First, after 12 years of development, SuperTuxKart is a candidate for the March project of the month at Sourceforge. This is a huge honor and a significant boost for the project, so please vote for us here.
Second, last month we were featured in Microsoft's IllumiRoom demo alongside Red Eclipse (another FOSS game) and Halo. For those who are interested, you can find the video in the last post. It's the second time STK has been featured in an unexpected place. The game has previously appeared in an episode of the show Friday Night Lights. The episode was critical of drug use and videogames, so downloads for the game probably didn't go up. I am not entirely sure why they chose a kart racer game over, let's say, postal 3, but licensing issues are likely to have played a prominent role in their decision. STK's permissive licenses mean, companies don't need to contact us before using it in media.
Bubblegum:
The Bubble gum powerup currently can be dropped by a player to create a track obstacle. While not finalized, there is an idea to make it more useful by including a second phase to this particular powerup. The first phase occurs when the player activates the gum, it expands into a pink force-field which protects the player from enemy attacks for 15 seconds. If the player is hit by a weapon while the force-field is up, the shield is destroyed, and bubble gum shrapnel will hit any players within a certain proximity blinding them for a couple seconds. It will also leave a smear on the ground which if hit, will cause a moderate decrease in the players speed.
The second phase happens if the fifteen seconds pass without the shield being destroyed. It shrinks back down and the player can then drop it on the ground like in the current version of the game.
This is a level Samuncle is currently working on.
Konqi's new kart:
Here's what will likely be the final version of Konqi's new kart. It now includes pedals and a steering wheel. It's looking good.
Funto is working on adding wiimote support via the open source library “wiiuse” https://github.com/rpavlik/wiiuse. After 3 years it's finally coming together. Wiimotes now work on Linux and Windows (if you compile from the latest svn). It is not working on OS X yet, but Auria is buying a wiimote to try to get it working on her Mac. There are also some issues with tuning and steering that need to be worked out and we have not integrated support for motionplus, because only the external version was working. So wiimotes with motionplus built in will not work (older models will). We may add the motionplus functionality in later and we always appreciate help.
Game Tutorial:
Auria is developing a gameplay tutorials covering the core gameplay elements for new players. The tutorial takes place on a modified version of the track “Hacienda” and the player takes a single lap around the track. During the lap the game pauses periodically to explains things like how to control the kart, obtaining and using weapons and powerups, how to use nitro boosters and the skidding feature.
New WIP Game Mode: Soccer
Soccer mode is one of our developer funto's, pet projects. It's a multiplayer game mode where two teams fight to push an oversized soccer ball into the opposing team's goal. There is a test level derived from the Stadium arena. Currently, obstacles have been removed, but map makers could always re-add them. It's WIP, and the scoring system is not currently implemented and the system for making team's is still a WIP.
Other enhancements:
- Sparking particles now emit from the kart's wheel's while drifting. It's a welcomed addition. You can also compare Konqi's old kart (below) to the new one (above).
- Characters can now wear customizable hats. We'd love to see what people can make
You can test all these features out today by downloading and compiling the latest trunk of the SVN, located at: http://supertuxkart.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/supertuxkart/main/
How to compile from from source:
I doubt they were actually showing an Xbox as I'm unaware of either Red Eclipse or SuperTuxKart being able to run on one.
I find it fascinating that 2 FOSS games would appear this way. Either this is an indication of red tape avoidance (no permission required for GPL games) or a cultural shift within Microsoft - or perhaps I'm just reading too much into it.
It certainly adds some validation to the games themselves, indicating they are impressive enough to feature as part of a video by one of the world's foremost technology companies. So hats off to the developers of both projects and also the projects that enabled them (CubeSauerbraten, TuxKart) - I like it that both games are good examples of open source in action.
My name is Artem (KroArtem in IRC) and I wanted to post an article here almost for a year. Nowadays I have an opportunity to do this. Let me introduce myself: I'm studying at St.Petersburg State University, Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Control Processes, trying to become a programmer and a mathematician :) In my spare time I like to test some linux games, report bugs, give feedback, translate them and so on. Actually this is the way I've met SuperTuxKart developers. Today I want to obtain an interview from them.
Firstly, let me remind you what SuperTuxKart is. SuperTuxKart is a kart racing game that features free software mascots, has a cartoony style, includes different game modes and supports multiplayer (split-screen). You can visit STK's site and receive some more information about the game.
Secondly, I want to name our beloved developers and contributors: Joerg «hiker» Henrichs, Marianne «Auria» Gagnon, Magne «Arthur_D» Djupvik and Jean-Manuel Clemençon aka «samuncle». Please note that there are some more contributors but unfortunately I didn't manage to contact them. I think 4 people would be enough for the interview, though :)
I've prepared some questions and sent them via emails and here are the results:
FG: Please say some words about yourself/your job.
FG: Explain in a few words how and when did you join STK's team?
FG: Say what role do you have in the project? (Leader, package maintainer, etc)
FG: Why do you work on this project?
Incidentally, the fact that it is like Mario Kart was never a point for working on STK - I had never played any kart game till two years after I started working on STK (and people kept on telling me: "It's like MK", so after a while I decided to have a look).
It also keeps me entertained on my way to work, since I mostly work on the train on my way to work :)
FG: Are you satisfied with existing development? Do you think STK needs more contributors/testers/artists?
But the team itself works quite well together, so I am quite happy about this.
FG: How do you see STK in the future?
FG: What do you think is important, what do you like / don't like in stk's development/community/etc.
The most disappointing point is that we often get people interested in helping to develop STK, but they then disappear leaving a less than half finished mess of code behind. I guess many people overestimate their available time, or underestimate the complexity of STK.
Finally I want to say that we're waiting some new and interesting additions, like Overworld, a big track from where the player will start his journey, or... but hey, feel free to follow SuperTuxKart updates via forum, blog or mailing lists! :)
Global Game Jam 2012 is over and you can find all the by-nc-sa-licensed games here. We talked to the organizers about allowing free (as in freedom etc.) licenses and got some positive replies, but in the end it was too short a notice.
We ask you now to write a short message to GGJ, asking for the inclusion of further licenses, for example a GPL+CC-BY-SA combination for GGJ 2013. Also feel free to discuss this in the comments.
If you participated in GGJ, we would like to encourage you to release your games under free licenses in addition to the required nc license.
Speaking of jams, the 7day-jam-during-one-month by Experimental Gameplay Project is "Infinite Worlds" for this month.
As recently announced, one of the new features in SuperTuxKart 0.8 will be an overworld-connected challenge system.
Flight Gear's blog released a new interview. You can find the other interviews so far linked in this post.
Here's a video of some of the content you can get via the add-on manager:
In case you are on Linux or OS X, consider getting the 0.7.2a release, which should perform much better [info here].
Two more content addition in this version are:
- New Beastie Kart
- New Snow Peak track by Samuncle
So, maybe today we just make a small summery of recent news that popped up in our Freegamedev forums (boring for the forum regulars I know :p ):
First of all (as we mention that project way to little), find a release candidate of the latest SuperTuxKart version in this thread.
In our showcase forum you can also find a nice (but low-fi) turn based strategy game called Strategic Initiative, which is made by the same guy who was also behind the classic Empire (well I didn't know it before ;) ). Also don't miss the updates on The Legend of Edgar.
Back in the section of out hosted projects, the user Skorpio has been showcasing some nice Mechs for Linwarrior3D lately, which are now being integrated into the game:
At the Red Eclipse forums an interesting collaboration project to make a mod loosely based on Team Fortress (classic?) recently showed up, with the user John_III making a lot of progress on the first map (and a very recent small WIP by me too ;) ):
Oh and the work that is currently done to redesign the look of OpenDungeons as seen in this thread, is looking rather fantastic too.
In other words, don't miss the action in our forums (and on the FG planet), during this time of little blog updates ;)
- SuperTuxKart 0.7.1 released! [great changelog!]
- Former CubeCreate lead dev will now work on OctaForge (so far #octaforge chat is the only piece of infrastructure)
- Search and Rescue II has improved sound and uses OpenAL now
- jClassicRPG's developer wrote short-term goals for the project (also forum registration now works)
- Creative Commons licenses are now officially available in .txt format (for easy inclusion in Your Game Project)
- Adam Drew of Red Hat will webcast about Linux/Open Source music production April 20
- Steampunk MMO project Tempest in the Aether will have an OpenGameArt-featured art contest during Weekend of April 30th - a todo list will be released on April 20th
OverDose is pretty
What is OverDose? Edit: correct link
OverDose is a Multiplayer team objective based game with online and offline play. Two sides, Earths Confederate Marine Corps. and the evil alien Marauders, battle for control of locations on Earth. Based in a first person, the two conflicting teams must battle not only each other, but large open terrain areas. Every class has his own strong and weak points, but every class is a vital role to the game.
On a technical front, it uses a highly evolved Quake II iD tech 2 engine which renders better than Doom 3 iD tech 4, as evidenced by this video and that video. The gameplay sounds quite good too.
FlightGear
FlightGear 1.9.0 got released. The actual announcement is buried in the mailing list. (For those fortunate enough to have never experienced it, the Sourceforge list archives are about as user unfriendly as you'll find, so you should appreciate me having found it! This release is a major overhaul of the graphics code, FlightGear now makes use of the
OpenSceneGraph library, and work on this has been going on for 2 years, since well before the FlightGear 1.0 release. Some highlights include dynamically configurable 3D Clouds, wingmen AI, particle-based rain, read the announcement for more.
SuperTuxKart 0.6 is out, hot on the heels of 0.6rc1. Here's a video showing some STK gameplay and some of the new levels. Given the level of activity, I'm optimistic that we'll see STK 0.7 this year (prettier graphics, better features with Irrlicht replacing PLIB) and that it'll be really impressive. There's still some level design work to be done though - the new levels are significantly nicer looking compared to the old ones you, the contrast stands out to me in this video.
Generally pygame entries are a bit naff. There are, however, a few nuggets. Like this World-of-Goo-inspired sandbox, the Gauntlet-style zombiefest Plague-like (pygame entry) or this interesting looking RPG engine Dead Creatures Rising (pygame entry). Still, it really needs a rating system to sort out the wheat from the chaff because there is far too much chaff to wade through these days.
L-echo, an open source implementation of the popular game Echochrome, seems to be coming along nicely. Version 0.4.1 released recently. Here's a video of l-echo in action:
Did I mention Naev before? Doesn't seem like it. Anyhow, it's a 2D space RPG in the mould of Solar Winds (like anybody actually knew what that was, other than me). It looks nice, but the controls take a bit of getting used to. You'll need to have a longer attention span than me if you're going to be able...
I wonder if we'll see an executive order closing down Windows. It's like a virtual detention centre where open source [game] developers are subjected to unspeakable things when forced to support it. On another note, I got to OverDose via the Haiku website. Perhaps Haiku can be a future gaming platform? I wonder if that skinny guy with a funny name even knows what Haiku is?
Well, it's belated, but better late than never. :-)
The Warzone 2100 team released version 2.1 of their continuation of the formerly-commercial RTS. The news link is broken for some reason. EDIT: And here is the fixed one. Well, the big 'hole' in WZ2100 has been the FMV that was in the original game, that comes in 2.2 I am told, but 2.1 is more stable and playable than ever (although I'm don't know the specific improvements over 2.0).
AssaultCube got a new website and a new release, version 1.0.2 which fixes a few glitches and brings some extra polish to the 1.0.x series of AC. Apparently Cube 2 (aka Sauerbraten) dev Eihrul has been backporting enhancements to AC, so looks much better than Cube 1, but I can't say for sure.
Speaking of Free FPS games, I thought this SuperTuxKart track, Sub-sea, being ported to Nexuiz was quite intriguing:
Speaking of SuperTuxKart, I can't remember if I mentioned or saw the 0.6rc1 release anywhere. By all accounts it's a massive improvement over 0.5 and the game is starting to realise a bit of it's potential. Version 0.7 will bring an overhaul of the graphics engine (port to Irrlicht from PLIB) and that plus all the new track development that is occuring, 2009 should be the year that STK becomes a showcase Free Software game. Still, the competition is getting tougher, but I hope that serves as motivation. :-)
Here's two questions for you, the readers, answers in comments please!
What was your favourite new project from 2008?
Mine was JCRPG - just from Word War Vi.
Which project do you look forward to new releases from this year?
For me, definitely Scourge (0.22 brings support for new model formats, which I think will make people pay more attention to it), with Vega Strike and UFO:AI releases also something I look forward to checking out.
Hero of Allacrost 0.2.2 has been released and now needs a new home! It is house-trained and can be picked up 24/7 from it's SourceForge shelter.
One can now enter buildings (in a pleasant no-transition way) and an editor is now included. I gave the editor a try.
My first thought was: "What a waste of energy! Why did they not incorporate Tiled, as for example Battle Tanks did?" But then I remembered that my last encounter with the general purpose Java editor. It showed me that instead of being able to completely rely on Tiled, a team would have to create an extra tool for tasks that go beyond map editing. At least a team of non-Java programmers (Allacrost is in C++ and Lua).
Allacrost's editor will go beyond tiles. When it's finished, it will also be a character, skills and inventory editor and will support integration of music/sounds.
Greg Cannon blocking the view on STK ;)GamePwned is a freeware and open source games blog. A video-review of VDrift and SuperTuxKart was recently posted on it. (The third one, HoverRace, has a weird license). Reminds me of the time when freeware titles were often mentioned on Free Gamer. Mid-1980s IIRC.
I wonder if Sauce The Game is ever going to happen again...
Teewars Teeworlds 0.4.3Teewars Teeworlds 0.4.3 is out and some of the changes indicate a wide player base: auto team balance and anti-spam fixes. I gave the game a try a minute ago and the fun and prettiness and cuteness are there! Unfortunately I'm no fan of grapple hooks.
Teewars' Teeworlds' license is a bugger though. Instead of "please don't sell this game" is says "you have to include a hello world app if you want to sell this game".
On the other hand, ladies and gentlemen: the bikeshed.
Narrator: On first sight it looks like the commercial online role-playing game Ultima Online. On the second the viewer might spot one or another change. Maybe even something special, which doesn't even exist in the original game.
This game is named Iris 2, built on top of Ultima Online and is freely available online. It was developed by hobby game developers.
It's their hobby, just like others knit pullovers in the evening. Florian Fischer and Iwan Gabovitch develop games in their free time. What's the thrill of developing games on your own?
Florian: It's just fun to be creative and to express this creativity. Games are super for that.
Iwan: First I stopped playing commercial games and started searching for new, interesting games. I found many freeware games and then came across the open source scene, where also games get developed, where
it's easy to contribute, without having to get involved too much.
Narrator: Most developers are not professionals but they have lots of potential and ideas, which they want to share and to put into practice with others.
Free software is being used, which is available gratis online. For example to create graphics of special effects.
For the 3D visualization, Florian works with OGRE. OGRE is open source software, which can be copied, distributed and used without limitation. Working with free software excites the developers.
Florian: Others can download our code, can compile games on their own, can try own things and can improve the programm. The principle of open source is nice: I give something and, as I use open source tools, I also take something.
Narrator: Usually each developer works seperately on his computer but once a year the hobby developers meet live.
The event Dusmania was initiated so that developers could exchange experience, but of course there has to be some actual development too. In nine hours, they had to develop a game. The group of Iwan and Florian created "lalalove", a game in which sounds have to be generated to make people happy.
Iwan was responsible for the graphics in lalalove. First he sketches the images, before layouting them on the PC.
Somebody who invests so much love and free time into game development could work for commercial game producers, but this doesn't interest the community.
Florian: We don't have to follow any rules, we can implement every idea and we can throw it out too. We can be as creative as we want to be and this is fun. We can create prototypes of games and then say "we like this game principle" or maybe someone else in the community likes it and develops it thurther. I find this freedom fascinating.
Narrator: One who wants to experience developing games on his/her own, finds a lot of tips on the web. Beginners are also able to get into the scene easily.
Free Gamer is an online community for hobby game developers. It consists of a blog, a forum and a wiki. The forum is for discussions. On the wiki articles can be published and freely edited. For example there is a list of open source 3D game engines, which everyone can use for his own games.
If someone prefers to play rather than develop, won't be disappointed. Games of all sorts are available on the net. For example the cute SuperTuxKart. Instead of Mario, a penguin drives against the tree.
End of transcription. Please not that all text by the Narrator is not freely licensed and it's copyright is owned by 3sat.
Please note that simplification and generalization are unavoidable if you want to squeeze a topic into four minutes. There are of course people who are interested in commercial application of open source and there are open source game developers who would like to work in non-free, commercial game developer companies.
Left to right: SiENcE, qubodupUpdate: The video can be viewed on YouTube (the part about us starts at 18 seconds).
Hello friends.
Today's post is just a quickie: I (involved in some stuff) and SiENcE (involved in both Iris 2 and OGRE) were interviewed by Cornelia Rettig for 3sat's neues (in German). We talk about open source and hobby game development, visit the Free Gamer blog, the FreeGameDev forum and wiki and show Iris 2, OGRE and SuperTuxKart.
I am ever so excited.
If I understand correctly, you are able to watch the full show inside a time frame of two weeks. Here's a direct link to a asx (windows media player steam file, Kaffeine was able to play it for me.)
You can read these news in the Iris 2 blog too! Also there's an article on 3sat's homepage and you can read an auto-translated English version (using google tools).
In case there's interest in an English version of a transcript of the show, I guess I could do it...... just tell so via the contact link at the top of the blog or via posting a comment in the blog or in the forum. A longer post by me is coming up soon by the way. :)
One step closer to world domi... ah, that joke is getting weak. :p
