars, a snazzy take on another classic game. Perhaps somebody can convince the author to register over at Sourceforge and maybe somebody can make it run in Linux.

Be a Busy Bee

Well... I have a big list of stuff to write about, so, I'll cheat.

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

Game updates

• OpenFracas (http://www.openfracas.org/) from Ubuntu forums (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=692342)


• Oolite 1.70 development version (http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4060) with enhanced scripting


• OpenTTD OpenGFX project (http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/Graphics_Replacement)


• Daimonin tileEngine v2 (http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=38992)


• Pathman, 3D pacman (http://pathman.sf.net/)


• AsteroidWars (http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=27326)


• Official ETCE homepage (http://etce.usef-et.org/)


• Sector91 (http://www.sector91.com/) from Wesnoth forums (http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19845)


• Flightgear 1.0 vid (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnKg0Gpm00o)


• Platinum Arts Sandbox Beta 2.0 (http://www.kids.platinumarts.net/) is a Sauer mod for kids, including karts (http://www.cubeengine.com/forum.php4?action=display_thread&thread_id=1657)


• Forsaken Sanctum (http://www.forsakensanctum.com/?sid=home) maybe an open source Sci-Fi MMORPG (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=564160)


• Freelords 0.0.2 (http://freelords.sf.net/) new Java version now isometric

Thats more Free gaming news that you can shake a fist at...

If you don't want to follow the links to find out stuff for yourself, don't worry as I'll revisit the interesting bits in the next few days.

Stop the press: Portalized - "open source Portal"

Ok, this is the sh*t. Not only that, word has it, this is going to be open source. Of course, this is what some guy who reads some forum has emailed me, and I'm being completely sensational by posting it on an open source blog, but the youtubes are so cool that I can't help myself. Update: as confirmed in a comment by nullsquared [the author], he is currently undecided over whether to go with a freeware or open source license.

MasterNave emails, "Just got a tip from a coder friend of mine, about portalized, an open source portal engine, based on ogre3d. Apparently, 0.5 will be public."

So, the scene is set. Ready to blow your mind?

Ooo er that's kind of mad.

Update: the next video deserves a bit of explanation - it demonstrates scalable portals where the world is a different size through the portal. That is, if you go through the portal the world gets bigger/smaller, or if you pass an object through the portal that object gets bigger/smaller. Very neat.

Here's a Google video that, "Shows off the gravity that will be used in Portalized. Every physical object will have it's own gravity, and it can be anything (not just +x -x +y -y +z -z as shown in the demo)."

It's great to see somebody innovating. I know that the portal concept itself isn't exactly original, but ideas like the scalable portals and variable gravity per object are showing that nullsquared really has some come up with many innovations that portals are just part of.

I can't really find a homepage for the project. There are threads like this one (that contains a Windows development build) scattered across several forums but no official homepage yet, it seems. Nor can I verify the claim that this will be open source. Anyway, whatever happens, it looks great and it's cool to see a single guy using good Free Software tools to create amazing things.

Of course, Portalized won't come with the polished content that is part of the Portal game, but if he does open up this project then that's what you guys - the "community" - can provide, right? :-)

He does mention in a few places that the next version, 0.5, is going to be the first beta release. If anybody has any information on whether this will indeed be open source then please comment. I may (or may not) get in touch to ask nullsquared myself. Update: see the comments.

Games, Games, and Free Software

Goonies

F1 Spirit

Road Fighter

Daimonin

A good open source platform game that never gets a mention is The Goonies: 20th Anniversary Edition. This game is a remake of the classic NES / Master System version by Konami. The same team is also responsible two rather fun arcade top-down racing games, F1 Spirit and Road Fighter, which are also remakes. I'm not sure what the source license is for these (ack, there goes my Free Software credibility) but you can get the source and the games compile / run on the 3 major platforms (y'know, Lin/Win/Mac).

There's not-so-recent updates to Daimonin, the 2D isometric fantasy MMORPG that seems to play second fiddle to the likes of Eternal Lands and Planeshift due to it not coming with the fancy 3D 3Dness. I mean, everybody wants 3D, and those who don't play nethack. So there's no room for anything else. Especially not something as addictive as Daimonin. I'm not going near that game again, I barely escaped the first time! Anyhow, it's up to version 0.9.7.1 which means something to somebody, somewhere.

Egoboo has been travelling, but after several years finally returned home to egoboo.sourceforge.net where it's open source adventure originally started. Development is highly active, with lead developer Zefz having dragged it kick and screaming back from the depths of stagnancy. (My god, that's actually a valid [ab]use of the word... I mean, I typed it as a joke, and the spell checker didn't cry.)

Entropy found via the Ubuntu forums, is... I'll use their words, "Entropy is an open source game project the likes of which you have never seen. With what is currently a small team of modelers, texture artists, and programmers, development on Entropy (which just finished the final stages of design) is... brand new and revolutionary, in both its spirit and style of gameplay. Entropy will be a structured mix of First Person Shooter combat, with vehicles of all sorts, combined with Real Time Strategy, with a few Role Playing elements thrown in. However, the most important aspect of Entropy is that it is entirely online and immersive, almost every character in game will be an actual player."

Sounds very interesting. However, I believe their ambition far outweighs their ability to deliver on it, something I expressed. However, they are 'veterans'. Whether being veteran means 1 guy can program a commercial grade game in 2 years when programming Gods (think John Carmack) don't do that, well, who am I to be a party pooper. Still, I hope they succeed.

All I'll say is that, unless you have fairly modest requirements, programming your own engine from scrach is absolute madness with the likes of Ogre3D (and the plethora of other options) at your fingertips. (Note: we need to make a page for these on the FreeGameDev wiki.)

D2X-XL free media project

FIFE, the Fallout-like engine project, have made their first release of 2008, and put up a video of the tech demo that comes with the engine. Lots of new features, lots of progress, hopefully we'll see some exciting FIFE powered games coming along this year!

D2X-XL is an spanky implementation of the engine for Descent 1/2, both very popular commercial games in their time. It adds lots of improvements, but the games themselves are proprietary and look a bit dated. So the D2X-XL guys are looking for people to contribute to a free D2X-XL media project. It's a good opportunity to create an awesome free game because the ships and designs from the Descent genre of games doesn't tend to be very complex, meaning it is easy to tackle on or two models without having to animate and skeletalize and add moles and skin pores and all the other daftness that seems to accompany character modelling lately. Back on topic, and they have some ships and textures and a few levels already, and of course the game engine is rocking and far exceeds the original Descent engines. There's massive potential there. I wonder if they should go and look at other space game projects like Vega Strike to see if there's any suitable models/textures they can borrow...

OpenFrag Orc

OpenFrag is a project to create a commercial grade FPS. They also are champions of the OpenCDS project, which is an open source Steam clone; content distribution software. Looks interesting although a long way to go still for OpenFrag if the screenshots are anything to go by.

Another effort to create commercial grade material is Radakan, this time in the form of a single player 3D RPG. Again, it has a long way to go. Actually I mentioned this before but there's no harm occasionally repeating these things. (My oh my, wasn't that linked post lyrical!)

I need a bath. It's been at least a week and even the FG hounds are starting to turn their noses up at me.