From death declaration to dragons and damnation... and two 2D map editors

youtube-dl: hyzOB92EuZM | tinyogg

The 2D RTS Bos Wars (BW) 2.6 has been released, after two years of release-silence. The new release includes

• Enhancements to the editor and map format
• New units, tilesets, maps, translations (italian and portugese)
• A campaign

About the campagin, which is called "swindler", I can only say that the story drawings are beautiful and that the first mission is unbeatable boring (which is why I can't say anything about follow-up missions, if there are any): you need to navigate a weak unit through a maze of high-damage towers - blind. You only have a chance when you have a good memory and accept having to restart the mission 20 times. The only other scripted scenario is the tutorial level, which has (computer-generated) mission voices even! You can see both missions being played (and the mentioned story drawings) in this video [tinyogg].

The new map format is 'patch-based', which is like 'tile-based' I suppose, only that it allows you to use tiles of any dimensions. The editor works well, it could only use a 'tile draw mode' which would continue to draw tiles while holding down the mouse button (this happens for units, but not for tiles). Here's a video [tinyogg] demonstration of the editor, make sure to skip if it gets boring, I show off tile, resource and unit placement and then test-play the map.

What I really really want BW to have is a tower defense map/mode. :)

Since I started talking about editors, I'll just go ahead and show the PARPG one:

youtube-dl: vXqojPwGYj4 | tinyogg

The editor is all right, it seems to be a bit hard to get existing resources into the game though: they need to have a xml definition file for each image (hand-written I assume) and then you have to import them into the map with multiple mouse clicks.

You probably know of the lack of a maintainer for PARPG but there are also coding and asset-making jobs to do for Techdemo 2 - enter "2D" and "3D" into your browser's search function to filter out the art tasks. A list of 'good tasks for new programmers' was written, you also ask for guidance here. The current programmer's hot topic is "inventory and objects".

youtube-dl: NFoGyph_Bc4 | tinyogg

Formido is a short top-down shoot-until-aliens-kill-you game. It is well-made, but I won't be coming back to it as I will be doing to Violetland.

youtube-dl: bRnHlyYJSlI | tinyogg

Damnation of the Gods aims to become an enhanced Dungeon Master clone. Right now it is an old-school engine with a pleasant GUI which relies on freeware DMJ's assets. Assets is what the project mainly needs.. and maybe some guidance for a plot?..

youtube-dl: a6q4X3ZxKNM | tinyogg

Dragon History is a Czech-language (with some horrible but fun text translations) adventure game for scummVM. Its code is GPLv2-licensed. I got no reply yet after asking for the gfx and audio's license..

Did I already mention that my Linux game video recording troubles were over the day I discovered this guide to use ffmpeg for it?

Remember my high praise of krank? Well now thanks to above post you can finally witness [tinyogg] visuals and sound in motion!

Also, dear Linux users: get youtube-dl if you're unable to use the youtube website. It owns. Look for it in your software repository.

Oh wait, I forgot one piece of news:

youtube-dl: 3B4GVILtzIw | tinyogg

Search and Rescue 0.9 was released. Contrary to FlightGear I was able to get my vehicle into the air (on the third try ;) ). Sounds would not work but I kind of like the low-resolution textures. I'll have to play it a little more to figure out if there's more fun things to do besides crashing helicopters. ^^

Battle Tanks and RPG

Battle Tanks

Battle Tanks is, "a funny battle on your desk.". Choose one of three vehicles and eliminate your enemy using an arsenal of weapons. Original cartoon-like graphics and cool music, "fun and dynamic," and it has different network modes for deathmatch and cooperative style gameplay. I don't believe it has a single player version, yet. The game is open source and available for Linux (source) and Windows. It's a relatively new game (sf.net project was registered in 2006) so there are still some teething issues it seems.

Adonthell, a longstanding open source console RPG engine has seen it's first update in a couple of years - version 0.4.0 alpha 1. The previous version, 0.3.5, is packaged with a small game called Wastes Edge which is one of the few completable open source games with a storyline and is available for every OS known to man. Whilst the new 'development' version doesn't come packaged with a game, it's good to see a project with nearly 10 years of history is not yet ready to be buried by the sands of time.

The developer of Damnation of the Gods (screenshots) has been in touch. When I mentioned this game last time, a commenter pointed out it hadn't been updated in 2 years. Well, the author of DotG dropped me an email:

I am the developer of DotG - And believe me - did I get a boost from
seeing your post on the freegamer blog!



The problem with DotG right now is the graphics - When I did begin coding on DotG I did it using graphics from the Dungeon Master Java project ... So I put together something - and released (with permission from the graphics artists). Later I got a mail which said something to effect that I couldn't use the graphics any longer (or at least parts of it). Now (quite some time later I started coding again - had completely forgotten about that "small" detail ;) - And then I remembered... However I haven't checked on which parts I can use, and which I cannot - So I think - perhaps it is better to start from scratch and try to get ahold of graphics-artists that can imagine releasing stuff for DotG under an completely open license...



So - the code is out there (GPL'd), but i have no graphics that can go
with it (Just minor stuffs). What I would like to do now is get graphics for my project (prefferable GPL'd) and release all of DotG under GPL or similar license. (I am a Debian user nowadays.. ;)

Dungeon Master Java is another DM clone available from the forums on www.dungeon-master.com - which has a few other free complete DM clones there although they don't seem to be open source.

Ugh... Missing Title

Following up the recent release of Thunder & Lightening, the action flight combat game, the author has posted a video on the website showcasing a major feature of the next release - an aircraft carrier. It looks cool and TnL is looking like an excellent game. Definitely close to the top of my games-to-play-when-I-upgrade-my-PC list.

What do you get whewn you cross-breed Elite and Space Invaders? Scum of the Universe: "a space trading game that combines two genres: arcade and strategy." It is open source and runs on Windows - but if you are feeling charitable, interestingly, you can still buy the game. From the screenshots, it looks fun. Bah, too many games, not enough time for Charlie to play them!

The other day I mentioned Damnation of the Gods, a Dungeon Master clone. Sadly I jumped the gun a little as development has been inactive for a year or so. However one diligent reader attempted to get it running and overcame a few compilation problems but has yet to get the game in a playable state.

Blocks 5, a challenging freeware puzzle game. Windows only. Check it out if that's your thing, it looks very good.

Ok, enough disjointed messages... I post to FG everyday but my time is limited meaning I don't get the opportunity to do everything I want with the site. Therefore I'm looking for a bit of feedback on what people think I should focus on. Firstly the current content, and secondly what extra feature I should prioritize. Voting will encourage me, if nothing else, so do your bit for the community let me know what you think. :-)