Stunt Rally is a sandbox racing game with a huge number of tracks (172 in 2.6) and lots of cars. It was originally forked from VDrift and features Ogre3D as a graphics engine instead of the custom (and less sophisticated) graphics engine in VDrift.
A video is worth a thousand pictures and a picture a thousand words so, instead of me writing a million of those, I invite you to check out the gameplay in the video that accompanied the release:
Also recently updated is Irrlamb. Those with incredibly good memories will recall this physics-based game originally appearing many years ago. I originally wrote about Irrlamb over 8 years ago on Free Gamer, and the previous release (0.1.1) is over 5 years old if I'm not mistaken (it is hard to check since things have moved on since then i.e. Google Code where its development was originally hosted).
This release adds new graphical capabilities, new levels, gamepad support and various fixes - see the announcement for more details.
I'll also write a really lengthy... wait a minute! Let's link a video instead. ;)
Hi, Charlie here. I used to post often.
Where was I? Ah, yes, this nugget of brain fudgery from the VDrift forums posted by NaN:
So I've spent some time today try to figure out why cars are still flying off in random directions when hitting curbs sometimes.
It turns out it is a bug in Bullet, to be more specific in the SIMD_DEGS_PER_RAD macro.Code:#define SIMD_PI btScalar(3.1415926535897932384626433832795029)
#define SIMD_2_PI btScalar(2.0) * SIMD_PI
#define SIMD_HALF_PI (SIMD_PI * btScalar(0.5))
#define SIMD_RADS_PER_DEG (SIMD_2_PI / btScalar(360.0))
#define SIMD_DEGS_PER_RAD (btScalar(360.0) / SIMD_2_PI)
The first one to spot it gets a virtual cookie.
For the answer visit the thread, I won't spoil it here. Instead, I'll post a screenshot, also sourced from said forums and taken by Stunt Rally author CrystalH.
Go Ollie
An open source platformer I missed yesterday is Go Ollie. It's easy to overlook, I mean, worms are not exactly a glamorous topic. Whilst I'm not sure about the license (somebody care to check? I'm busy!) the game itself is polished and fun. The controls are different to your typical platformer, where instead of moving and jumping your character directly, you select where he moves to with the mouse. Places that can be reached are highlighted, so it's about picking the right path and having the reflexes to do it quickly enough, which can be tricky on scrolling levels.
It seems to be a gift to the Linux community from game makers Tweeler. The graphics and presentation look professional. It's a great game for kids as well as a fun time waster for adults.
<update> Actually Go Ollie is by Charlie Dog Games, but Tweeler acts as a download host for the Mac/Linux version. Also, it is definitely open source - code is GPLv3 and artwork CC-by-sa with exceptions for logos. </update>
VDrift
There's a new release of VDrift, the open source drift racing game. Version 2009-06-15 is a significant release for the project which sees it re-emerge from a massive refactor as a better game than before the refactoring began. Here's a list of the major changes since the last release, which was after the refactored code stabilized:
- cars collide with each other in Single Race mode now
- AI is capable of much faster driving now, so added a difficulty slider
- off-road tire spin sound support (thanks to slowdan!)
- support for H-gate shifters
- improved performance
- lots of huge bugs fixed, especially car physics bugs
TORCS
In other racing game news, the TORCS Endurance World Championship 2009 was recently held. The full report found on a participants blog. From what I can gather, it's a long distance race (500km) where people enter their own robot drivers to see how they fare.
Base Command is a fully finished OGRE mini-game. It's a straightforward 3D protect-your-base game, where you shoot down incoming planes. What is interesting is the author has provided an analysis of the game code which would help people who are learning how to program.
Scourge map
My favourite Free software game Scourge enjoys continued progress. There's now an artistic map of the large island that is the game world. There's more information to be found in the 28th "Scourge Weekly" that tracks major developers on an almost-weekly basis. They are still looking for contributors.
There's also more juicy updates on PARPG progress. That project is looking very promising and they are working their way towards their first demo release. Given the coordination and generally high activity of that project, I'm optimistic there'll be something solidly playable before the end of the year. Our own Q put together a video showing where they are currently up to:
Other interesting updates are:
- Lips of Suna's second release, version 0.0.2, which introduces destructible voxel terrain. Lips of Suna aims to be an innovative 3D online dungeon crawl.
- The first beta of Leges Motus, a kind of gravityless 2D multiplayer shoot-em-up.
- A new Palomino release, a lovely looking 3D flight simulator - see this Free Gamer article for more flight sims.
There's probably more... feel free to add updates in the comments below!
Scorched 3D version 42 is out (full changelog). New features include:
Scorched3D
- Optimized graphics rendering to take better advantage of hardware
- Scripting language support for weapons and server scripts
- Much larger landscapes supported
- Added multi-lingual support for chatting and player names
- Added localization support for dialogs and messages
- Some gameplay adjustments
- Better LAN/Internet communications for less timeouts
- Some new maps
For those who don't know, it's a 3D artillery game with destructible terrain and sumptuous graphics. One thing I always think when I look at Scorched3D; why hasn't somebody re-used the engine in a different type of game? Nice effects, destructible terrain, there's plenty of possibilities there.
VDrift has emerged from the other side of a ground up refactor/rewrite with release 2-15-09. This is quite good news as projects as big as VDrift rarely survive a rewrite. Author Joe Venzon describes the highlights of the release:
I think it's a big improvement over the last release. Although there aren't any new features, there are so many bug fixes, stability enhancements, and performance improvements it's hard to make a complete list. Most of the code has been rewritten, including the car physics. Ackermann steering has been added. The in-game HUD has a new look. Font rendering has been vastly improved. More graphical options are available. The new physics numerical integrator is more stable.
I think there's also some more cars and improved tracks in this release, although don't quote me on that one.
Oolite (space rpg game) update; 1.72.2 was released a couple of weeks ago. It's a bugfix for the 1.72 test release. I couldn't play it as autopackage no longer works on my system with some obscure error and I don't fancy compiling it.
MetalChaser is a 3d mech-inspired shooter. It's a bit basic, but could grow into something good. The website isn't very clear about it, but it is open source, with a Google-code project.
This is Angel, a 2D game prototyping engine based on OpenGL and C++.
Angel was originally made by a group of employees at Electronic Arts Los Angeles for use in a GameJam they were planning for April of 2008. The source was opened in January 2009.
Curious!
The somewhat stop-start development of the various Tux Racer projects continues, but it looks hopeful that the latest incarnation of the iconic downhill penguin racer will not disappear like its predecessors. Extreme Tux Racer has finally released an updated 0.5 beta (Windows, Ubuntu, source for other Linuxi) after several months of inactivity. It's getting a bit of optimization love after I (yes, me, important mega me) unleashed my wrath helped a new developer by putting him in his place realise that ETR is not too detailed, as he incorrectly surmised, but ratyher suffers from some poorly implemented features that could be done a lot more quickly. Amazingly, I was right. :-)
I'm always right and I will rule the universe soon! At least, once I've been to the doctor about this over-active procrastination gland of mine.
Smokin' Guns, a total conversion of Quake 3 to recreate the feel of the Wild West is probably undermentioned here, although the graphics are starting to look very dated. Features:
• A full arsenal of weapons with historically correct design. Check the weapons page for more information.
• A variety of western styled maps and player models.
• A realistic damage system with different locations (head, chest, neck, etc) and height-dependant falling damage.
• New western styled gametypes for more fun: Bank Robbery and Duel Modes.
• A money system allowing for equipment purchase with money from rewards & pickups.
• Easy to use graphical user interface and HUD.
• Other small improvements for better gameplay and enhanced fun.
Lemming Ball Z
Another undermentioned and very cool project is Lemming Ball Z. Features include:
• Destructable 3d terrain
• Ability to add your own levels/characters/moves to the game
• Multiplayer with 2-4 players online or local
• Good old-fashion HotSeat play
• Slowmotion, like in "The Matrix"
• Fancy graphics, like cellshading and stuff
• Netplay, without configuring or hamachi
• Stupid AI to practice with
• Blood! lots of it! :)
I used to wonder where the FreeCol project got some of its fancy artwork - now I know, you can grab CC licensed (by-nc-sa) from David Rumsey's collection of ye olde maps.
VDrift
VDrift gets closer to a new release after a massive refactoring and lots of enhancements. Starting to look really, really cool. Still, not as playable as TORCS so if you want a quick fix I recommend you go the TORCS route for now, but VDrift looks set to eclipse TORCS as a spectacle in the course of 2009.
Scourge gets nicer towns, with houses created by combining sections to create more intricate villages. See the latest Scourge Weekly (volume 17, on the website frontpage) for more details and a humorous explanation of why developers should work rather than work on open source, should the choice be forced upon them. :-)
Hrm, other new releases like Teeworlds (0.5.1), Battle for Wesnoth (1.6 beta1) bleh too much blog stuff must go KTHXBYE.
Scourge 0.21 is out. It's been optimized and stabilized considerably and now has a full 12 chapter storyline. Each release of Scourge gets closer to being a really good game - there are still a few issues that need addressing such as the character models - and that is reflected in the increasing activity of contributors. Until a year or so ago, Scourge development was mainly a 1 man effort, but 4 people put a lot of work into this release. A new model format (they are looking at [the unfortunately named] assimp for 0.22) and some better character models (think Glestimals, some JCRPG models, and a few of their own) and Scourge will offer some real immersion as well as a platform for creating new Free Software 3D isometric RPGs.
Talking about optimizations, VDrift is getting back on track after a ground-up rewrite to address key weaknesses in the codebase. Most features are now back and working better than before. I'm going to give the SVN version a go, but the vdrift-data check out takes a while. I think I started it 40 minutes ago.
Cube on the iPhone? No, really. Yes, really. Video:
Talking of cube-things, in Sauerbraten land I thought this idea was a good one. The Intensity Engine is a... well, it's ambitious. I won't go into that bit. However it brings procedurally generated content to Sauerbraten and that's pretty awesome. Video:
[i]Oops, forgot to link to the [arguably more interesting] counterpart video which shows how a bit of Python generates the above.[i]
Yo Frankie! Or yo, what's the deal Frankie? I guess when something gets so much hype, the expectations are high. The screenshots look lovely. The game? Well, the BGE version (which came with 0documentation and meant I had to ask in irc how to actually start the game since the Yo Frankie website gives as much info as the 0documentation) performance was terrible and the Crystal Space version I couldn't play because 0launch* is just about the worst way of distributing a game I have ever encountered. All hype and a totally cute techdemo. Good effort though.
* As if web browsers weren't already overburdened, apparently now they should be installers for things too. I hope the next release they at least provide a tar.gz download alternative.
I'm a bit off-radar at the moment with work. Thankfully Q is filling in brilliantly. He's the next-gen Free Gamer dude because he actually does stuff like create videos rather than just linkify interesting things.
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.
Conquest (OpenGL)
I think I found the oldest open source game out. It's called Conquest. In development since 1982. That's kinda awesome.
It is a real-time, multi-player space warfare game. Both curses and OpenGL clients are provided. It looks a bit like 2D Star Trek ship battles (not stereotyping there, it just does).
So, want to be brainier? Well, Brain Workshop might just be the answer.
Brain Workshop is a free open-source Python implementation of the Dual N-Back mental exercise. This exercise is the only mental activity that is scientifically proven to improve your short-term memory and fluid intelligence (IQ). The game involves remembering a sequence of spoken letters and a sequence of positions of a square at the same time.
O_o
Remember Portalized? I kicked up a bit of a fuss over it several months ago. Well, it has it's own website and forums now, and seems to be coming on a bit. It's not yet open source :'( but a bit of positive encouragement might make that happen.
Random one: I thought these faces were quite cool (OpenTTD).
There's a new stable release for VDrift. I'm not sure that it's much different in terms of features to the last VDrift release as lately the development effort has been on a refactoring / rewrite of the code (which is progressing well).
Also Simutrans 100.0 aka 1.0 got released. This really snuck under the radar as it's a very good open source game and not very well known in comparison to OpenTTD, but it's totally Free Software - something the OpenTTD guys are trying to fix but have a lot more work to do on.
The Simutrans team lost their previous forum when switching from one host to another. Which means the Simutrans website is a bit broken (most information was kept in the forums, so many of the links now just don't work). The main issue with the stable 1.0 release is that there is no official release of pak128 (the hi-res graphics pack) for it, although you can try your luck with the nightly builds which does have a section for the latest version of pak128. I'll leave you with a video of Simutrans pak128 although watch out for the dodgy music:
