Showing posts with label mode-singleplayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mode-singleplayer. Show all posts
Thursday, 8 January 2015
Sunday, 22 September 2013
Stephen Cameron: Space Nerds in Space Interview and Crew Gameplay Video
A 15 minutes long video profile of Stephen Cameron was published on YouTube by Jack Younger - hacker (presumed) at TX/RX Labs.
The video includes an interview of Cameron's about his latest project Space Nerds in Space including inspiration and actual authentic gameplay video footage of the crew (highlights at 08:30).
Some of Word War Vi's history also is covered in the video (4:00).
Do I need to spell it out? Press that like button if you can! :)
Source: Announcement on the FreeGameDev forums
Video thumbnails
Do I need to spell it out? Press that like button if you can! :)
Source: Announcement on the FreeGameDev forums
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
Fundraising for GPL game Plee the Bear
This is a guest post by Julien Jorge, developer, artist and musician behind the open source indie games Plee the Bear and Andy's Super Great Park, here to present the fundraising campaign he launched for the former.
The prototypes of the game have always been released for Windows and Linux as free software, available under the terms of the GNU GPL and the CC by-sa licenses. The latest version contains three levels of the storyline and four mini-games; and has already generated very positive criticisms (e.g. on The Linux Game Tome). Players loved the fun, the graphics and the music; other indie developers were pleasantly surprised by the technical skills and the details of the game; and people in the free software movement appreciated the overall process and the quality of the resources, remarkable for a free game.
All these feedbacks motivated us to complete the game and to launch a fundraising campaign to help the development. The campaign is organized in order to implement the new contents of the game one after the other, each time with a new fundraiser. So, for the initial one, the feature you are welcome to support is a complete refresh of the existing work. You can see the details on the project's page on OpenFunding but let me show you how the game will look:
To be compared with the current release:
The animations will also be reworked. For example, here is a comparison of the changes in the animation of Plee walking. The old version is on the bright stripes, the new one is in the black stripes:
If you are a game developer, you may have already used some free resources from websites like OpenGameArt.org or Freesound.org. If you are a gamer, you may have played games using the resources of such websites. In both cases, you are certainly interested by our process consisting of releasing each part of the game under a free license. Actually, we have recently started to supply OpenGameArt.org with our assets.
So, if you like our project:
Some years ago, with the help of three of my friends and anonymous people on the web, I have created Plee the Bear, a great platformer in which you play an angry bear whose son has been kidnapped by god. Here is a guy hard to brave! You sure will jump in this amazing journey to find and rescue your son. Because you want to rescue him, don't you? Or to slap him? Maybe both….
The game was a spare time project for a long time, then we recently decided to create a real, full, complete, fun and original version out of the prototype. We have thus created our company, Stuffomatic, published a first game and now we are launching a fundraising campaign for Plee the Bear!
All these feedbacks motivated us to complete the game and to launch a fundraising campaign to help the development. The campaign is organized in order to implement the new contents of the game one after the other, each time with a new fundraiser. So, for the initial one, the feature you are welcome to support is a complete refresh of the existing work. You can see the details on the project's page on OpenFunding but let me show you how the game will look:
To be compared with the current release:
(The screen is larger in the new version, it's not just Plee who is smaller…)
The animations will also be reworked. For example, here is a comparison of the changes in the animation of Plee walking. The old version is on the bright stripes, the new one is in the black stripes:
If you are a game developer, you may have already used some free resources from websites like OpenGameArt.org or Freesound.org. If you are a gamer, you may have played games using the resources of such websites. In both cases, you are certainly interested by our process consisting of releasing each part of the game under a free license. Actually, we have recently started to supply OpenGameArt.org with our assets.
So, if you like our project:
- give us some money for the next development steps,
- give us feedback about the process to help us improving it,
- share this announcement with your neighbors.
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, funded!
The self described open-source rogue-like survivalcraft / driving game in a sci-fi zombie apocalypse has successfully reached its goal on Kickstarter, and one of the developers will now be able to work on it full-time for a few months to implement for example a back-end for proper graphics.
But see and hear about it yourself:
The first stretch-goal is close too, with 12 days remaining to pledge money towards this cool project.
Less rosy does it look for the previously featured Data Dealer project. With only 48 hours to go, but still about 10k missing it will be a close finish if at all. They got some remarkable press lately though and jumped up about 10k in the last days, so it is still possible. So if you haven't done it yet, pledge here.
But see and hear about it yourself:
The first stretch-goal is close too, with 12 days remaining to pledge money towards this cool project.
Less rosy does it look for the previously featured Data Dealer project. With only 48 hours to go, but still about 10k missing it will be a close finish if at all. They got some remarkable press lately though and jumped up about 10k in the last days, so it is still possible. So if you haven't done it yet, pledge here.
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Lost Sky Tactical J-RPG [PyGame]
Lost Sky is a PyGame-based Tactical J-RPG that runs on Linux, OS X and Windows.
To play on a system that has mercurial and pygame installed, run:
Code License: New BSD
Content License: Various: PD, CC-BY 3.0, CC-Sampling+ (non-free), Unknown
To play on a system that has mercurial and pygame installed, run:
hg clone https://bitbucket.org/featheredmelody/lost-sky-project-public
cd lost-sky-project-public/Story\ of\ a\ Lost\ Sky/
chmod +x srpg.py
./srpg.py
Lost Sky screenshots
Story of a Lost Sky is a Turn Based Strategy RPG with gameplay that is similar to Fire Emblem. Units are placed on a tile map and each side takes turns moving and attacking. Outside the battle map, the player is able to customize their characters and equip new spells and traits.This project was discovered by seeing a link banner on Valyria Tear's blog. Yay networking!
Code License: New BSD
Content License: Various: PD, CC-BY 3.0, CC-Sampling+ (non-free), Unknown
Thursday, 23 May 2013
Dead Morning, an open-source horror game
Today I bring you news of yet another rather low profile Darkplaces engine game (e.g. the same engine that runs Xonotic), called Dead Morning:
As you can see in these other, more game-play oriented videos (1, 2, 3), it seems to be quite heavily influenced by another recent 1st person horror game...
The website mentions a fully open-source release at the end of this year, so I am rather intrigued what they will come up by then!
As you can see in these other, more game-play oriented videos (1, 2, 3), it seems to be quite heavily influenced by another recent 1st person horror game...
The website mentions a fully open-source release at the end of this year, so I am rather intrigued what they will come up by then!
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Project Leadership & Management in Free, Open Source Games
Both 0 A.D. and Unknown Horizons experience a change in leadership!
For 0 A.D., Erik Johansson steps down from project leadership and Michael D. Hafer assumes that role.
In Unknown Horizons, Nightraven steps back and Kilian fills the project management role.
Leadership in free and open source game projects is an exciting topic with much opinion about which style will lead to a successful game - whatever the subject's definition of "success" is - and too few examples to make objective statements about it.
Are you following any specific projects and their leadership structures an want to comment on these? I must admit that I am out of the loop with many, many projects, although I am pretty sure that for example Flare, NAEV and Valyria Tear have (successful) Benevolent Dictator for Life style leadership.
On related note: FIFE (the isometric 2d engine used by Unknown Horizons) moved to GitHub.
For 0 A.D., Erik Johansson steps down from project leadership and Michael D. Hafer assumes that role.
In Unknown Horizons, Nightraven steps back and Kilian fills the project management role.
Leadership in free and open source game projects is an exciting topic with much opinion about which style will lead to a successful game - whatever the subject's definition of "success" is - and too few examples to make objective statements about it.
Are you following any specific projects and their leadership structures an want to comment on these? I must admit that I am out of the loop with many, many projects, although I am pretty sure that for example Flare, NAEV and Valyria Tear have (successful) Benevolent Dictator for Life style leadership.
On related note: FIFE (the isometric 2d engine used by Unknown Horizons) moved to GitHub.
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Bushido Blocks: Slicing Puzzle
Bushido Blocks is a puzzle game for Android under GPL license, inspired by block-bashing games such as Bejeweled, Diamond Dash and Tap Blox.
Bushido Blocks Screenshots
Tap matches of three or more blocks to slice them with your katana. The more blocks you can slice in one go, the more time you gain on the clock. Special blocks eliminate whole rows of blocks but don't give you any extra time, so use them wisely.Links:
Code License: GPL
Content License: Unknown
Tuesday, 12 March 2013
Are We Alone? Atmospheric 2D
Are We Alone screenshot: Safe on Earth
Are We Alone - a space game where you travel from planet to planet, between star systems in search of intelligent life - has been released on Github under MIT license.
It was made for Ludum Dare 22 "alone" and is a quite atmospheric piece.
Code License: MIT
Content License: Unknown
Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Erebus RPG for Desktop, Tablet and Smartphone
Features:
- Classic point-n-click style RPG, with dungeons to explore, enemies to fight, NPCs to talk to, sub-quests to complete, scenery to interact with, weapons, treasure and other items to find.
- Also supports Rogue-like keyboard controls.
- Multiple quests (currently three, more will be added as development progresses!)
- Choice of starting characters (currently Barbarian, Elf, Halfling, Ranger, Warrior).
- Start straight into the action - none of this "For your first quest, please find your next door neighbour's pet cat".
- Vector-based world rather than tile-based - so items/scenery can be placed in any position, or aligned in any direction.
- 2D animated graphics, with zoom in/out, and lighting effects.
- Completely free and Open Source - no ads, unlike many free Android apps.
- User interface optimised to work with mouse, keyboard and/or touchscreen.
- Cross-platform - available for Windows, Linux, Nokia Symbian and Android devices.
Code License: GPLv3+
Content License: Various (Most DFSG approved, CC-BY 2.x might be problematic)
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Free Orion 0.4.2
A few day ago a much improved version of the 4X space strategy game FreeOrion was released. Check out this cool set of introduction videos (Part 1, 2, 3):
Most notable additons:
Most notable additons:
So go and kick some alien butt ;)
- Very much improved, non-cheating AI. Sometimes experienced 4X players loose.
- Many GUI enhancements and shortcuts.
- Galactopedia expanded with game mechanics articles and many cross-links.
- Batch production of ships now possible.
- Improved sitrep notifications
- Reworked stealth and detection
- Almost everything has been enhanced, reworked, and better balanced.
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Winter Shorts 3: PyWeek #16 in April, Rainbow Rooms, Valyria Tear on OS X
PyWeek #16 in April
PyWeek logo
PyWeek is a game jam that obviously goes on for one week and requires the use of Python. It takes place online and there are overall winners in team and solo categories, as well as awards. The dates of the 16th PyWeek challenge are 00:00 UTC April 14, 2013 to 00:00 UTC April 21, 2013. Registration opens on 15. March 2013.
There is a message board for the community and there are interesting methods to publish Python games as HTML/JavaScript using pyjs, as demonstrated by the PyWeek #15 entry Kaos.
License Requirements: At least Shared Source required. Free software licenses recommended.
PyWeek #15 Entry: Rainbow Rooms
Rainbow Rooms is a physical-nonsense-maze puzzle game based on libtcod.
Various fonts are being used, some of which might be problematic license-wise for including in for example Debian's official repositories but it should be possible to replace them in less than two hours including research and documentation.
Code License: GPLv2
Content License: Unclear
Valyria Tear: "Final Release of Half-Episode I"
New Valyria Tear GUI screens
Valyria Tear Half-Episode I has been released, which I suppose we can take as 50% of Episode I's acts being complete.
The release brings new graphical interfaces and development is ongoing.
An OS X version can now also be grabbed from the OSX thread.
Code License: GPLv2
Content License: Various (DFSG approved)
Monday, 25 February 2013
Asylum: Free-as-in-Freedom Horror Adventure, Successfully Crowd-Funded
This is a guest post by Hythlodaeus on an interesting FLOSS game engine project, being developed by a professional games company.
I guess I should take a few paragraphs on this article to explain my stance on crowd-funded game projects. I've always been turned off by most Kickstarter game projects for a very simple reason: after personally inquiring a plethora of developers on their stance for Open-Source and Free Software, I was generally met with negative replies, half-baked excuses, bitter retorts or complete silence.
Now, although I recognize it is every developer's right to pick the license and the conditions for the usage of their own work, it strikes me as a very odd attitude for people engaging into crowd funding projects to be so unwilling to provide any other warranties to their prospective backers and future customers other than “we will make this happen if you give us enough money”. From this point, let's make something clear: pledging on a crowd-funded game project isn't exactly the same thing as buying a video game. From the backers' part it's an investment and a risk. It's about depositing your faith on other peoples' words, in hopes they will eventually deliver what they promised. When you buy a game, be it good or bad, you at least know that you're dealing with a finished product. When you pledge on a crowd-funded project, completion is only a possibility regardless of the campaign's success.
So, in my personal opinion, I've always thought crowd-funded game projects should strive to provide the level of trust they request from their backers. In this case, that means allowing people to have access to the game's source code under a permissive / Free Software license, preferably starting right at the end of the campaign. Why? Simply because that allows for a tighter control of what's going on in the development backstage, and will allow every contributor to provide better feedback on the work being done. Raw engine code also gives backers something that can eventually be picked up and used for other personal purposes, if the project happens to fail for some reason.
With that said, let's talk a little about this project, which is, after all, what lead me to write this post. Asylum is the brainchild of Agustin Cordes, the Argentinian developer behind Scratches, a horror game that managed to get some degree of attention way back in 2006. The project aims to create a Lovecraftian-inspired horror point-and-click adventure game that will focus on an intense and immersive atmosphere, followed closely by engaging storytelling. From the trailer and screenshots provided so far, it seems like a rather professional endeavour, but for me the most pleasant surprise, was that the developer's in-house engine, Dagon, will be Free and Open-Source. On top of that, Cordes himself actually took the time to explain why he believes the engine should be free, and how such a decision aims not only to help preserve Asylum for future generations, but also to empower other indie developers by providing an open platform anyone will be free to use.
Since there is no information available about specific licensing on the project page, I actually went on to ask the developer about which specific license was being used for the Dagon engine:
With little less than a few days to go (I'm ashamed to say I only heard about this project very recently), Asylum is already fully funded, but if you still wish to contribute to this genuinely FLOSS project, or simply purchase the game for a special price, you still have a chance. Extra funding goals have already been set, and some additional rewards may also seem worthy to you.
I guess I should take a few paragraphs on this article to explain my stance on crowd-funded game projects. I've always been turned off by most Kickstarter game projects for a very simple reason: after personally inquiring a plethora of developers on their stance for Open-Source and Free Software, I was generally met with negative replies, half-baked excuses, bitter retorts or complete silence.
Now, although I recognize it is every developer's right to pick the license and the conditions for the usage of their own work, it strikes me as a very odd attitude for people engaging into crowd funding projects to be so unwilling to provide any other warranties to their prospective backers and future customers other than “we will make this happen if you give us enough money”. From this point, let's make something clear: pledging on a crowd-funded game project isn't exactly the same thing as buying a video game. From the backers' part it's an investment and a risk. It's about depositing your faith on other peoples' words, in hopes they will eventually deliver what they promised. When you buy a game, be it good or bad, you at least know that you're dealing with a finished product. When you pledge on a crowd-funded project, completion is only a possibility regardless of the campaign's success.
So, in my personal opinion, I've always thought crowd-funded game projects should strive to provide the level of trust they request from their backers. In this case, that means allowing people to have access to the game's source code under a permissive / Free Software license, preferably starting right at the end of the campaign. Why? Simply because that allows for a tighter control of what's going on in the development backstage, and will allow every contributor to provide better feedback on the work being done. Raw engine code also gives backers something that can eventually be picked up and used for other personal purposes, if the project happens to fail for some reason.
With that said, let's talk a little about this project, which is, after all, what lead me to write this post. Asylum is the brainchild of Agustin Cordes, the Argentinian developer behind Scratches, a horror game that managed to get some degree of attention way back in 2006. The project aims to create a Lovecraftian-inspired horror point-and-click adventure game that will focus on an intense and immersive atmosphere, followed closely by engaging storytelling. From the trailer and screenshots provided so far, it seems like a rather professional endeavour, but for me the most pleasant surprise, was that the developer's in-house engine, Dagon, will be Free and Open-Source. On top of that, Cordes himself actually took the time to explain why he believes the engine should be free, and how such a decision aims not only to help preserve Asylum for future generations, but also to empower other indie developers by providing an open platform anyone will be free to use.
Me: Hello. I have one question regarding Dagon. You already stated it's going to be free and open source, but exactly under which software license are you going to release it?“MPL” referring of course to the Mozilla Public License, which despite not being a strong copyleft license, it is both Free Software and GPL compatible. So perhaps Dagon can motivate a new generation of graphic adventure lovers to innovate upon the work started by Asylum. We can only hope future Kickstarter projects and indie developers adopt a similar perspective on Open-Source development.
Agustin Cordes: Hi! We're currently using CDDL but I'm expecting to re-license with the more popular MPL 2.0 very soon. Cheers!
Me: Fair enough. Do I have your permission to quote this conversation in a news blog about Free Software gaming?
Agustin Cordes: Absolutely! :)
With little less than a few days to go (I'm ashamed to say I only heard about this project very recently), Asylum is already fully funded, but if you still wish to contribute to this genuinely FLOSS project, or simply purchase the game for a special price, you still have a chance. Extra funding goals have already been set, and some additional rewards may also seem worthy to you.
The source for Asylum's engine, Dagon, can already be found here, currently licensed under CDDL (Thanks to Evropi for pointing this out).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)