January Sales

Everything is so cheap after Christmas. I mean, look what you can get for FREE! :-)

The FreeOrion project just released version 0.3.11, which comes with some polish of existing features and a few small new ones. Here's the announcement. Only a Windows binary is up at the moment, bah, source only from SVN. I complained. (I'm good at that.) There are statically compiled SVN binaries for Linux but you have to go digging to find them. Still, when digging you can find treasure, like this ship development thread. Purty!

UPDATE: here's the Linux binaries and here's a quick play guide - which you really do need, there's so many clicky thingamajigs.

Platinum Arts Sandbox, the game design tool based on the Cube 2 engine, saw version 2.3 released a few days ago. From the announcement:

Here are the awesome new features!

* New 3D sidescroller Mario like mode! Also there is a seperate RPG project, check the wiki! [link - note it is aimed at kids and in concept stage]

* Hotkeys that make it easier to save games, add materials, and lots more!

* New in game help section that displays all of the binds/key commands!

* Snow has been tweaked and updated :) Be sure to check out the new version of house :D

* Maps now generate cfgs on save! Also many various map tweaks.

* New main menu theme! To try other themes check out the options menu.

* Loads of new textures and new player skins.

* Tons of under the hood bug fixes and features.

* Thanks to ZKAT of virtualdarkarts.net there is a brand new great looking launcher!

Here's one of the developers, Mike, talking about different aspects of developing Sandbox, along with gameplay clips. Quite interesting.

The DungeonHack team has been active lately and it is finally starting to pay dividends with a reorganized and improved codebase now coming back to life. Early days, still, so I'll leave it at that.

Vikings is an open-source RPG, presumably based on Vikings. This model of theirs is mighty nice!

Pyweek. It's one of those contradictory things in life. Some nearly-cool games get done in a short space of time, but then when those efforts can't be put into bigger and fuller versions of the concepts you see in Pygame is somewhat frustrating. Still, some nuggets in there like AFF:City, a city building game based on the Angels Fall First universe. If they can get that much done in a week, why not spend a few months on the game and it'll be awesome, surely?

A less serious but more mind-bending game is the imaginately titled 4D Maze Game. Play it online in an applet or browse the source. I didn't really conceptually understand how the maze works, thus I failed to escape after going in random directions in 4 dimensions for a few minutes. I hope I never get stuck in a real 4D maze, I'll be in real trouble!

Open Source Survives Financial Meltdown

There's a few juicy updates to several great Free Software game projects over the last few days. I'm feeling too lazy to grab screenshots though. You'll just have to peruse yourself if you find something interesting.

We'll start with TA:Spring 0.77b3 - Linux and Windows binaries are up for download - with the comment, "After some people have stated that we should release more early and often*, we give you 0.77b3 here." I downloaded and installed it using the generic Linux installer - worked without a hitch - and it looks fan-bloody-tastic. Still, the state of licensing of some of the content is a little unclear - I don't feel reassured that I'm playing a totally Free game although I'm certain some of the mods are Free Software. That doesn't bother me like it might some of the purists out there.

OpenLieroX 0.57_beta8 arrived. Worms and blood and chaotic 2D action. It's a pixel dream.

Open City 0.0.6 beta can be found on Sourceforge. There's no release notice yet on the website but there's plenty of features in it. Open City is a largely unknown open source 3D city building game. It really deserves more attention than it gets IMHO. The fundamental gameplay foundations are already in place and it's a more in-depth game than Lincity[-NG] or Micropolis (aka Sim City classic), but lacks the polish and stability required to make it attract a larger playing community. Every release is a step closer!

Ok, hrm, how about two new [to Free Gamer] projects?

LBA Prequel (project) is a fan-made effort to create a Free game based on the Little Big Adventure universe, a prequel to the original games. The franchise is officially discontinued so unofficial intervention is required. They are taking the work of two previous projects - which partially reverse engineered the original games to create cross platform engines to play them - to create an engine capable of playing the original titles and the game LBA Prequel is essentially a total conversion that uses this engine.

Epic of Thalia is an RPG of the non-MMO variety. Woohoo! MMO has become the new shell suit, for those of us that don't like MMOs. Alas, I digress. The game is in early stages of development and the website is cryptic until you realise you have to click on the 'navigation' button. What is good is that they have an active source repository** and a few concept releases already, which is more than many aspiring projects make. The Epic of Thalia team is, like all good open source projects, looking for contributors.

* I firmly believe it is true: "release early, release often" is the mantra of a successful open source project.

** It's Darcs. Which reminds me of a new DRCS I saw called Fossil - it's an integrated RCS, Wiki, and bug tracking system. Think git meets trac. Anybody tried it yet?

EDIT: Just got emailed that Platinum Arts Sandbox 2.2.4 is out. The project is an attempt to make a version of Sauerbraten that's more kid-friendly and oriented around cooperative content. Lots of new features and there's been work on a Kid Friendly RPG (brainstorming) for it too, check out Cabzilla:

Screenshots are for wimps

Glest 3.1.2 has been released (changelog, linux). Fixes, minor improvements, good to see some sustained activity for the project and hopefully it keeps on going like this.

SuperTuxKart 0.4 is being packaged as we speak. Eventually (although not yet as of time of writing) they'll be up on Sourceforge. It goes from being quite a naff game (STK 0.3 was basically TuxKart with better graphics, and TuxKart has some serious gameplay flaws) to being really quite a good game. Now it is a bit of polish and some better tracks away from being a great game. I suggest you try it out, the improvement is massive, and if 0.5 brings the same level of improvements as this release, then STK 0.5 will be a very good game indeed.

There's a bit of competition around the corner though. Platinum Arts Sandbox 2.1 was released. This is a sandbox game aimed at kids and this version contains a kart racing mode so kids can build their tracks in the very easy Sauer environment (PAS is a Sauer derivative) and then race on them all without the game without specialist tools or knowledge.

Speaking of Sauerbraten, here's some videos showing how basic world editing works.

Word War vi (that's vi as in vi vs emacs as opposed to VI as in 4 6 (d'oh! dang roman numerals...)) is a side scrolling shooter which is, well, kinda geeky but also kinda fun. (Did you spend a few secs thinking "World War IV" too?)

Finally, the Secret Maryo Chronicles project is looking for a new name to get away from copyright trademark issues with the Mario franchise. I'm sure all good ideas are welcome.

In case you didn't guess from the title, there's no screenshots in the post. I'm too busy to do it today! Edit: Ok, thought I'd post this Word War iv vi video since it's kinda cool: