Real Game Online

Just as a quick follow-up to last weeks post about ET:Xreal:
Version 0.3.0 got released today!


As you can see, it is still a long way to go to replace all the non-free assets, and graphics sure don't look quite as great as all the features of that engine would make you believe (which proves again: it is the artists making a game look good :p ), but it's a start and you can begin brushing up your ET skills again ;)

About a year after the Wolf:ET source release, significant advances to the original game (in a playable and easily obtainable form) are sadly still MIA :(

The quite promising ET:Xreal engine enhancement project is one possible exception, even though they just had to sadly announce that they wouldn't make their Nov. 5th first release date (I was originally waiting for news about this until then...).

ET:Xreal with some Free high quality textures

As you might have guessed, this project takes the advanced id-Tech3 (Quake3) renderer from the now defunct Xreal project and brings it over to the Enemy-Territory engine (also id-Tech3 based). But besides that it also aims to give the engine a general overhaul and possibly add additional advanced features like real physics etc.
Additionally work has also started to replace the free-as-in-beer media from the original game, with much higher quality CC-by-SA textures to make use of the advanced engine features.
To qoute one of the developers (Eonfge) regarding their plans to go fully FOSS:

"The project we are working on consists of multiple parts. First we have a renderer, which is now fairly stable and pretty looking. Then we have the assets, new high quality assets that make the environment come alive. Then we have the official part from Splash Damage. It's our goal to go independent one day, but until we have all the assets replaced, we will remain a mod. After we replaced them all, we'll be an independent open source game."

Lets see how that turns out... alternatively the developer of the awesome looking (but totally non-FOSS) ET mod True Combat: CQB also did express interest in porting his game to ET:Xreal some months back.

On the other side of things it looks like the ET:Xreal fork OpenWolf is turning more and more into a wild mix of different id-Tech3 engines.
Its developer recently announced full compatibility with the id-Tech3 based game Tremulous, and is making his roads towards a quite fully featured general id-Tech3 compatible engine based on ET.
I suspect this is also somehow related to the very similar engine enhancements promised for the quite awesome looking Tremulous fork TremZ:

New alien model in TremZ

But information on that project are quite scares right now, as there seemed to have been some community drama related to it and they are waiting for their own official page to be published now.
But rumors are running wild (in face of the log awaited but more or less vapourware Tremulous 1.2), so I can't confirm if the proposed release date before the end of the year is true or not ;)

Yes, I post only seldom, but when I do it I keep up the good old tradition of mixing totally unrelated projects in one big post :p



So where to start today? Ahh yes:



The puzzle type game Berusky 2 was recently FOSSified (code and art GPL) as pointed out in our forums (but I have to admit I saw it first on LGDB). And as out great founder was quick to point out, it follows the great tradition of the first part with was also released under the terms of the GPL.



In totally unrelated news, Lips of Suna version 0.5 got released last week, with a bunch of nice graphical and game-play improvements (change log and discussion here).



For those living behind a rock, Lips of Suna is a crazy mix of Minecraft, slightly adult themed anime and a more classic RPG. Definitly worth a try, even though still under heavy development!



Hmm and now a quick run-down of other (I'd say less important) news:

Q3 Rally (now stand alone with the ioQuake3 engine) is nearing another release and OpenXcom is making good progress in the "battlescape" AI. In WarZone2100 land, you can now test the cool new models with a test mod (is supposed to work with the latest snapshot release). The fork of the W:ET, OpenWolf is also progressing with a fix of the Mod support (while the more ambitious ET:Xreal seems to have gone in a hiatus again), and while talking about id software source-code, I have started this small anticipatory id tech 4 project which needs contributors ;)



The end.



Oh wait, did we ever mention the source release of Cities3D (a Setters of Catan like game)?

Yes... slow days here on FreeGamer... so we will try to give you a bunch of smaller news and projects to check out:

First another Minecraft clone (this time for the PSP, but with GPL code): Lamecaft (which is a title I approve... generally ;) ). Then we have a open-source reimplementation of the famous jump&run Cave-Story: NXEngine. Maybe it is something nice to make your own platformer with too?

A bit more high profile I guess is this game I recently cam across: Turtle Arena, which you might have guessed is another game based on the ioQuake3 engine. Its goals are pretty ambitious (it wants to be "not annoying"...but with those hideous turtles that might be next to impossible :p ). Artwork is CC-by-SA too, but obviously a bit IP tainted.



Another offspring of the ioQuake3 project are the ioWolf (RTCW and ET) engine upgrades, which seemed rather dead all the time. However some people actually forked them and are working on their own versions, of which especially the COOP single-player enhancement of RTCW seems news worthy (the others are here and here). Staying with Wolf:ET, the previously mentioned ET:Xreal now has a nice presentation page too.

That's all for today... but stay with us even if news come only slowly :)

*Qubodup's eyes shift left and right*

Qubodup mutters, "I smell death."

*Charlie jumps out from behind a tree*

"No! It's me!"

Or maybe Q meant death by a thousand of Charlie's bad jokes? I got jokes, man.

Ok, ok... games stuff. Enough inane joke stuff. Games...

FreeOrion 0.3.14 came out with a fairly mega changelog. A preview of the 3d space combat is in there, as well as lots of fixing and balancing and content enhancing. It's becoming a very deep game and once the 3d combat is done it'll be one of the stand out open source games you can play, and only getting better. Hats off to the developers for their dedication to realising their dreams, it's been a long haul. Here be a video:

FreeCol 0.9.3 just came out. Fixes ahoy! Good game, that, although I still don't understand how to play it. One day I'll swallow my pride and ask how the hell you assign hammers and build things.

Danger from the Deep 0.4 preview release for those who are a bit brave. It might torpedo your computer, yuk yuk yuk =). It's got great graphics, although is more of a simulation than a game - but that's a good thing in my book. Part of the fun in a submarine game is in the challenges that befell those unfortunate enough to end up in a watery grave. Ah, video ahoy:

XreaL. It's not dead. Actually there's a video in that link that will blow your mind, it looks so good. You won't be able to see the forest for the trees (that'll make sense if you see it). No youtube though here's a [rather dark] video showing off a few XreaL levels:

Looks like YAOSCSC (Yet Another Open Source Counter Strike Clone) is underway although this one is probably more likely to succeed than some of the other rather limp efforts. This one is called Code 43: Urban Warfare and it uses XreaL. It is formed by the people associated with the ET Mod True Combat: Elite which could never really be open source.

And now for something completely different. And I'm not talking about breaking English grammar rules by starting sentences with 'and'...

Runesword II is a 2D RPG made in 2001 and now open source. They released version 2.6 recently, which can be downloaded from Sourceforge. Bizarrely the 2.6 release announcement never seems to have been made outside of the forums. Sadly it is made in VB *ew* and can be run on Linux via Wine. Still, it looks like a fairly involved RPG game.

I eagerly anticpate Egoboo 2.8.0, which has been a year in the making. They got a new website.

Which reminds me. Nothing to do with it, but I haven't yet tried UFO:AI 2.3...

Weaver

Weaver [introduction] is an objective-based ("invade checkpoints") team fps with a simple gesture sequence spell casting system. It uses the XreaL engine and is currently in an early development stage. Maps are under construction and a few spells are in place. Code is GPL-licensed, "Media will aim to use Creative Commons licenses."


The level work I was able to witness is impressive. TRaK is the designer, which explains it.


Weaver's introduction includes a simple game design document. Compilation instructions are located here, communication happens over forum and IRC.

OpenArena 0.8.5

OpenArena has a new website look and a new patch release. It provides new or improved weapon effects, player skins, menu UI (video, compare to old), icons...

...and maps. For example:

Even though OpenArena is supposed to be a freely licensed Quake3 clone (with an anime theme) it also adds new weapons and game modes. I recently tested some of them, for example the Overload game mode, in which you have to destroy the enemy's base crystal:

Evidyon

The Evidyon MMORPG's developer expressed their interest for making the game run on Linux and finds it to be relatively simple task. More info in this thread.

Don't have much to add to that. I'm glad to hear that it's possible and I hope that somebody will want to take such a programming job. Here's the latest gameplay video of the game to make completing this task more desirable: :)

Google and Ruby Summers of Code

Battle for Wesnoth, Blender, Crystal Space, FreedroidRPG, Thousand Parsec, Tux4Kids and WorldForge take part in GoogleStudentsOpenCash.

EDIT: I was just informed, that NeL will share WorldForge's GSoC permission.

By accident (I wanted to get on the Rigs of Rods IRC channel but found myself on a ruby one) I discovered the existence of the RubyStudentsOpenCash. Any FOSS game projects besides Rubygame that could benefit from this? :)

And.. some websites

Blendswap, the new blender file sharing site will probably use CC0, BY and BY-SA as available licenses [2] and that makes me glad..



I discovered SampleSwap (via this post), which has a CC-licensed music category. It is impossible to filter by license (non-free CC flavors are supported), but at least it is easy to identify it, if you care about the terms. It uses yahoo's handy proprietary flash audio player and lists individual tracks instead of the ancient album-model that Jamendo chose. This makes it much nicer to browse for me.


Last bit of info: GameBoom is a site that wants to bring foss games to the people. It tries to do so not by covering only foss games but by allowing gratis games, while promoting the free as in freedom ones.

They are looking for bloggers/game reviewers, so if you are not on a strict foss diet, maybe there's a game you would like to introduce over there? Always remember though, that guest posts are welcome on this blog as well. ;) Just contact us via forum, irc or email (I'm sure you'll be able to find the links up there :) ).

EDIT: Remember GameJolt, another games-thing, where open source games are given attention.