Some idTech4 games progress

Great news from the people behind the idTech4 powered stealth FPS The Dark Mod: They are making great steps to leave their Doom3 mod legacy behind and a standalone version should not be all that far from now.

New The Dark Mod replacement artwork

You can follow the progress here on their forums, and maybe you can also give them an helping hand.

Interestingly there are two other recently updated Doom3 mods, that could easily fit in as The Dark Mod mods, e.g. going stand alone with The Dark Mod's help.

The first one is a Hexen remake, called Hexen: Edge of Chaos:



And the other one is a prequel to the Arx: Fatalis (engine also FOSS, btw.) game, called Arx: End of Sun:



Sadly both of them use proprietary themes (and one could even argue that The Dark Mod is borderline infringing on one too), but I am still looking forward to try out these nice community creations once they become stand-alone!

Bushido Blocks: Slicing Puzzle

Bushido Blocks is a puzzle game for Android under GPL license,  inspired by block-bashing games such as Bejeweled, Diamond Dash and Tap Blox.

Bushido Blocks Screenshots

Tap matches of three or more blocks to slice them with your katana. The more blocks you can slice in one go, the more time you gain on the clock. Special blocks eliminate whole rows of blocks but don't give you any extra time, so use them wisely.

Links:

• GitHub project
• Bushido Blocks on Google Play
• Music (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Code License: GPL

Content License: Unknown

2x0ng: Procedural Puzzle-Action Adventure

Retro and art-game fans will love this.

2x0ng is a challenging action/puzzle game with procedurally generated levels. It is pronounced "TWO-zong", and is the sequel to David O'Toole's 2009 PC puzzler Xong.

2x0ng framebuffer examples

At its core, this game is a mashup. 2x0ng's design is a nonlinear combination of several different late 70s/early 80s home video games, combining related aspects of each into something new. In 2x0ng, you move a guy around the screen and shoot at enemies in all directions, as in Berzerk. The ball you throw ricochets and comes back to you, like in Tron Deadly Discs. You break colored bricks with the ball, like in Breakout. You transfer colors from one place to another in order to complete the level, similar to Revenge Of The Beefsteak Tomatoes. 

To reach the next level, you must successively unlock new areas by opening color-coded gates in the correct order. The levels are procedurally generated, so the game experience is different each time. Later levels are much larger than the screen, and feature substantially more moving/colliding objects than would have been possible in a real home video game from that era.

Downloads:

• 2x0ng 1.0rc1 for Linux
• 2x0ng 1.0rc1 for Mac OSX
• 2x0ng 1.0rc1 for Windows (32-bit) 
• 2x0ng 1.0rc1c for Windows (64-bit) 

More links:

• 2x0ng homepage
• Soundtrack

Code License: GPLv3

Content License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

Jedi Knight source-code liberated & Flare 0.18

In a pretty surprising move the source-code of the idTech3 based games Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy were released under the GPL by Activision and Raven Software. You can find the original source drops here and here.
The content is obviously still propitiatory (e.g. you need to buy it), but some people have already plans to upgrade the source as OpenJK (most likely back-ports from ioQuake3) and make a Linux version most likely.
Would be also cool if a nice stand-alone FOSS 3rd person sword-fighting game would come out of this... but the detailed player animations will likely be the biggest road-block.

Ahh well... and since I hate posting something with no pictures or videos I include the pretty nice new Flare 0.18 release:



It includes some pretty nice new features too:

• 10 Equipment Slots, up from 4 (and easily configurable)
• Starting "Class" choice (beginner's power/item kit)
• Environmental/Ambient Sounds on maps
• Much improved handling of Animations, Effects, and Sounds
• New Powers: Stealth, Traps, Thrown Weapons
• New Item Bonuses: XP gain, Gold Find, Item Find, and more
• Improved support for various input devices
• Two new starting quests

That's all for now :)

0 A.D. Alpha 13 and other less fanboyish updates

Ok I admit it... I am a bit of a 0 A.D. fanboy! But the new Alpha 13 release is also great again, and deserved an update post:



Also pretty cool is the new OpenMW 0.22 release, that finally features player and NPC animations, and thus starts to look more like a functioning game:



Other unrelated news:

• To progress on their standalone version, the developers of The Dark Mod are looking for support in their sound department mostly.
• That non-stop programmer "TheDushan" has started porting the Torque3D engine to Linux. Pretty amazing progress if you ask me :)

Julius out!