Forum un-down #6

A poll/discussion was started to talk about how to handle the forum situation. Please add your two cents to the poll/discussion or comment on this blog post. :)

Quality family entertainment...

So what's up in the Free Gamer world?
Hot news is that the project formerly called Portalized (featured a long time ago on FreeGamer) is now really open-source and renamed Pseudoform! It's still more of a tech-demo, but check this video out:

Pseudoform video

Or even more videos on the Pseudoform website!

More bloody family entertainment

If you are a fan of real quality entertainment and not afraid of a retro look and this might excite you:

Hypertension Trailer

It is an upcoming remake of Monolith Software's 1997 hit Blood! Personally I think it was by far the greatest FPS of it's time, with a wicked sense of humor... but many people were put off by its bad successor Blood2.

So what's cool about Hypertension? It's based on the updated GPL Doom engine EDGE and is coming to Win/Linus/Mac/Dreamcast and GP2X probably as a FOSS indy title. Here is a nice interview, explaining what it is all about and which features are added (f.e. live action video sequences). So if you have not played Blood, this is definitely worth the wait if you aren't afraid of the retro look. (Remark: The Blood game media was released by Monolith for use but not under an FOSS license).


EDIT: It has come to our attention that Hypertension is illegally using the Blood art assets, which were only granted for use to the Transfusion project by the original Developer.

But I need a blood transfusion NOW!

Ok ok! calm down, help is already there:

Transfusion video

Transfusion is a great FOSS remake of Blood, too. It is based on the Dark Places engine, a much updated Quake 1 engine also used by the Nexuiz game (Which released a new version lately too). It is fully 3D and much of the media has been replaced with real models, but after finishing a more or less playable multiplayer version, development sadly stopped.

Hint: Updating it to a newer Dark Places version or turning it into a Nexuiz mod is probably not a lot of work, and the game is already a lot of fun! Personally I would love to see someone reactivate this project!

Blender Game Competition 2010

Dear diary...ermm readers *hust*... this is my first post on this blog so please be gentle with me! I am sort of helping out now and then since qudobup is busy with other stuff. Beeing a forum regular I had to help out of course, even if I might not have the time to post that often.

Ok now to the really important stuff: Blender (everyones favorite GPL 3D modeling application) also has a build in game engine. And what would be nicer than having a nice competition for game creation?

Here is a video of one of the winners from last year (not open-source!):

DukDuk gameplay

So why not join in that get a chunk of the $500 prize?

Why Blender game engine (BGE)?

Wasn't the game engine always the stepchild of the project? Slow, bloated and buggy?
Well things change, and with this years open game project Yo Frankie! things have taken a leap towards greatness!
Speed has been greatly improved, physics are completely integrated and you can do great eyecandy with the OpenGL 2.0 GLSL shaders (here are some more features).
And things look even better with the upcoming Blender 2.5.

Getting started with the BGE

So what can the BGE actually do for aspiring FOSS game developers? Well it is a "game-maker" for grown-ups... so if you want to make games and not learn how to become the the next John Carmack (tm) the BGE is for you. On a low level you need no programming at all, much can be done with the "logic blocks". And for more ambitious projects the BGE is fully scriptable with Python (which is one of the easiest and most comfortable programming languages).

And did I mention that games created are completely multi platform? Linux and MacOSX ports are just one click away!
A good first step would be to head over to blenderartists.com and surf a bit on their game engine sub-forums. There you will find free (some GPL or PD even if the license is not always 100% clear) templates (f.e. FPS or network) and many great tutorials.

And most people there will freely share their .blend files with you which include all art assets, scripts and so on in neat package (open them in Blender, press "p" and the game starts). However not all of it is really licensed in a FOSS way, but at least you can use these as great tutorials. Overall one could say that this is a great way of distributing the "source" of complete FOSS games (code, art, music etc).

Other sites worth noting are GameBlender and maybe the new Blender Games. And of course for all your Blender news: Blender Nation!

So my excuses for these more game development related news... but you will find some nice games to play (done in Blender) in the many links I provided :p
But next time there will be more traditional gaming news!

Update: Some seriously nice eye candy!

This was just released and looks really nice!

Atmospheric scattering made in BGE

Head over to the Blenderartists thread for more info (and .blend download!).
Oh and yes you are free to use it in your own projects!