The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up, and has been up since Wednesday, actually. Games played: In the Shadow of the Emperor, Tichu, Oltre Mare.
I re-evaluate In the Shadow of the Emperor, and also think about Oltre Mare some more.
--
My step-daughter has returned from a three month sojourn to Costa-Rica. While in Costa Rica, she decided to travel to Panama, and then Ecuador and the Galapagos. When she tried to return to Costa Rica via Panama, she was denied entry because she did not have a yellow fever vaccination. She was booted back to Panama.
The airline that let her board the flight to Costa Rica from Ecuador took responsibility for the mess and arranged to have her stay in a hotel in Guayaquil, Ecuador for the ten days required to wait after receiving the vaccination. Luckily, she still had twelve days until her flight from Costa Rica back to Israel. They shouldn't have let her board the plane to begin with.
Actually, Ecuador shouldn't have let her come in to begin with, since you really need a yellow fever vaccination to get in to Ecuador to begin with.
Luckily, that was the worst part of the trip. She didn't actually contract yellow fever and she didn't get robbed in Guayaquil, although it's a high-crime city. American Airlines lost her luggage on the way back to Israel, however.
Thứ Sáu, 30 tháng 7, 2010
Thứ Năm, 22 tháng 7, 2010
Session Report, in which I inadvertently cheat in Dominion
The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up. Games played: Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside, El Grande, Homesteaders.
I misread a card in Dominion and play it wrong for a few turns.
On Monday or Tuesday evening, Rachel killed me in a game of Scrabble, around 430 to 320. She had all 4 S's, both blanks, the X and the J. I had the Z and the Q, and I only managed to do something with the Q. Most of the game I had 6 or 7 vowels on my rack (once I tossed in all seven vowel tiles and picked 6 more and an L).
That's the way it goes.
I misread a card in Dominion and play it wrong for a few turns.
On Monday or Tuesday evening, Rachel killed me in a game of Scrabble, around 430 to 320. She had all 4 S's, both blanks, the X and the J. I had the Z and the Q, and I only managed to do something with the Q. Most of the game I had 6 or 7 vowels on my rack (once I tossed in all seven vowel tiles and picked 6 more and an L).
That's the way it goes.
Thứ Ba, 20 tháng 7, 2010
Assorted FPS news
Lets start with the big news for today :)
A new version of Cube2:Sauerbraten was released today: Justice Edition!
Edit (07/29/2010): 7.45 was released today, get it here.
Ok maybe I am jumping the gun here, but this interesting post has recently appeared on the Phoronix message-boards. It seems like the former commercial indi game Zero Ballistics (an unrealistic tank battle multiplayer game with pretty sweet graphics) has gone completely FOSS (GPL including the media and even the .blend model source files).
A new version of Cube2:Sauerbraten was released today: Justice Edition!
Changes include two new player-models, 30 new maps, a mini radar and the new hold and efficiency game modes. For a full change log click here.
The blue base!
The new game mode "efficiency" gives you a set amount of ammunition and all weapons, and you can only "reload" when re-spawning and in the "hold" mode you get points when holding the flag for 30 seconds for your team
Upcoming changes in AlienArena
In this other open-source online arena FPS (sadly also with un-free media) some major changes in the rendering engine have been announced recently. Version 7.45 will include the new IQM skeletal animation format, which speeds up and increases the rendering quality tremendously on all somewhat new GPUs!Furthermore changes to the shadowing code have been made:
Improved self shadowing
Edit (07/29/2010): 7.45 was released today, get it here.
ZeroBallistics completely FOSS???
Ok maybe I am jumping the gun here, but this interesting post has recently appeared on the Phoronix message-boards. It seems like the former commercial indi game Zero Ballistics (an unrealistic tank battle multiplayer game with pretty sweet graphics) has gone completely FOSS (GPL including the media and even the .blend model source files).
Details are a bit shady, as there was a post on the currently offline webpage about ZB going to be released for "free", but no mention of the exact licensing. However now a complete repository has appeared on the Sourceforge page (tagged as GPL), so speculations are that it is completely FOSS!
We are currently trying to confirm this with the authors listed at the sf.net page, but so far there was no response :( But lets wait and see!Edit (07/29/2010): I can now confirm that ZeroBallistics is indeed completely FOSS :) Stay tuned for a more in depth preview here on FreeGamer.
Chủ Nhật, 18 tháng 7, 2010
Weekend Gaming
Nadine hosted gamers for shabbat lunch, and we played some games afterward.
Tichu
I expressed interest in a complete game of Tichu, rather than some mid-length board game.
I played with Tal for the first half, and then Nadine became my partner for the second half. Our opponents were Abraham and Adam; Adam was somewhat less skilled in the game.
Tal left when we were up 495 to 5. Two rounds after Nadine joined us, we were tied 550 to 550. However, Nadine and I once again took the lead and kept it until the end.
Twice Adam called Tichu and then I called Tichu right after. Both times, I made my call (and obviously he didn't). Abraham called and made one Grand Tichu, but then I did the same on the next round. On the last round, with the score 570 to 930 (us), Abraham bid one more Grand Tichu. I bid Tichu right after, and again I made mine.
I had some pretty good hands.
Stone Age
Meanwhile, Emily, Eitan, Sara, and Shani played Stone Age. Either Eitan was convinced he was winning, or Sara managed to convince everyone that he was winning. But in fact, Sara ended up winning by over 30 points.
After this game, Adam, Abraham, Sara, Eitan, and Emily went off to Abraham's house to continue playing.
Elvish Dogs Game
I didn't actually play this, but one of my friends from Sweden had it sitting on her shelf. It's a Hungry Hungry Hippos clone.
Tichu
I expressed interest in a complete game of Tichu, rather than some mid-length board game.
I played with Tal for the first half, and then Nadine became my partner for the second half. Our opponents were Abraham and Adam; Adam was somewhat less skilled in the game.
Tal left when we were up 495 to 5. Two rounds after Nadine joined us, we were tied 550 to 550. However, Nadine and I once again took the lead and kept it until the end.
Twice Adam called Tichu and then I called Tichu right after. Both times, I made my call (and obviously he didn't). Abraham called and made one Grand Tichu, but then I did the same on the next round. On the last round, with the score 570 to 930 (us), Abraham bid one more Grand Tichu. I bid Tichu right after, and again I made mine.
I had some pretty good hands.
Stone Age
Meanwhile, Emily, Eitan, Sara, and Shani played Stone Age. Either Eitan was convinced he was winning, or Sara managed to convince everyone that he was winning. But in fact, Sara ended up winning by over 30 points.
After this game, Adam, Abraham, Sara, Eitan, and Emily went off to Abraham's house to continue playing.
Elvish Dogs Game
I didn't actually play this, but one of my friends from Sweden had it sitting on her shelf. It's a Hungry Hungry Hippos clone.
Thứ Sáu, 16 tháng 7, 2010
Session Report, in which I have terrible luck in Dominion
The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up. Games played: Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside x 2, Antike, Princes of Florence, Tigris and Euphrates, Cuba.
I lose Dominion due to bad luck (or maybe bad play).
I lose Dominion due to bad luck (or maybe bad play).
Thứ Năm, 15 tháng 7, 2010
Dos and Dont's For Creating a Professional Gaming Industry Website
INTRODUCTION
If your company is within, or caters to, the game industry, your company's web site should present information about your company, describe what your company creates or provides, make your products or services attractive, easy to find, and easy to purchase, support your customers, and establish your company as relevant.
Many company's web sites do few to none of these. They don't include company information, they don't describe what they do, they hide their products and services or make them difficult to purchase, they provide no support to their customers, and/or they are annoyingly self-indulgent messes that make their companies look bad.
Here are some of the DO's and DO NOT's for a game company web site, all of which I've recently seen violated.
Domains
DO get a simple, single word domain name. It's inexpensive and it's professional.
DO get a domain name that matches your company name or a well-known term within your industry, if at all possible.
DO NOT, if at all possible, include strange or extraneous characters in your domain name.
DO make the URL of the initial page of your website "http://www.yourdomain.topleveldomain/", where yourdomain is your domain name, and topleveldomain is "com", "net", "org", "biz", or your country code. "http" can be "https", as long as the former redirects to the latter. "www" is not necessary, but the home page must work both with and without it. The home page should not have anything following the trailing "/" after the page has finished loading.
Why? Because people are going to cut and paste the page or bookmark the page. And, if the first landing URL is not plain and undecorated (e.g. includes a database instruction, or a cgi script path, or a session id), it's going to be a broken link in three months.
DO make the title of your home page your company name. Optionally, add three to five words about your business. The title will be in the user's bookmarks/favorites only if it is not a mess.
Features
DO include an About page that defines what your company does in its first paragraph: "We make plastic miniatures". "We are game distributors to Southern Hooplah". DO NOT assume that anyone knows what you do without this. A picture of a miniature on your home page doesn't tell me if you sculpt them, paint them, produce them, distribute them, or sell them.
DO NOT start your About page creatively with fantasy stories or a history of your company; you can do that later on in the page. You can also include the fantasy story on your home page.
DO name your About page About, About Us, or Company Information. Not History, Info, or Who Are We?
DO include Terms and Privacy pages, and ensure that they have actual content, and not gobblygoook or the sentence "This page is where you add your privacy info".
DO include a list of your major product brands, former names for your company, information about relationships to other companies (your distributors, if you produce, or your producers if you distribute, etc), and links to these.
DO NOT have a really long home page with different fonts and tables and other crap. Unless your home page is a blog or news, the home page should not be larger than the browser window.
DO make an effort to look professional, and DO NOT use garish contrasting colors, glow in the darks, sparkles, or anything else that would appeal to a 13 year old girl or boy (even if that is your target).
DO NOT play any sound of any kind of any length when the website is opened. This includes embedded videos or flash that automatically play. The reader is probably listening to music or has other pages opened that make noise, and the result is a cacaphony of hate.
DO NOT feature anything that blinks.
DO NOT use heavy Flash or other features. Remember that some people don't have, or block, Flash.
DO NOT make the entire site one big Flash program. It makes navigation difficult, and impossible to find the terms or information on search sites. Save the full page Flash content for your online games.
DO NOT disable right-clicking in a vain effort to prevent people from stealing your content. There are many valid reasons for right-clicking other than stealing your content. And many ways to steal it without right-clicking. All you will do is annoy the people who need to right click.
DO NOT have any dead pages, or dead features, anywhere.
Shopping
DO include pictures and prices.
DO NOT require registration, login, or payment information before telling the customer what the total cost, including shipping and taxes, will be.
DO use a secure payment method.
If you have shopping, DO include a telephone number as part of the contact info.
Contact
DO have a way to contact you, other than by purchasing a product, or applying for a job or to become a new distributor.
If you do not include an actual email address on every page, DO name your contact page Contact, and not Feedback, Info, About, or anything else.
DO NOT simply include a contact form, without also including a live email address link.
DO link to the email, or the contact page, on the home page and/or navigation bar, and preferably on every page. DO NOT hide your contact email in your Privacy, About, or Terms pages, or somewhere far down on your home page.
DO NOT use anti-spam techniques that make it difficult to contact you; get a spam filter on your email account. If your contact email is info@yourdomain, sales@yourdomain, or contact@yourdomain, or similar, the anti-spam technique won't work, anyway. DO make your contact email info@yourdomain, sales@yourdomain, or contact@yourdomain, or similar.
DO list a contact name beside the email address, or as the link text for the email address.
If your company is within, or caters to, the game industry, your company's web site should present information about your company, describe what your company creates or provides, make your products or services attractive, easy to find, and easy to purchase, support your customers, and establish your company as relevant.
Many company's web sites do few to none of these. They don't include company information, they don't describe what they do, they hide their products and services or make them difficult to purchase, they provide no support to their customers, and/or they are annoyingly self-indulgent messes that make their companies look bad.
Here are some of the DO's and DO NOT's for a game company web site, all of which I've recently seen violated.
Domains
DO get a simple, single word domain name. It's inexpensive and it's professional.
DO get a domain name that matches your company name or a well-known term within your industry, if at all possible.
DO NOT, if at all possible, include strange or extraneous characters in your domain name.
DO make the URL of the initial page of your website "http://www.yourdomain.topleveldomain/", where yourdomain is your domain name, and topleveldomain is "com", "net", "org", "biz", or your country code. "http" can be "https", as long as the former redirects to the latter. "www" is not necessary, but the home page must work both with and without it. The home page should not have anything following the trailing "/" after the page has finished loading.
Why? Because people are going to cut and paste the page or bookmark the page. And, if the first landing URL is not plain and undecorated (e.g. includes a database instruction, or a cgi script path, or a session id), it's going to be a broken link in three months.
DO make the title of your home page your company name. Optionally, add three to five words about your business. The title will be in the user's bookmarks/favorites only if it is not a mess.
Features
DO include an About page that defines what your company does in its first paragraph: "We make plastic miniatures". "We are game distributors to Southern Hooplah". DO NOT assume that anyone knows what you do without this. A picture of a miniature on your home page doesn't tell me if you sculpt them, paint them, produce them, distribute them, or sell them.
DO NOT start your About page creatively with fantasy stories or a history of your company; you can do that later on in the page. You can also include the fantasy story on your home page.
DO name your About page About, About Us, or Company Information. Not History, Info, or Who Are We?
DO include Terms and Privacy pages, and ensure that they have actual content, and not gobblygoook or the sentence "This page is where you add your privacy info".
DO include a list of your major product brands, former names for your company, information about relationships to other companies (your distributors, if you produce, or your producers if you distribute, etc), and links to these.
DO NOT have a really long home page with different fonts and tables and other crap. Unless your home page is a blog or news, the home page should not be larger than the browser window.
DO make an effort to look professional, and DO NOT use garish contrasting colors, glow in the darks, sparkles, or anything else that would appeal to a 13 year old girl or boy (even if that is your target).
DO NOT play any sound of any kind of any length when the website is opened. This includes embedded videos or flash that automatically play. The reader is probably listening to music or has other pages opened that make noise, and the result is a cacaphony of hate.
DO NOT feature anything that blinks.
DO NOT use heavy Flash or other features. Remember that some people don't have, or block, Flash.
DO NOT make the entire site one big Flash program. It makes navigation difficult, and impossible to find the terms or information on search sites. Save the full page Flash content for your online games.
DO NOT disable right-clicking in a vain effort to prevent people from stealing your content. There are many valid reasons for right-clicking other than stealing your content. And many ways to steal it without right-clicking. All you will do is annoy the people who need to right click.
DO NOT have any dead pages, or dead features, anywhere.
Shopping
DO include pictures and prices.
DO NOT require registration, login, or payment information before telling the customer what the total cost, including shipping and taxes, will be.
DO use a secure payment method.
If you have shopping, DO include a telephone number as part of the contact info.
Contact
DO have a way to contact you, other than by purchasing a product, or applying for a job or to become a new distributor.
If you do not include an actual email address on every page, DO name your contact page Contact, and not Feedback, Info, About, or anything else.
DO NOT simply include a contact form, without also including a live email address link.
DO link to the email, or the contact page, on the home page and/or navigation bar, and preferably on every page. DO NOT hide your contact email in your Privacy, About, or Terms pages, or somewhere far down on your home page.
DO NOT use anti-spam techniques that make it difficult to contact you; get a spam filter on your email account. If your contact email is info@yourdomain, sales@yourdomain, or contact@yourdomain, or similar, the anti-spam technique won't work, anyway. DO make your contact email info@yourdomain, sales@yourdomain, or contact@yourdomain, or similar.
DO list a contact name beside the email address, or as the link text for the email address.
Thứ Tư, 14 tháng 7, 2010
Convergent evolution?
Today we have a small biology lesson ;)
Have a look at this screenshot:
TeamFortress2, right? Well WRONG ;) It is actually a screenshot from one of the maps from the upcoming War§ow 0.55 release!
War§ow is a open-source game based on the updated Quake2 engine QFusion, and has already seen some quite successful previous releases. They focus on a fast, e-sports style game play and their general art direction is a pretty nice cell-shaded comic world.
Lately their their style has been for sure party influenced by TeamFortress2 however, which at least in my opinion is not a bad thing :) For a whole bunch of other screenshots and an update on what else you can expect from the new version, check out their newest blog post here. Overall there will be some pretty nice improvements, and probably a significant performance increase with VBO integration into the engine.
But maybe most interestingly, they will also include a new game play mode, Capture the Flag: Tactics. And guess what? It will be a class based team CTF, with turrets and ammo dispensers. Sounds familiar right? :p
Sadly I have to mention though that the art content of War§ow is completely unfree, and its development team shows a general lack of interest in the idea of FOSS... Yes the engine source code is available, but probably only because it is GPL and therefore has to be.
Second lesson for today, kids: GPL is good, mkay?
Have a look at this screenshot:
A nice warehouse
TeamFortress2, right? Well WRONG ;) It is actually a screenshot from one of the maps from the upcoming War§ow 0.55 release!
War§ow is a open-source game based on the updated Quake2 engine QFusion, and has already seen some quite successful previous releases. They focus on a fast, e-sports style game play and their general art direction is a pretty nice cell-shaded comic world.
Lately their their style has been for sure party influenced by TeamFortress2 however, which at least in my opinion is not a bad thing :) For a whole bunch of other screenshots and an update on what else you can expect from the new version, check out their newest blog post here. Overall there will be some pretty nice improvements, and probably a significant performance increase with VBO integration into the engine.
But maybe most interestingly, they will also include a new game play mode, Capture the Flag: Tactics. And guess what? It will be a class based team CTF, with turrets and ammo dispensers. Sounds familiar right? :p
Say Hello to Mr. Turret
Sadly I have to mention though that the art content of War§ow is completely unfree, and its development team shows a general lack of interest in the idea of FOSS... Yes the engine source code is available, but probably only because it is GPL and therefore has to be.
Second lesson for today, kids: GPL is good, mkay?
Chủ Nhật, 11 tháng 7, 2010
Strap-on-bomb Car: One-Button Mini-Racing game
Str.. Bomb Car!
Awesome! A one-button mini car racing game where you have to blow up your car in the most hilarious way thinkable!
No wait, that's not right. It's actually a time trial game but this kid [tinyogg] figured out what's most fun to do!
So you use the space bar to make the car either turn left or right but for whatever reason there is a bomb, where a bumper should be. Get it here in a .zip for OSX/Win/Lin32&64/src if your computer can run 3D games!
Both game content and source code are GPL-licensed. Only exception is the soundtrack: one track is BY-SA (good), one NoDerivs (bad) and one has no license (bad). DarkPlaces is the engine used by the game. Urre made Bomb Car and if I understand correctly, he is part of Kot in Action, who are currently working on the top-down shooter Steel Storm using the DarkPlaces engine. Not sure what their plan for licensing is.
And yeah. We all agree that the name is funny. Shut up. :P At least it's not "open bomb car". (Speaking of weird names: while "kot" means "cat" in Polish and Russian, it means something different in German.)
Thứ Sáu, 9 tháng 7, 2010
Deep Adventure GPLed, Pretty HTML5 Pong, Red Eclipse Status
Feeling random! Bullets! Colors! (Sun does that to you! Don't go outside! Stay inside and make open source games!)
- Country of Origin is now GPLed
You are in a computer game in which you have to find the essence of time and space.
You could be tempted to think this quest is in vain, because you think that questions are more important than answers. But you are in a computer game.
Games have solutions for they consist of puzzles. And as Thomas Kuhn says, although intrinsic value is no prerequisite for a puzzle, the assured existence of a solution is!
Country of Origin - Web Mega Pong is GPLed, non-forgiving and pretty to look at!
Web Mega Pong - I like Red Eclipse a_lot. I recorded a_lot of gameplay videos. The levels look great!
Last time I asked, they were aiming for "Sportsy Sci-Fi" and BY-SA-compatible licensed art. Currently the (player/weapon model) style is retro-simple and there are a few non-free licensed assets in the repository. The map style is: cool. :)
In my humble opinion, the simple/retro look of the players makes me tolerate/not notice the bot's occasional failures. Something about uncanny valley.
One amazing thing about Red Eclipse is, that each time a new SVN commit gets committed, the official server updates automatically and you can only play using the latest SVN!
Red Eclipse
Thứ Năm, 8 tháng 7, 2010
Session Report, in which we play Endeavor with mixed reactions
The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up. Games played: Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside, Endeavor, Yinsh, Tichu.
We reassess Endeavor.
In other gaming, earlier this week Rachel beat me in a game of Scrabble, something like 345 to 325ish.
We reassess Endeavor.
In other gaming, earlier this week Rachel beat me in a game of Scrabble, something like 345 to 325ish.
Thứ Tư, 7 tháng 7, 2010
The BP Board Game Story Leaked and Spread Like
The mainstream news would have you believe that stories originate in the mainstream news and are stolen, without attribution, by bloggers and new media service. The truth is often the opposite. Bloggers and new media services originate many news items that are stolen, without attribution, by the mainstream press.
Bloggers and NMSs, as a rule, write an intro, snip a paragraph or two, attribute, and link. Mainstream press, as a rule, doesn't snip, but they also don't attribute.
Here's how the fairly insignificant discovery of an old story about a BP oil game spread across the internet. Note that I am leaving out another hundred or so blogs, most of whom simply snip and attribute.
[1] Actually, I saw the original Reg Hardware post, but didn't feel that it was important enough to note on PP. After the later flare up, one of the other pawns posted.
Bloggers and NMSs, as a rule, write an intro, snip a paragraph or two, attribute, and link. Mainstream press, as a rule, doesn't snip, but they also don't attribute.
Here's how the fairly insignificant discovery of an old story about a BP oil game spread across the internet. Note that I am leaving out another hundred or so blogs, most of whom simply snip and attribute.
| Date | Post | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 2 | Reg Hardware (NMS) | Hat tip to "Enzo" |
| Jun 2 | Wordsmoker (blog) | None |
| Jul 5 | Metro (MSP) | None |
| Jul 5 | SWNS (MSP) | None |
| Jul 6 | Gizmodo (blog) | Metro |
| Jul 6 | Kotaku (blog) | Metro, Gizmodo |
| Jul 6 | Saffron Walden Reporter (MSP) | None |
| Jul 6 | Chron (blog on MSP) | Metro, Gizmodo, MSNBC Field Notes |
| Jul 6 | Yahoo News blog (blog on MSP) | Metro |
| Jul 6 | Nola (MSP) | Metro |
| Jul 6 | Think Progress (blog) | Metro |
| Jul 6 | Purple Pawn (blog) | Kotaku [1] |
| Jul 6 | AL.com blog (blog on MSP) | Yahoo |
| Jul 6 | Examiner (blog) | Reg Hardware, Think Progress |
| Jul 6 | WTOP (MSP) | Metro, Gizmodo |
| Jul 6 | Grist (NMS) | Metro, Mother Jones |
| Jul 6 | Mother Jones (MSP) | Metro |
| Jul 6 | Huffington Post (NMS) | Metro, hat tip to Baratunde tweet |
| Jul 6 | CNN This Just In (MSP) | None |
| Jul 6 | MSNBC Field Notes (MSP) | None |
| Jul 6 | alibi (blog) | MSNBC Field Notes |
| Jul 6 | Cambridge News (MSP) | None |
| Jul 6 | Geekosystem (blog) | Metro, Agent M |
| Jul 6 | Agent M (blog) | Metro |
| Jul 6 | GamerCrave (blog) | Metro, Gizmodo |
| Jul 6 | Fox Boston (blog on MSP) | Metro |
| Jul 6 | Escapist (NMS) | Metro, Gizmodo |
| Jul 6 | CNBC Funny Business (MSP) | Metro |
| Jul 6 | ParentDish (blog) | Metro |
| Jul 6 | WIBW (MSP) | None |
| Jul 6 | Good (NMS) | Metro, Treehugger |
| Jul 6 | Treehugger (blog) | Metro, Climate Progress |
| Jul 6 | Climate Progress (blog) | Metro, Think Progress |
| Jul 6 | Daily Tech (blog) | Gizmodo |
| Jul 6 | Neatorama (blog) | Metro, Kotaku |
| Jul 6 | The New Republic (blog) | Metro |
| Jul 7 | Live Oil (blog) | None |
| Jul 7 | Arizona Daily Wildcat (MSP) | CNN This Just In |
[1] Actually, I saw the original Reg Hardware post, but didn't feel that it was important enough to note on PP. After the later flare up, one of the other pawns posted.
Thứ Bảy, 3 tháng 7, 2010
MegaGlest 3.3.5 Pre-release special!
A new version of MegaGlest will be released sometime today! Once it is head over here to download it! A short changelog can be found here.
MegaGlest is a relatively recent fork of the quite well known FOSS Game Glest, which ceased development some time back. Now that Megaglest has taken up the development, things have advanced quite quickly (in contrast to the other promising Glest fork GAE) and Glest now finally has the long deserved cross platform multiplayer and a proper master-server with a games lobby! Furthermore Megaglest includes all the factions known from the Megapack before, bumping the total number up to 6.
And believe it or not, qudobup and me tried to play a round (extreme n00b alert :D ), which we recored and commented here:
All done with Free software by the way :D (MegaGlest, glc, Audacity, PiTiVi and Mumble)!
For this Megaglest special we are also lucky to had the chance to make a short interview with the two main heads behind this Glest fork.
(Mega)Glest has an incredibly easy modding setup. Almost everything in the game can be easily changed with simple XML files, and the 2D map editor is very easy to grasp. Especially with the recent usability improvements in Megaglest (and included Linux editor binaries) it is possible to create a simple but nice map in a matter of minutes!
Edit: I was made aware that those editor improvements come mostly from the GAE project. Very good additions!
(Ok this was not done in minutes :p It's one of the new 8 player maps that come with MegaGlest)
But luckily all these editing features are also very well documented in the Glest wiki.
Last but not least, all single-player and co-op scenarios can be fully scripted right in the XML files with lua, a pretty powerful yet easy scripting language commonly used in computer games. Sadly it is not possible to create full singleplayer campaigns yet, but lets hope that gets added soon too!
MegaGlest is a relatively recent fork of the quite well known FOSS Game Glest, which ceased development some time back. Now that Megaglest has taken up the development, things have advanced quite quickly (in contrast to the other promising Glest fork GAE) and Glest now finally has the long deserved cross platform multiplayer and a proper master-server with a games lobby! Furthermore Megaglest includes all the factions known from the Megapack before, bumping the total number up to 6.
And believe it or not, qudobup and me tried to play a round (extreme n00b alert :D ), which we recored and commented here:
All done with Free software by the way :D (MegaGlest, glc, Audacity, PiTiVi and Mumble)!
Interview with the Megaglest team
For this Megaglest special we are also lucky to had the chance to make a short interview with the two main heads behind this Glest fork.
- FreeGamer: For a start, could you please give us a short introduction into your team structure and what your motivation was to fork Glest in order to make Megaglest?
- titi: Well teamstructure is... I started and Softcoder joined :) I have been working on glest mods for 2 years now because I like the game and there was so little content available back then. For Megaglest I also do some programming, but Softcoder writes more of the code than me.
- Softcoder: But we also have contributions from time to time from others (like the GAE team).
- titi: Concerning our motivation, I think we both work on glest because our kids like it :) Right from the start my children were involved in Glest modding. For example my son made nice tileset and helped me with my first mods; especially the Indians (as in native north Americans / the editor ;) ) we made as a coop production!
- Softcoder: Yes titi & family are the heart of the community! But my boys also made a number of factions. Elimnator and Tiger are big into mods, and call their mods vbros packs :)
- FreeGamer: Interesting to see that FOSS game development can really work as a family hobby! Not really the typical cliche of the lonely bed-room programmer in his teens ;)
But lets move on to the next question: Glest is for sure heavily influenced by Blizzard's Warcraft3, and thus caters to a similar type of gamer. Have you though about bringing some of the popular elements from that game over to Megaglest? Examples would be hero units, and of course the later added game-play modes like DOTA and Tower Defense. - titi: I think we both don't even know Warcraft3 :) I didn't played many RTS games up to now... well I think I played something called Dune2 on the Amiga before ;) Actually I'm more a FPS player.
- Softcoder: I'm not a gamer at all. But yeah, the forums are filled with people who ask for features from those games. In short we will therefore likely bring lots of features that people like from there into MG.
- titi: Personally however, I don't like all this special hero feature people talk about. Things get too complicated with this, and I think these heroes kill the usual RTS fun. But there are some fun ideas we will follow for sure :) But I see Glest as its own game; I don't want to build a Warcraft clone.
Concerning DOTA, well I guess HON is much better then we can ever be :) But there are mods who do this and when they grow we will support them if it fits to the game itself. Right now we have the current RTS game type in focus, however. - FreeGamer: Ok next question: Megaglest seems to have evolved out of a number of independent factions and tile sets, so the overall game design is lacking a bit. Are there plans to take a more "tighter grip" in order to get the balancing etc. right? Or do you consider Megaglest more of a "playground" and let someone else develop a "pro-mod" for balanced multiplayer?
- Softcoder: I think the answer is a challenge of the community and the age groups. Many young people are working on techs, factions, maps etc, but we might need to be more careful to keep "themes" together. So we try to only allow consistent content as part of the shipped product.
- titi: Well there are the Tech and Magic factions from the original glest, but the rest was basically made by me. It is something what I called Megapack before. But I learned more while doing this and so they look a bit different :)
- FreeGamer: What I actually meant was not the art style but the game balancing and game design. Are there plans to restructure the factions, maybe limit them to 3 or so to be able to get balancing right?
- titi: I think the balancing is quite good! Ok, some are better some are not so good, but thats like the players. It is meant like that, good players choose bad factions bad players choose good factions. But what's good or bad depends on the map too!
But I discuss with others in the forums and hear what they say... especially beginners always say this or that faction is too good, but after a while they often come to the conclusion thats its not as they thought :p - Softcoder: I also think the base MG install has that, e.g. a core game-play with good balancing. It is the add-ons etc... that create the "playground".
- titi: But for me competitive game-play is also not really the focus. I want to make a game thats fun to play, not competitive! Especially coop gaming against the computer is a big part of the fun playing MG.
- FreeGamer: Ok lets move on: With the current release focusing on getting the multiplayer working correctly (and hopefully getting a big enough online player-base), what are your future plans regarding the single-player part? Do you plan on implementing a campaign editor in the already much improved level editor?
- titi: Well for me the next focus are graphical improvements. We need better terrain splatting (made by the gfx card), more lights and so on. And we will start to put in lots of new features once we proofed to be stable in multiplayer :)
- Softcoder: I think its hard to answer! There are TONS of great ideas in the community, we will talk with our community and see what things are most desired. My focus is more for making my boys happy :) We want MG to be 'mega-fun'!
- FreeGamer: Ok so what about editing & modding? Right now the units are rather limited in their special abilities. Do you think stuff like (air) transporters, non attack magic spells, stealth mode etc. (insert other cool units features from Starcraft/Warcraft) could be easily implemented? Or is that already possible with scripting, but not done yet?
- titi: I wrote so many wiki entries , made so many forum posts to let people know how to mod glest, I think its quite easy now. The special unit abilities not implemented yet however, but when we think it is fun we will think how hard it is to do and then we do it :)
- Softcoder: We plan to add many things like this, but slowly so that we don't lose stability and keep people happy. One example... we added better network play, masterserver AND cross platform play all in this last round of beta! That was TOO MUCH! But things will get done (faster if we have more help) just at its proper pace.
- FreeGamer: We already had some remarks on the technical side of things, but lets get back to that again: The Glest engine sure looks a bit dated by today's standards... do you have plans to upgrade the graphics engine to support shaders and such?
- Softcoder: Yikes! We agree with you! But I think we have to give hats off to Martino and the rest of the original Glest team that a game written in 2005 still is acceptable today!
- titi: We need more speed and many of these features will bring us better speed and better graphics, since the GPU will do alot of the work.
- FreeGamer: Ok, but to extent that: with normalmaps and such it often looks more realistic in style. Do you want to go more in that art direction, or stay with a more comic style?
- titi: Normal maps are not the main priority, there are other more needed features. And normal maps need new textures, and that is really a lot of work :) So for now we are looking into things that can be done with mostly code which is easier to do.
- FreeGamer: So but what weight would you give the development focus right now... more towards improving graphics, or more toward extending game-play?
- titi: Both :) But we try to make small steps.
- Softcoder: Game development is totally new for me (and Linux programming is fairly new), so priority also depends on how long it takes to learn and do it right! MG is my first graphics code ever, and also and my first Linux open source project.
- titi: It is all new for us, no one of us did something like this before. I even learned C++ in the beginning of this year for this project! Same with php, the masterserver is the first thing I ever wrote in php.
- FreeGamer: Well I think it turned out pretty well so far never the less :) I think this concludes our short interview. Thank you very much for answering our questions! Ahh, last but not least: Do you have anything you want to tell your players and/or our blog readers?
- Softcoder: Yes, our #1 goal for MegaGlest is 'FUN'!
- titi: Please come and play MegaGlest ;)
A short introduction into Glest modding
(Mega)Glest has an incredibly easy modding setup. Almost everything in the game can be easily changed with simple XML files, and the 2D map editor is very easy to grasp. Especially with the recent usability improvements in Megaglest (and included Linux editor binaries) it is possible to create a simple but nice map in a matter of minutes!
Edit: I was made aware that those editor improvements come mostly from the GAE project. Very good additions!
(Ok this was not done in minutes :p It's one of the new 8 player maps that come with MegaGlest)
But luckily all these editing features are also very well documented in the Glest wiki.
Last but not least, all single-player and co-op scenarios can be fully scripted right in the XML files with lua, a pretty powerful yet easy scripting language commonly used in computer games. Sadly it is not possible to create full singleplayer campaigns yet, but lets hope that gets added soon too!
Thứ Năm, 1 tháng 7, 2010
Session Report, in which we play Oltre Mare for the first time
The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up. Games played: Oltre Mare, Tribune, Tichu, Pillars of the Earth, Notre Dame.
We play Oltre Mare for the first time, and I tell describe the highs and lows.
There was a lot of chaos during the first part of the evening.
We play Oltre Mare for the first time, and I tell describe the highs and lows.
There was a lot of chaos during the first part of the evening.
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