Spaced Out - Vega Strike and Pioneer betas plus Multiplayer Simutrans and MotoGT

The recent blogging activity, spurred on by the growth in official Free Gamer blog authors, is a pleasure to see. When I started the blog back in 2006, I didn't think it'd ever be so popular, let alone last this long.

* Casual reference to remind readers that I am the original author and, should I ever be displeased, I will smite thee with banana flesh limbs.

^ Reference to IVAN; LIVAN or IVANX are better - see community site for variants.

Vega Strike Shaders

There's a new beta release for Vega Strike. Version 0.5.1 beta 1 (forum announcement) is a bigger point release than the 0.5.0->0.5.1 step implies. Improved planet shaders, lots of bug fixing, lots of general tidy up, video support (mainly for mods) and a lot more ships.

Coincidentally, one of the original Vega Strike authors is working on a project called OurBricks for online collaboration of 3D resources. Lots of the Vega Strike ships are already uploaded.

The ever impressive Pioneer Space Sim project, an Elite-inspired game, continues its activity with the release of Pioneer beta 9. Changelog includes rewritten combat AI, lots of HUD work, some even nicer planet terrain, trade ships, and more.

Also there's big news for Simutrans fans. There was a lull in releases after Simutrans 102.2.2 as the team worked on introducing multiplayer. After nearly a year, version 110.0.1 (and 110.0.0 before it) has arrived with the usual plethora of fixes and well as full multiplayer support.

Our final exciting release is for the fourth beta for MotoGT. Changes include new tracks, effects, joystick support, full championship mode, and more. A video:

Stunt Rally 1.0 plus Pioneer and LambdaRogue

I thought I'd come out of the desert back to this oasis of fun for the evening. Some emails to the freegamerblog gmail account (yes - I check it, sporadically) prompted this post. I do try to respond to everybody, even if sometimes I leave it a few weeks *cough* or months *cough* between logging in to the account.

Stunt Rally

Stunt Rally is a modification of VDrift which takes the VDrift physics engine and adapts it to the Ogre3D graphics engine. Add in a few really nifty Ogre3D-based components (terrain etc) and you have a very cool FOSS rally game! Since it was originally mentioned on the blog a few months ago, progress has continued unabated and the game has improved a lot.

In fact, the 10th public version - Stunt Rally 1.0 - just got released! 35 tracks to drive on, in 6 sceneries, and 7 cars to choose from. There is also a fully functional Track Editor to create your own tracks or modify the existing ones.

Above is a gameplay video of Stunt Rally. There's also a track editing tutorial (part 1, part 2) and more videos on the authors YouTube page.

Rigs of Rods

Another cool driving/flying/anything game is Rigs of Rods and development activity continues with the project more than ever since it became open source. Here is the 2010 RoR tech demo video:

Another cool, if less exciting Rigs of Rods video is this showcase for a hill climbing map. It does include some dodgy physics and trees, but the damage to the overturning cars is impressive and some of the views are spectacular.

I do wonder, so very publicly, if RoR suffers from being a bit too flexible. I mean, I don't see much 'game' in there. Lots of simulation, but the idea of loading crates or driving articulated lorries over hilly terrain... it just doesn't appeal to me. Racing on Stunt Rally does. Perhaps that's a challenge for the RoR team in 2011 - to present a more fun side to the game in addition to the simulating nature of it. Then again, simulating is fun for some.

...this post is turning out a bit longer than I planned. Let's be a little less ponderous.

LambdaRogue

LambdaRogue 1.6 just came out. This graphical rogue like looks fun. If you like RPGs but can't get into the ASCII nature of most rogue-likes (i.e. like me) then this is worth a download. It comes with both hi-res and lo-res tilesets.

LambdaRogue

Pioneer Space Sim

Pioneer. This is wicked. Dynamic planets. Check out these gorgeous screenshots (lifted from this thread). 'Nuff said.

Pioneer Space Sim

I'm off before I start to write an essay on the latest Free Software games...