Cry for programming help!

Ok, we don't normally do these kind of recruitment posts (don't send us emails about that!), but for the following two FOSS game gems we will make an exception (and it is officially sanctioned by our boss Charlie ;) ).

So which ones do I mean? Well these:

Link to homepage; example video

Link to homepage; example video

In recent months both games have stalled in development and people are starting to become quite pessimistic about the future (1,2).

Strangely enough (for typical FOSS projects) it is not the artists who lack (there is actually an active group of contributors for both games, who are eager to see their artwork in the game; examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, all CC-by-SA licensed) but a severe lack of programmers.

An example of not yet implemented OD graphics

So how can you help out and dig into the code, and why am I posting about both games the same time? Well both are actually build on a somewhat similar base, utilizing OGRE3D for graphics and CEGUI for the GUI elements. Now I have to admit, given my very much lacking C++ skills, I am aware that that is probably where the similarities end, but have a look at their developers pages (1, 2) and source-code yourself if you are interested.

Now why would one want to merge the code-base of two completely different games (the one being a strategy game, the other an ARPG)? Well surprisingly enough they would complement each other quite well, with a similar theme and the nice prospect of using the OD mechanics also as an in-game editor (which is really lacking for SumWars).

In addition to that it would open up the possibility of a really cool multiplayer/COOP game mode as I explained here. This comic sums up the idea (minus the Wii-U):

Copyright: Penny Arcade

So warm up your OGRE3D coding skills and give these projects some help, preferably including a merger! THANKS in advance!

Good FOSS 3D action RPGs, nowhere to be found?

Today I got a small rant:
So there are a few really prominent types of games which ought to have their FOSS representatives, right?
Ok, well a few like epic story driven single-player games will probably never show up due to inherent problems to develop such games through the FOSS method, but besides that lets have a look what we got:

• Good and playable FOSS multi-player FPS games under active development? 
• Check! (Xonotic, RedEclipse and several other with un-free media)
• Good and playable FOSS RTS games under active development?
• Check! (0 A.D., MegaGlest, Warzone2100, Spring mods etc.)
• Good and playable FOSS racing games under active development?
• Hmm... not an expert, but I guess Speed Dreams and Stunt Rally apply.
• Flight simulators, turn based strategy?
• Check: Flightgear!
• Check: Battle for Wesnoth!
• Action RPGs like Diablo or Torchlight?
• Hmmm???

Ok... sure you will find some other genres (Mechsims, realistic tactical FPS etc.) which also lack a much played/far into development FOSS representative, but given the (current) popularity of action RPGs lets have a look at what we do have:

So, there is the really cool project FLARE, which besides being not really playable yet is also more of a nostalgic effort. More playable but also with a similar demographic of potential players is Freedroid (besides having a maybe too Linux centric style).

FLARE 2D graphics style

Maybe of interest seem to be DawnRPG and PARPG, but for both the above applies as well and they seem to be going into a rather different direction. Besides that, at least the latter seems to be not progressing well lately.

Then there are the obscure and/or non-isometric DNT and Lips of Suna. Which are both nice projects on their own (especially LoS seems to develop nicely as of late), but are not really suitable as the FOSS reference for action RPGs...

The only game that comes to my mind that would fit is Summoning Wars, which is somewhat playable and even has a single-player campaign, but development is really slow and it is still a long way off what I would call a recommendable game to non-FOSS enthusiasts.

Some new dungeon wall tests

All in all it is a very promising project, which is IMHO hold back by its lack of content creation tools (mainly, but not only a world editor). This is probably partially because of the intention to have randomly generated dungeons, but those are still really bland to look at, and should be complemented by parts or at least towns that are nicely designed by hand (those also exists, but must have been done in a text editor or such ;) ).

Part of the rather slow development I guess was the poor choice of the graphics engine, e.g. OGRE 3D which is foremost a programmers choice (due to nice features and good documentation), but a rather bad FOSS game developers choice in my opinion (due to the lack of a complete game-engine features and good tools).

There are still a few really talented artists trying to contribute (1,2,3), and I recently proposed a creative re-use of 0 A.D. assets, but everything seems to be hitting a road block when it comes to easy tinkering with the game and getting things to actually run in game... and that is really demotivating to potential contributors (FOSS development advise 101 ;) ).

So to sum it up? I think Summoning Wars is really not living up to what it could be, and the only solution I see would be the addition of a new and really motivated programmer to the team to solve the tool-chain problems and thus restart the active development again. Anyone interested???

P.S.: Not to forget mentioning it: There is also the IrrRPG builder, which could probably be a good base to build an action RPG too.

New websites, releases and competitions etc

Couldn't really think of a fitting headline, but here is the bunch of randomly collected news from the FOSS gaming realm:

First of all, OpenDungeons finally got a nice website and a blog (as mentioned previously). And in collaboration with OpenGameArt, the kicked off their art competitions again.

SummoningWars also got a new website recently, and they have also released version 0.55 a few days ago.

New Summoning Wars GUI

Last but not least, the pledgie donation drive for 0 A.D. seemed to have payed off to some extend, so one of the main developers is now working full time on the game for one month. See here for his first report on things newly implemented (most notable a save-game feature). But... you can still donate to keep him motivated longer ;)

Two FOSS gems

Ok today I have updates for two real FOSS gems. First of all the long promised update on ZeroBallistics: the former indi, now FOSS tank shooter. A few weeks ago thy made all the game (including even .blend model source files!) available under the GPLv2 (and the media also under CC-BY-SA) so even the most hardcore FOSS enthusiasts will be pleased :)

After some trouble compiling it (more on that later) I made a nice game-play video today (sorry for the low frame-rate, but my PC wasn't quite up to the task):

ZeroBallistics game-play

Pretty neat, isn't it? The developers are currently looking into getting their master-server and website back up running soon, but are also looking for more people to help them out!

There is especially one problem that needs to be solved however: Currently it still depends on the un-free Raknet3 for networking, so it's not possible to distribute GPL binaries. There is an older GPL version of Raknet2 which could be maybe used (we talked about it earlier), but it has its far share of problems too (f.e. broken 64bit support). Another project recently replaced it with their own enet wrapper, so maybe that could be also used. So if you know your coding, get into contact with the ZeroBallistics developers ASAP!

Summoning Wars 0.5.2 released

Speaking of Summoning Wars, they have just released their new version now with music and sounds (at least partially). Check out the game yourself (available for Linux, Windows or Mac)!

Edit: Here is a small video showing some features:

Summoning Wars game-play

But for those that like more eye-candy, the next version with terrain system will for sure make you look again. Besides with upcoming new player models like this, it will for sure look even greater soon.

Summering Wars and Mac OSX

Recently modeled & textured SumWars character by Evil_E

While the sun warms my body, Summoning Wars' development activity warms my fossy heart: icons are being created by hal9000, sounds are being mixed by artisticdude, music is being composed by West. And of course the 3D model, see the image on top of this post.

A new release (0.5.1) has been recently uploaded and the next release is being discussed.

One quite important planned feature is an OSX port, as there are at least two (if I recall correctly) who use that operating system to produce art for the game. CMake is used for compiling on Linux, so I suspect that porting might be in fact trivial. If you can help with the task, please report to their forums/irc! :)

Of Summoning Wars and RakNet

When I found out that Summoning Wars, it in fact uses a freely licensed network library, I wanted to test it, but failed at compiling. Today, with fresh Subversion checkout, I succeeded and was surprised by a Diablo-rules-style RPG with 3D graphics (OGRE) a lot of dialog (hours and hours of tutorials ;) ), choices, different character classes and various spells and items.

Sarcophagus open up! (And let me take precious loot!)

Enlightening zombies in a dark cave with fireballs

Leaving loot behind

Why am I  even writing these captions?

Action-RPG GUI layout 101: Left: Character, Right: Skills or Inventory

Scaring goblins to death with a lovely mask

4-way dialog sequences make plot confusing fun!


Video: Rescuing some NPC [.ogg (shorter)]

I wonder what the network part is all about. I could imagine cooperative plot-games to be fun.. Anyways, about the net lib:

The popular network library RakNet is neither open source nor free software, as defined by OSI and FSF. However, version 2.451 (Feb 18th 2006) is GPL-licensed. It can be found via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine [zip mirror]. The developers of Summoning Wars mirrored some version as well and even created an Arch Linux AUR package.

The owner of RakNet commented on GPL in commercial game development.

Port and Configure - Specialists Wanted for Diablo-like and 3D and cute pixels!

Holyspirit is a good-looking hack & slash game with (rendered?) 3D graphics, which I unfortunately was only able to run using wine (and it wasn't very stable either: entering some areas and saving would cause it to freeze).

It appears however, that it should be very simple to make it compile on Linux, somebody will just have to figure out how to make Code::Blocks (.cbp files is provided) find SFML, a SDL alternative that is used by Holyspirit and provide compile instructions.

DotModeler is a 3D pixel editor which could use non-AZERTY language keyboard bindings and a little bit of English-language documentation (or anything that can be easily translated).

Kwest Kingdom is a Kwute roguelike which even a Nethack-hater like me can love! Here's a YT video [TO] of the kewtness.

I haven't been able to compile the game (I think) but it apparently has 64bit Linux binaries in its GIT repository and Windows binaries for download. Still, I think the Makefile might use some cleaning up. Volunteer! For cuteness in FOSS games! EDIT: My fault, see comments for clarity!

Summoning Wars is the third Diablo-like in the last two months you read about here. It uses OGRE but unfortunately also the non-free RakNet and could use some alternative library support. (Hintedy hint hint.)

EDIT: Apparently the version used is an old GPL-compatible version of RakNet. I will report, as soon as I know more. You can follow the discussion here.