TremZ aka Unvanquished 1st alpha released

Hmm... the previously mentioned TremZ project, which btw changed name to "Unvanquished" (which I find much less catchy than the previous name) has released as promised their first alpha on the last day of February.

However as I can't get it to run on Linux (nor on Windows for that matter), I will have to rely on forum postings from which I extract that it really is an alpha and you shouldn't get your hopes too high that it is much more than Tremulous at this point (graphics and game-play wise)...

WIP Unvanquished playermodel

But try it yourself... if you are on a non-optimus system it will probably work fine with Windows ;)

Edit:  A somewhat controversial split-up seems to have happened in the development team. Read here about one side of the argument... you can find the over side of the discussion also via the forums or the irc channels. Not sure what to make of it, but I will keep you informed as soon as the dust has settled ;)

Read more »

Coldest Mech Bots

Testing Coldest Bots 2012-02-28 git

video: Coldest Bots/AI on the Moon 2012-02-28 git

Coldest builds that feature bots are available for Windows and Linux.

So far bots are able to navigate simple terrain and seem to be looking for the closest enemy. However they don't worry about their own health too much and fire their lasers until they explode from overheating.

The developer announced that they might organize a play testing session mid March. Stay tuned!

Read more »

Short: Gigalomania and CTruck3D

Losing in Gigalomania

Gigalomania [blog] is an open source 2D Real Time Strategy game, for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Nokia smartphones (Symbian, Maemo and Meego). The gameplay consists of researching and developing new technology with which to conquer your enemies, from rocks and sticks to nuclear weapons and spaceships. You can advance through ten different ages, from the stone age to the future. There are 28 different maps to play through.

CTruck3D

CTruck3D is a simple-looking OpenGL truck simulator.

term_CTruck3D

There is an ASCII-Art variant called term_CTruck3D.

EDIT: What's quite interesting about the game is the marketing(?). Two YouTube accounts seem to be quite excited about the game: simhgamedev and violinperforming.

Read more »

OpenArena 0.8.8: 13 Maps, 7 Music Tracks, 1 Player Model

video: OpenArena 0.8.8 - New Neko Model & Pxlfan Map

OpenArean 0.8.8 brings many additions and changes. See some of them below:

OpenArena 0.8.8 - hover for info - more images here

On a related note: OA's lead dev recently uploaded a Sorceress 3d model that did not make it into the game under GPL2 and CCBY(SA)3:

This is a rejected mystical elf sorceress for my game project OpenArena 3.x. It's rejected due to technical (2 surfaces, and too low poly) and anatomical reasons (regarding the hands and feet). The skin is muddy and low quality is well. This was done in 2009-2010.
Comes weighted to a standard rigify mesh. She has no actual fingers, her hands are mittens!
Might be suitable for a low poly distant camera dungeon crawl. Could even be suitable to produce other characters with in that dungeon crawl.
An alternative worse skin is also included. It's on the second UV Texture layer.

Read more »

Xonotic 1v1 grand final

Just a small reminder:
Don't miss today's  (at 8:00pm CET = UTC/GTM+1 e.g. central European time) grand final of the Xonotic 1v1 tourney!

Check out videos of the semi finals here, and I will probably update this post with the video of the grand final once it is available.

Edit2: Congrats to Fisume, who won 3:1 in a pretty exiting match (especially the last two matches were great to watch). Watch this spot for a video of this match.

Edit3: Here are the videos.

Read more »

Mono for game development and openBVE

In yesterdays post qubodup already mentioned AltDevConf, which seems to have attracted a lot of interesting presentations. Another one I noticed was about using Mono/C# for game development; see the summary on Phoronix here or get the slides here. I guess a video should be available at some point too.

But I know that Mono/C# is a controversial topic (see also the comments for the linked article) so fire away in our comment section about how you feel about using it for FOSS game development ;)
Personally I see no reason why it should be preferred over Java or Python, but plenty against using it... but the slides might convince you otherwise ;)

However the main reason why I posted about Mono games was to have a nice intro to this really awesome looking Train simulator, called openBVE, which is also written in C#:

OpenBVE

You can find a nice overview in how far openBVE has surpassed its spiritual successor BVE over here (link also includes some more nice screenshots).
Licensing seems a bit complicated however... the main source download and some search in their forums seem to implicate that openBVE is completely Public Domain. However for the artwork I am a bit skeptical (maybe taken from the commercial BVE?) and there also seems to be a closed source server component (according to the original author to prevent commercial forks...).

Anyways, I am amazed how much work some people put into such seemingly boring simulation topics... but each to his own I guess :p

Hmm...but putting my creative hat on... it would be awesome if someone would take openBVE as a base and make an awesome zombicalypse escape simulator out of it. Trying to escape from an infested Britain (similar to the movie 28 days later) with a group of survivors in a train: Manage the group in the train (including hidden infections etc.), upgrade your train with weapons, plan a route through the British rail network avoiding zombie hotspots and military "cleaning campaigns", replenish your stocks at zombie infested train stations and so on... game of the year guaranteed :D (Disclamer: if you make this game you can use my idea for free :p )

Read more »

Zolo, Food Fight, GameLV - Treasure Hunt on Reddit!

A thread called "Post your Open Source Game" on the gamedev subreddit let me discover some new and old projects.

Here are three of them:

Zolo

A hyperactively fast jump and run with chainsaws: Zolo.

Food Fight

An OGRE-based real time strategy with vegetables and taco: Food Fight.

GameLV

An "adventure game in a post-soviet environment": GameLV.

Read more »

Video Change Logs: Make Your Own!

[video: OpenMW 0.10.0 Change Log]

OpenMW has been steadily reporting about latest progress on their blog and now also released some video change logs with audio commentary.

Freedroid is another project that has been reporting their progress regularly. You can follow them and many more projects on our game planet or dev planet.

To me, short video commentary reports of progress are a delight. While it might be ineffective to make a video for each release, if the changes are not so many and the effort is high, but from time to time having a video change log might be better at getting players interested or developers impressed enough to contribute than a simple CHANGES.txt.

An interesting middle ground is what M.A.R.S. did for their last few releases: screenshot changelogs.

GLC is one of the two nice ways I use to record game videos - here STK

When it comes to gameplay video recording on Linux, I spent some time on the subject and for me it all boiled down to two methods:

1. GLC is ideal for games that use both OpenGL and ALSA
2. FFMpeg is an all-rounder, that is a bit slower but works fine if the machine is powerful enough or the resolution low enough

I will gladly offer my experience in recording videos and editing them on Linux to help you make your own. Just post in the comments, start a thread on the forums or email me via qubodup@gmail.com.

Read more »

PonyKart: Copyright Racer

PonyKart Logo

Yes, this is for real.

PonyKart. Windows only. They have a SourceForge project.

I don't know what to say.

Read more »

GGJ License, EGP Feb 2012, STK Overworld, FG Interview

GGJ 2012 Theme

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.

EGP February 2012

Speaking of jams, the 7day-jam-during-one-month by Experimental Gameplay Project is "Infinite Worlds" for this month.

STK Overworld

As recently announced, one of the new features in SuperTuxKart 0.8 will be an overworld-connected challenge system.

Durk Talsma: AI programmer

Flight Gear's blog released a new interview. You can find the other interviews so far linked in this post.

Read more »

Classic gaming: OGS Mahjong

A somewhat neglected topic here on FreeGamer are classic puzzle games, and OGS Mahjong is definitely one of the gems of this genre:

OGS Mahjong 0.9 promo

The stable 0.9 release of this game can be expected shortly, so brush up your Mahjong skills or take the opportunity to finally learn the rules of this age-old classic (like me).

Read more »

Coldest: Mech AI and Playtesting with the Dev!

Trees in Coldest

Video: Coldest's Crazy Bots

Bots were added to the mech fighting game Coldest. If you would like to help playtest the game together with the developer, follow the project's news feed (there will be an announcement for a session sometime soon) and get the git version via:

git clone git://coldestgame.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/coldestgame/coldestgame coldest

Build instructions here.

Read more »

Flesh Snatcher: Bloody Java Polygons

Scenes from Flesh Snatcher

Flesh Snatcher is a bloody jME2 fps with fast movement and dodge-bullets gameplay that is low poly and low-tech enough to run smoothly on a netbook (tested: Asus EeePC 1000H).

Most models were made by the author, Arbaro was used for tree generation, FSRad (shared source, noncommercial) was used for lightmap generation. FOSS-incompatible textures from CGTextures were used.

The code license is not all that clear, I seem only to be able to find the jME license in the archive.

This active thread reveals more info and gives an opportunity to talk to the developer.

Read more »

Winter Shorts 3: Wizznic Cursor, TORCS Music, Knights Deathmatch, Humm and Strumm Specs, SuperTux Contest

Wizznic! received more GUI enhancements [video (00:57@YouTube)]
TORCS 1.3.2 brings menu music into the game [.ogg (05:50/7.1MB)]
Knights 0.19 features deathmatch [description]
Humm and Strumm is an in-dev co-op game engine [design .pdf (156kB)]

SuperTux' level contest has four entries so far [submission thread]

Read more »

Stunt Rally 1.4 Release & Trigger Rally 0.6 Videos

video: Stunt Rally ver. 1.4 - gameplay

From an announcement email:

Hi, after some months of silence we've released version 1.4 with a huge changelog. Some highlights:

• 71 tracks
• 2 new cars (TC6, NS)
• Fixed shadows (self shadowing, lightmapping)
• Better looking shaders (fresnel effect, reflectivity/specular maps) 
• SSAO effect (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion)
• Sound effects and particles for water or mud areas
• Improved in-car camera
• Rear gear throttle-brake inverse option

Also, installing this game just got a whole lot easier for linux users as there is now a binary Linux release (32 and 64 bit).

• Downloads page (Linux and Windows):
• Project's page (including info and links):
• Screenshots gallery:

Trigger Rally 0.6 has been out for two months by now but now there are some high-resolution gameplay videos available:

video: Trigger Rally 0.6.0: Desert Rush

video: Trigger Rally 0.6.0: Pulp: Cars Can Fly

The game is much simpler in all aspects than Stunt Rally but it runs well on netbooks. There is a community effort going on to replace copyright/trademark-problematic assets right now.

Maybe you can help by answering this strange question: would you consider these 3D models to be infringing on proprietary car designs?

Read more »

Trepidation 2011-12-20

999 ammo in Trepidation

Trepidation is an open source first person shooter based on the IOQuake3 engine. It was originally conceived on April 9, 2006 with the intent to build a free first person shooter with a sci-fi theme. The idea was initially developed by members of the Star Trek Elite Force gaming community.

Yesterday, the first development release since 2007 was released. It's mostly fixes but gameplay is affected. For example the sniper scope is more reactive and missing sounds are now in place.

There are 141 MB downloads for 32bit Linux and Windows. For 64bit Linux and other systems there's svn:
svn co https://trepidation.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/trepidation trepidation


I haven't had the time to figure out whether or not I need Quake 3 or OpenArena for Trepidation to work. Besides the project page there is a blog and a forum.

Read more »

Whats happening in OpenDungeons?

Hello, I am one of the OpenDungeons (OD) developers and I wrote this blog post for FreeGamer.

I bet you're all very excited about whats been going on lately, and I can assure you that a lot of stuff have been made for OD. We have new music for you to enjoy while annihilating your foes, we've got new concept art for the Human and Undead faction, a new forge and a completely new tile set. We have also begun working on the AI and a XML specification for creature stats.

Music and trailer

Recently timong join the forum and asked about some musical tasks to perform. He started working on a main theme for the game and came up with this :) While he was at it he also made a nice trailer for us which you can find in the about page or watch it below:

New concept art

We have also received some very nice concept art from the OpenGameArt competition for the Undead faction we got art for these creepy characters:

• Necromancer
• Bone Golem

and for the Human faction we got art for these noble folks:

• Wisp
• Halfling
• Cleric
• Maiden

Code updates

Of changes to the code and features we have begun implementing a basic AI and making a XML specification for creature definitions, which should make life a lot easier for artists which want to try out their new model in game and for balancing the stats of each creature.

New tile set and forge

We also have new tile set made by Skorpio (although it is not in the game yet):

You can find more pictures of the new tile set in this forum thread.

Finally we also have a new forge to make devilish traps and impenetrable doors :)

Current tasks, problems and needed help

A new release is planned once a bug that is crashing the game is fixed. We are also looking for more people/help for the project, especially when it comes to coding. You can see more details about the crasher bug and what skills we need from new people here in this blog post.

Read more »

Trigger Rally 0.6.0

Testing Trigger's Physics [source video]

Trigger Rally 0.6.0 for Linux (source portable) brings following new features:

• New (and old) contributed tracks and events
• New Practice Mode
• Paging on the Single Races screen to show all the available tracks
• Option to show speedometer in KPH or MPH
• Option to show digital speed on the speed dial ('hybrid' style)
• Fading track comment and GO at race start
• Freezing course time when passing through a checkpoint
• Tweak menu colors for more contrast

PS: If I understand this tweet correctly, this means high-quality motor, drift and crash sounds for Speed Dreams that hopefully will also be usable in Trigger, SuperTuxKart and other racing games.

Read more »

Arx Fatalis Linux Port Progress

The Arx Fatalis porting effort has been going full steam ahead; a lot of developments on that project. They recieved a Wiki sponsored by the PARPG guys, made subreddit to post updates to and have quite a few repositories where the different team members are working on the seperate goals of the project.

Development wise, they recently achieved ingame rendering on linux using Winelibs. This is not the ideal solution for the project, but they want to get something workable ASAP so it is the quickest.

As you can surely see, there's a lot that still needs doing; but it's tremendous progress in the short amount of time that they've been working on it so far.

Read more »