Showing posts with label platform-osx. Show all posts
Showing posts with label platform-osx. Show all posts
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Monday, December 15, 2014
Godot Winter Game Jam
Godot winter icon
A game dev jam to create a winter-themed open source game was community-initiated at the Godot forums. The (vote-determined) winner will get a budget of USD 50 to have donated to an open source project of their choice.
What is Godot?
Godot editor
Godot is a game engine. No wait, it's actually a game development IDE with its own Lua-based scripting language.
As far as I can tell, it's a promising project that is a bit buggy, especially when it comes to mobile exports. It has some UI flaws (subjectivity warning) but still, open source Godot is more appealing than proprietary Unity 3D.
If you want to try making a game in Godot, I recommend this official tutorial as a starting point. Good luck & great success to you!
What else?
Another way to support Godot: "like" it as a Unity 3D alternative on alternativeTo.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Strife: Veteran Edition
Just in case you can stand having Steam DRM installed in your system, I recommend taking a look at Strife: Veteran Edition. Strife is a Shooter/RPG based on the Doom Engine and dating back to 1996. The developers for this new remake had the wits and sensibility to use the Chocolate Doom engine as the main code base, which is, of course 100% licensed under the GPL. With so many top quality Free Software engine remakes around here, it really astounds me why so few developers choose to use them on modern HD remakes and ports (I'm looking at YOU, upcoming remake of Heroes of Might and Magic III not using VCMI).
As mentioned, so far the game is available exclusively on Steam, but I'm pretty sure a DRM-free GOG version will eventually follow, as it usually does.
Code License: GPLv2 + LGPL
Assets License: Proprietary
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Citadel makes big promises
There's a new big remake effort a-brewing in the Free Software world, this time for prominent shooter/RPG, System Shock. under the shape of project Citadel. According to project description, the goal is to recreate the original game using the widely known GPLed platform Darkplaces Engine, upgrading the game's graphics to full 3D but keeping game aesthetics close to the origianl game. Added modding capabilities and cooperative multiplayer will also be a part of the project.
Details, however, are somewhat scarce, so far, as development is happening behind closed doors, and creator Josiah Jack just announced the existence of the project itself after months of programming in secret. While the code will certainly be all GPL or GPL-compatible due to Darkplaces licensing requirements, the game appears to rely on original proprietary assets, as well as using its own whose license nature is yet to be disclosed.
With a release date planned for the the 23rd of December, System Shock's CD release anniversary, I guess we'll have to wait and see if this project will deliver.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Duck Marines, FOSS remake of ChuChu Rocket
Thanks to Tangram Games for pointing out to us that they just released version 1.0 of their local multiplayer game Duck Marines.
They describe it as:
For those not familiar with the original on the Dreamcast here is a small description of the gameplay:
They describe it as:
Duck Marines is a cross-platform free software PC remake of Sonic Team’s ChuChu Rocket.But see for yourself:
Duck Marines attempts to recreate the magic from the local multiplayer of ChuChu Rocket while adding new elements like mini games, a level editor, colorful pixel art and more.
For those not familiar with the original on the Dreamcast here is a small description of the gameplay:
The goal of the game is to get as many ducks into the submarine of your color. Gray ducks give you one point, gold ducks give multiple points and pink ducks will trigger an event or mini game.Source-code (zlib) can be found here, assets are licensed under the CC-by-NC-SA/ND. Build with the great Lua 2D game framework LÖVE by the way.
Guide the ducks towards your submarine by placing arrows on the ground. When walking over an arrow ducks will instead walk in the direction the arrow is pointing.
Beware of the blue predators. Predators love to eat ducks and will kill a large number of your ducks if they reach your submarine. Try instead to guide the predators to the other players’ submarines using your arrows.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
OpenRA also has a new release
OpenRA is a Free Software recreation of the famed Command & Conquer engine, and it aims to support and enhance all Westwood games originally built upon it, namely Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, and Dune 2000. However, unlike most engine remakes, OpenRA isn't a simple 1:1 recreation with a little streamlining here and there, as the project also aims to optimize and rebalance the gameplay for purposes of online multiplayer. The project has recently released the latest stable version, fixing a lot of bugs and adding plenty of new features, as seen on the following release trailer:
Interestingly enough, in order to play all the games supported by OpenRA, you are not forced to own an original copy of any, given that all three ones were released gratis a few years ago. Though the package comes without any of this data, it immediately invites the player to download it from the project's own repositories, thus making all the games readily available to play.
The campaign mode is still not fully supported by OpenRA, with only some missions available for playing and no cinematics support at all, but we can only hope this will change in the future. In the meantime, you're free to enjoy all the supported games in skirmish mode, or play online against friends. So here's to the OpenRA team, and keep up the good work.
Code license: GPLv3
Assets license: Free-as-in-beer (available gratis, but still subject to copyright, as the C&C franchise is still intellectual property currently owned by EA)
Saturday, June 14, 2014
OpenXcom hits 1.0
We have previously mentioned OpenXcom on several occasions before, but now the massive UFO: Enemy Unknown engine reimplementation project finally hit the long-awaited 1.0 mark, and they decided to celebrate by releasing this lovely trailer that sums up quite well the insane amount of detail and improvement put into the project over the course of 4 years. I'll let it do justice by itself, but not without thanking all the contributors for raising one of the most acclaimed DOS-era strategy classics from the stagnating swamps of buggy unsupported legacy releases and platform incompatibility.
On a final note, the engine is, of course, free-as-in-freedom, though it relies on original game data of proprietary nature. You can download OpenXcom here, and buy an affordable digital copy of the original game on Steam, or somewhere around the web.
Code License: GPLv3
Assets License: Relies on original proprietary data files. All new original art assets included in the OXC package available under CC-BY-SA
Sunday, February 23, 2014
FlightGear 3.0 and Bombable add-on
This week saw finally saw the official release of version 3.0 of FlightGear.
Notable changes:
Notable changes:
Highlights in this release include integration of the FGCom voice communications client within the simulator, improved terrain rendering, faster scenery loading, and improved usability. This release also coincides with the release of FlightGear World Scenery 2.0 – massively improved scenery data covering the entirety of the planet and incorporating OpenStreetMap roads and detailed terrain information from a variety of sources.Also interesting is the "Bombable" add-on, which adds combat mechanics:
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
December RTS updates
Merry Christmas from FreeGamer!
As a nice present from the 0 A.D. team, the new Alpha 15 Osiris was released today:
Lots of great new features and especially multiplayer games should be now much easier to do with hosting improvements and a lobby for browsing available games.
Another open-source RTS engine (using Mono/C# though) has also released a new version: OpenRA. Currently it is still geared toward running an assortment of older Command & Conquer based games, so you need to own these for the data. But this release adds lua scripting for the creation of custom missions, so maybe someone will come up with a libre game to run on this engine.
Last but not least, a new version of Warzone2100 was released about a week ago. This one actually includes some higher resolution textures, which is hopefully the first step to officially integrate all the awesome new art assets from the art revolution project.
Speaking of WZ mods: There is also an interesting new tower-defense mod currently being developed.
As a nice present from the 0 A.D. team, the new Alpha 15 Osiris was released today:
Lots of great new features and especially multiplayer games should be now much easier to do with hosting improvements and a lobby for browsing available games.
Another open-source RTS engine (using Mono/C# though) has also released a new version: OpenRA. Currently it is still geared toward running an assortment of older Command & Conquer based games, so you need to own these for the data. But this release adds lua scripting for the creation of custom missions, so maybe someone will come up with a libre game to run on this engine.
Last but not least, a new version of Warzone2100 was released about a week ago. This one actually includes some higher resolution textures, which is hopefully the first step to officially integrate all the awesome new art assets from the art revolution project.
Speaking of WZ mods: There is also an interesting new tower-defense mod currently being developed.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Zelda can now be free as in freedom
Not only from the clutches of Ganondorf, but also from the dominion of proprietary software. All thanks to the magnificent Solarus Engine, a GPLed, SDL-based, 2D action RPG engine. This amazing project aims to provide a stable and easily customizable platform for users to create their own Zelda-like games, and so far, I must say, I am darn impressed by what I've seen. The engine already has two incredible launching titles, named The Legend of Zelda: Mystery of Solarus DX, and a parody of the former, Mystery of Solarus XD. Both are true love letters to the classic SNES RPG, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and amazing and enjoyable games on their own.
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| Mystery of Solarus DX |
But hark, the mere words of a mortal make no justice to the grandiosity of this undertaking. Sheathe thy sword, get thy green cap and ready yourself to adventure! You can start by marching straight to the Solarus download section, or, if your intentions are more creative, you can check the various sources here, and the quest editor here.
Code License: GPLv3
Mystery of Solarus DX Artwork License: Mixed (original Solarus assets under CC-BY-SA, but the game also uses spritework taken directly the A Link to the Past rom)
Friday, August 9, 2013
GSoC 2013 pushes SuperTuxKart forward!
If you follow our planet, this is no news, but the recent advances in graphics, networking a other stuff from SuperTuxKart are quite nice. This is basically a result of them being accepted to this years Google Summer of Code.
Not showing most of the new features yet is this nice video featuring the mascot of OpenGameArt.org as a new player character:
But their blog has many interesting technical details (and other screenshots + videos) to show off the new features.
So if you like to also contribute, or just want to praise the great work, have a look at their FreeGamer hosted forums :)
Not showing most of the new features yet is this nice video featuring the mascot of OpenGameArt.org as a new player character:
But their blog has many interesting technical details (and other screenshots + videos) to show off the new features.
So if you like to also contribute, or just want to praise the great work, have a look at their FreeGamer hosted forums :)
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, funded!
The self described open-source rogue-like survivalcraft / driving game in a sci-fi zombie apocalypse has successfully reached its goal on Kickstarter, and one of the developers will now be able to work on it full-time for a few months to implement for example a back-end for proper graphics.
But see and hear about it yourself:
The first stretch-goal is close too, with 12 days remaining to pledge money towards this cool project.
Less rosy does it look for the previously featured Data Dealer project. With only 48 hours to go, but still about 10k missing it will be a close finish if at all. They got some remarkable press lately though and jumped up about 10k in the last days, so it is still possible. So if you haven't done it yet, pledge here.
But see and hear about it yourself:
The first stretch-goal is close too, with 12 days remaining to pledge money towards this cool project.
Less rosy does it look for the previously featured Data Dealer project. With only 48 hours to go, but still about 10k missing it will be a close finish if at all. They got some remarkable press lately though and jumped up about 10k in the last days, so it is still possible. So if you haven't done it yet, pledge here.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Xonotic 0.7 released
After an agonizingly long wait, I am happy to report that a new official release of the premier FOSS arena FPS Xonotic is available to the masses.
Here is a nice (but slightly older) game-play video for those not having played Xonotic yet:
Changes are quite extensive compared to the last official release... most notably an extensive update the the CTF mode, some neat additional features for competitive gaming and an assortment of great new maps.
On the technical side of things, the engine DarkPlaces got quite a few performance improvements (mainly due to the fact that the creator now works at Valve software and thus has direct access to Nvidia's and AMD's graphics hardware divisions) and that an all new script compiler is now in use. That it runs on SDL 2.0 might also increase it's usability a lot for some.
There are also finally an animation bending feature for the player-models and creation of new characters has never been easier now that the iqm format is used.
You can comment on this release over at the Xonotic forum release announcement thread (or of course here in our comment section).
Also check out these two still under heavy development mods for xonotic:
P.S.: If you have a really fast Android device, you can also try to run Xonotic on it via this newly fixed DarkPlaces port. Just don't expect to be able to compete online with touchscreen input :p
Here is a nice (but slightly older) game-play video for those not having played Xonotic yet:
Changes are quite extensive compared to the last official release... most notably an extensive update the the CTF mode, some neat additional features for competitive gaming and an assortment of great new maps.
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| New maps in Xonotic 0.7 |
There are also finally an animation bending feature for the player-models and creation of new characters has never been easier now that the iqm format is used.
You can comment on this release over at the Xonotic forum release announcement thread (or of course here in our comment section).
Also check out these two still under heavy development mods for xonotic:
- Overkill is a mod that attempts to combine the best of minsta gameplay and TDM/CTF. It also has some nice vector shaded new weapons and player models.
- DotC is an DOTA like but in 1st person view type of mod.
P.S.: If you have a really fast Android device, you can also try to run Xonotic on it via this newly fixed DarkPlaces port. Just don't expect to be able to compete online with touchscreen input :p
Monday, June 3, 2013
Hedgewars 0.9.19 released
Everyone's favorite clone of worm-warfare, Hedgewars recently got a rather big new release as one of the developers pointed out to us by email.
The changes are quite extensive, so instead of failing to summarize them here, check out the above linked quite extensive original release announcement.
You can also have a look at this fan-made trailer if you enjoy cheezy stuff ;)
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| One of the new level themes for Hedgewars 0.9.19 |
The changes are quite extensive, so instead of failing to summarize them here, check out the above linked quite extensive original release announcement.
You can also have a look at this fan-made trailer if you enjoy cheezy stuff ;)
Monday, April 8, 2013
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.
Downloads:
Code License: GPLv3
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:
Code License: GPLv3
Content License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Red Eclipse 1.4 and a missed birthday
Good news is that the long awaited Red Eclipse version 1.4 was released yesterday.
Read the announcement (with full change-log) here. Besides general polish the most notable features are:
The bad news is that we missed Xonotic's third birthday, but you can still congratulate here (where you can also read about some pretty cool updates to the game). To celebrate it, kojin made a nice frag movie:
Enjoy!
Read the announcement (with full change-log) here. Besides general polish the most notable features are:
Especially the visible legs in 1st person view add to the parcour movements and overall the game feels much more "complete" now. Here are some impressions of a bot-match I had earlier on:
- Vanity items and improved colours: dress up and frag with style.
- Visible legs in first person: know where you are kicking and parkouring.
- New and revamped maps: bringing you even more variety.
- Better viewing: level flythroughs, improved third and first person cameras.
- Better menus and other HUD elements: easier to see and read at a glance.
- New weapon: Mines add a new dimension to the existing gameplay.
- New mode: attack and defend in Gauntlet, competing for the most laps.
- Automatic demo recording: for those times you just have to watch it again.
- User Accounts: donate or contribute, and wear the in-game supporter badge.
- Improved weapon balance and gameplay rules, bugs fixed, and much more.
The bad news is that we missed Xonotic's third birthday, but you can still congratulate here (where you can also read about some pretty cool updates to the game). To celebrate it, kojin made a nice frag movie:
Enjoy!
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Are We Alone? Atmospheric 2D
Are We Alone screenshot: Safe on Earth
Are We Alone - a space game where you travel from planet to planet, between star systems in search of intelligent life - has been released on Github under MIT license.
It was made for Ludum Dare 22 "alone" and is a quite atmospheric piece.
Code License: MIT
Content License: Unknown
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Shunned Survivor: MMORTS Tower Defense
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| Defending your outpost in Shunned Survivor |
Shunned Survivor is one of the entries for PyWeek #15 September 2012 "One Way Trip".
In the genre mix between MMORTS, city building, economy simulation and tower defense game, you control an exiled human, with the apparent goal to get back to earth.
The interaction with other players is quite indirect. You can attack other player's bases and win the "data" resource this way, which you need to perform "research" actions. However, defeating a base does not change it, you simply get the reward and can attack again.
Shunned Survivor Server map
While researching, however, you need to perform in a tower defense minigame, during which your defensive towers can be destroyed. If you succeed, the research was successful. If not, you have to enforce your defenses and try again.
Even though quite a bit of the gameplay time is spent on waiting for resources to be generated by the various resource gathering buildings, I find this game very entertaining and highly recommend you to give it a try.
Code License: CC0
Content License: CC0
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Free Orion 0.4.2
A few day ago a much improved version of the 4X space strategy game FreeOrion was released. Check out this cool set of introduction videos (Part 1, 2, 3):
Most notable additons:
Most notable additons:
So go and kick some alien butt ;)
- Very much improved, non-cheating AI. Sometimes experienced 4X players loose.
- Many GUI enhancements and shortcuts.
- Galactopedia expanded with game mechanics articles and many cross-links.
- Batch production of ships now possible.
- Improved sitrep notifications
- Reworked stealth and detection
- Almost everything has been enhanced, reworked, and better balanced.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Asylum: Free-as-in-Freedom Horror Adventure, Successfully Crowd-Funded
This is a guest post by Hythlodaeus on an interesting FLOSS game engine project, being developed by a professional games company.
I guess I should take a few paragraphs on this article to explain my stance on crowd-funded game projects. I've always been turned off by most Kickstarter game projects for a very simple reason: after personally inquiring a plethora of developers on their stance for Open-Source and Free Software, I was generally met with negative replies, half-baked excuses, bitter retorts or complete silence.
Now, although I recognize it is every developer's right to pick the license and the conditions for the usage of their own work, it strikes me as a very odd attitude for people engaging into crowd funding projects to be so unwilling to provide any other warranties to their prospective backers and future customers other than “we will make this happen if you give us enough money”. From this point, let's make something clear: pledging on a crowd-funded game project isn't exactly the same thing as buying a video game. From the backers' part it's an investment and a risk. It's about depositing your faith on other peoples' words, in hopes they will eventually deliver what they promised. When you buy a game, be it good or bad, you at least know that you're dealing with a finished product. When you pledge on a crowd-funded project, completion is only a possibility regardless of the campaign's success.
So, in my personal opinion, I've always thought crowd-funded game projects should strive to provide the level of trust they request from their backers. In this case, that means allowing people to have access to the game's source code under a permissive / Free Software license, preferably starting right at the end of the campaign. Why? Simply because that allows for a tighter control of what's going on in the development backstage, and will allow every contributor to provide better feedback on the work being done. Raw engine code also gives backers something that can eventually be picked up and used for other personal purposes, if the project happens to fail for some reason.
With that said, let's talk a little about this project, which is, after all, what lead me to write this post. Asylum is the brainchild of Agustin Cordes, the Argentinian developer behind Scratches, a horror game that managed to get some degree of attention way back in 2006. The project aims to create a Lovecraftian-inspired horror point-and-click adventure game that will focus on an intense and immersive atmosphere, followed closely by engaging storytelling. From the trailer and screenshots provided so far, it seems like a rather professional endeavour, but for me the most pleasant surprise, was that the developer's in-house engine, Dagon, will be Free and Open-Source. On top of that, Cordes himself actually took the time to explain why he believes the engine should be free, and how such a decision aims not only to help preserve Asylum for future generations, but also to empower other indie developers by providing an open platform anyone will be free to use.
Since there is no information available about specific licensing on the project page, I actually went on to ask the developer about which specific license was being used for the Dagon engine:
With little less than a few days to go (I'm ashamed to say I only heard about this project very recently), Asylum is already fully funded, but if you still wish to contribute to this genuinely FLOSS project, or simply purchase the game for a special price, you still have a chance. Extra funding goals have already been set, and some additional rewards may also seem worthy to you.
I guess I should take a few paragraphs on this article to explain my stance on crowd-funded game projects. I've always been turned off by most Kickstarter game projects for a very simple reason: after personally inquiring a plethora of developers on their stance for Open-Source and Free Software, I was generally met with negative replies, half-baked excuses, bitter retorts or complete silence.
Now, although I recognize it is every developer's right to pick the license and the conditions for the usage of their own work, it strikes me as a very odd attitude for people engaging into crowd funding projects to be so unwilling to provide any other warranties to their prospective backers and future customers other than “we will make this happen if you give us enough money”. From this point, let's make something clear: pledging on a crowd-funded game project isn't exactly the same thing as buying a video game. From the backers' part it's an investment and a risk. It's about depositing your faith on other peoples' words, in hopes they will eventually deliver what they promised. When you buy a game, be it good or bad, you at least know that you're dealing with a finished product. When you pledge on a crowd-funded project, completion is only a possibility regardless of the campaign's success.
So, in my personal opinion, I've always thought crowd-funded game projects should strive to provide the level of trust they request from their backers. In this case, that means allowing people to have access to the game's source code under a permissive / Free Software license, preferably starting right at the end of the campaign. Why? Simply because that allows for a tighter control of what's going on in the development backstage, and will allow every contributor to provide better feedback on the work being done. Raw engine code also gives backers something that can eventually be picked up and used for other personal purposes, if the project happens to fail for some reason.
With that said, let's talk a little about this project, which is, after all, what lead me to write this post. Asylum is the brainchild of Agustin Cordes, the Argentinian developer behind Scratches, a horror game that managed to get some degree of attention way back in 2006. The project aims to create a Lovecraftian-inspired horror point-and-click adventure game that will focus on an intense and immersive atmosphere, followed closely by engaging storytelling. From the trailer and screenshots provided so far, it seems like a rather professional endeavour, but for me the most pleasant surprise, was that the developer's in-house engine, Dagon, will be Free and Open-Source. On top of that, Cordes himself actually took the time to explain why he believes the engine should be free, and how such a decision aims not only to help preserve Asylum for future generations, but also to empower other indie developers by providing an open platform anyone will be free to use.
Me: Hello. I have one question regarding Dagon. You already stated it's going to be free and open source, but exactly under which software license are you going to release it?“MPL” referring of course to the Mozilla Public License, which despite not being a strong copyleft license, it is both Free Software and GPL compatible. So perhaps Dagon can motivate a new generation of graphic adventure lovers to innovate upon the work started by Asylum. We can only hope future Kickstarter projects and indie developers adopt a similar perspective on Open-Source development.
Agustin Cordes: Hi! We're currently using CDDL but I'm expecting to re-license with the more popular MPL 2.0 very soon. Cheers!
Me: Fair enough. Do I have your permission to quote this conversation in a news blog about Free Software gaming?
Agustin Cordes: Absolutely! :)
With little less than a few days to go (I'm ashamed to say I only heard about this project very recently), Asylum is already fully funded, but if you still wish to contribute to this genuinely FLOSS project, or simply purchase the game for a special price, you still have a chance. Extra funding goals have already been set, and some additional rewards may also seem worthy to you.
The source for Asylum's engine, Dagon, can already be found here, currently licensed under CDDL (Thanks to Evropi for pointing this out).
