Out in the shadows: Dark Mod 2.07 released

The hide-and-seek simulator The Dark Mod (TDM) has had a new release as of last week. For those who don't remember, TDM is a Doom 3 mod-gone-standalone that aims to recreate a similar game experience to that of Looking Glass Studio's Thief series. It is known amongst both stealth game aficionados and free software enthusiasts as a project of exceptional quality, with a dedicated community of content creators. The latest release 2.07 focuses on stability and performance.

Since we last reported on this amazing project, the game has progressed leaps and bounds both in content and quality. The extensive loading times and performance irks that plagued the initial standalone releases, from the project's early emancipation from Doom 3 game asset and codebase requirements, are now mostly a thing of the past, and are set to be improved even further, as multi-core support has finally been added to the engine (albeit as an experimental feature). Future updates will bring the game to OpenGL 3.3, transferring processing power from the CPU to the GPU.

On the graphics department, the implementation of advanced shadow maps promise near real-life shadow behavior. Improved antialiasing will generally upgrade looks for those with more powerful machines.

The release has also seen the addition of more Creative Commons licensed assets (under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) and map modules, which are free to use in either TDM fan missions or in any other mod or game project. Many fan missions are available under the same license, with incoming releases almost every month. They can be downloaded through the in-game GUI or by accessing the mission portal.

For further information you can access the full changelog here.

Code License: GPLv3
Assets License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Breaking news: The Dark Mod 2.0 stand alone version out now!

I guess quite a few people were waiting for this to finally happen :)

Have a look at the release announcement here and the full change-log here.

They also did a nice introduction video a few months ago:



Haven't got the chance to try it myself yet, but this is high on my list of open-source games to play!

Some idTech4 games progress

Great news from the people behind the idTech4 powered stealth FPS The Dark Mod: They are making great steps to leave their Doom3 mod legacy behind and a standalone version should not be all that far from now.

New The Dark Mod replacement artwork

You can follow the progress here on their forums, and maybe you can also give them an helping hand.

Interestingly there are two other recently updated Doom3 mods, that could easily fit in as The Dark Mod mods, e.g. going stand alone with The Dark Mod's help.

The first one is a Hexen remake, called Hexen: Edge of Chaos:



And the other one is a prequel to the Arx: Fatalis (engine also FOSS, btw.) game, called Arx: End of Sun:



Sadly both of them use proprietary themes (and one could even argue that The Dark Mod is borderline infringing on one too), but I am still looking forward to try out these nice community creations once they become stand-alone!

0 A.D. Alpha 13 and other less fanboyish updates

Ok I admit it... I am a bit of a 0 A.D. fanboy! But the new Alpha 13 release is also great again, and deserved an update post:



Also pretty cool is the new OpenMW 0.22 release, that finally features player and NPC animations, and thus starts to look more like a functioning game:



Other unrelated news:

• To progress on their standalone version, the developers of The Dark Mod are looking for support in their sound department mostly.
• That non-stop programmer "TheDushan" has started porting the Torque3D engine to Linux. Pretty amazing progress if you ask me :)

Julius out!