Gaming with Bro and Co

Just to catch up, last week I played Anagrams with our resident expert, who again wiped the floor with me (and two other players). She's just amazing; she calls out a word., and as she is collecting the tiles she
s already transforming the word into another one.

This weekend I went to my brother's. His kids are still young and insatiable players. Friday night after dinner we played some Progressive Rummy. My mom won. Sat after lunch I taught two of them how to play Thunderstone; they had already played Dominion many times. They are sharper than they look, understanding all the rules immediately, except for how to add the attack values. I suspect that this was due more to laziness than from an inability to understand the rules. I won the first game handily but the second game was closer.

Thunderstone takes a ridiculously long time to set up, and the two games took a long while to play, after which I was pretty much spent. Still, I taught and played a few rounds of No Thanks ( I won the first game handily but the second game was closer), and then a hand or two of three-player Bridge. Around me, kids were playing other card games with various types of decks as well as Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers. I also heard calls for Cosmic Encounter, but we didn't get to it.

Libre Software Meeting Call for Papers

Developers of free and open source games!

The Libre Software Meeting in Brussels is looking for talks about the "Free Gaming World".

An ideal place to introduce your project, talk about how to work with other people on open source game projects and meet other free software developers!


The deadline for submission is 31 March 2013!

Some previous talks, if you're not sure what to expec or what they expect from you:

• How do blind people play (computer) games
• Arthur Huillet: Anatomy of a role playing game (FreedroidRPG)
• Games engines done good

Brood Hunter?

Today I have a real "underground & secret" game: no website, no description, no nothing really... just a forum post and some cool game-play videos:





It seems to be called "Brood Hunter" and is quite obviously a Gloom inspired Quake1 mod.

However given that it most likely used the GPL Darkplaces Engine (same as Xonotic) and since game-play looks great, I have to do some wishful thinking here and hope it will be released as an open-source game so that we can work on replacing the remaining non-free Quake1 content at some point :)

Oh and I also stumbled upon an open-source Daikatana remake, using a heavily modified Quake1 engine. YES, that Daikatana!

Red Eclipse 1.4 and a missed birthday

Good news is that the long awaited Red Eclipse version 1.4 was released yesterday.
Read the announcement (with full change-log) here. Besides general polish the most notable features are:

• Vanity items and improved colours: dress up and frag with style.
• Visible legs in first person: know where you are kicking and parkouring.
• New and revamped maps: bringing you even more variety.
• Better viewing: level flythroughs, improved third and first person cameras.
• Better menus and other HUD elements: easier to see and read at a glance.
• New weapon: Mines add a new dimension to the existing gameplay.
• New mode: attack and defend in Gauntlet, competing for the most laps.
• Automatic demo recording: for those times you just have to watch it again.
• User Accounts: donate or contribute, and wear the in-game supporter badge.
• Improved weapon balance and gameplay rules, bugs fixed, and much more.

Especially the visible legs in 1st person view add to the parcour movements and overall the game feels much more "complete" now. Here are some impressions of a bot-match I had earlier on:

The bad news is  that we missed Xonotic's third birthday, but you can still congratulate here (where you can also read about some pretty cool updates to the game). To celebrate it, kojin made a nice frag movie:


Enjoy!

Thunder Blade

Developer: Sega
Publisher:  Sega

Thunder Blade was a helicopter SHMUP originally launched for the arcades, it boasted some very impressive sprite scaling effects giving it a pseudo 3D effect, I have no idea whose idea was it to port the game for the Master System, but at least you can clearly tell the developers did their best.

The game is separated into two segments, the first being a typical 2D shmup with all of the previously mentioned pseudo 3D effects removed. This mode is fairly standard for the genre, boasting some near perfect collision detection though I'd argue the player's hit box is a bit too big, it does add a twist though, you can only shoot ground units with missile, whereas air units are only hit by bullets, so you're constantly shifting between the controller's buttons, these sort of levels are extremely hard as enemies keep coming at you from all directions, made even by worse by the fact that there are no power ups, so yeah, you're going to be using the same weapons throughout the entire game.

As you reach the halfway point of each level, the game shifts perspective to a Pseudo 3D style (as seen in the image), here you see some very impressive graphical effects considering this is running on a Master System. Unfortunately the background seems to move at very low framerate, oh and remember how I complained about the 2D segments being difficult? Here the difficulty is cranked up to 11! You're literally being bombarded from every altitude and the games does a poor job at conveying depth perception so you'll be crashing into objects and bullets that you thought you'd be able to easily to dodge.

Graphically the 2D style is pretty standard stuff for the console the real eye candy being reserved for the 3D segments, some people might feel these haven't aged well, but personally, I'm just amazed they pulled it off at all! The sound department is pretty weak, with the same two or three songs looping every on every level and the explosions, missiles and bullets quite simply lacking in the "oomph!" department (especially the latter).

Overall you can tell that the developers gave it their best shot, but this is a case of the Master System simply biting off more than it could chew, yes the 3D looks impressive but it's not very playable whereas the 2D sections look drab and boring without the Arcade's scaling effects. I suppose they could have added power ups, but then there would hardly be any similarities with the original Thunder Blade.

Trivia: Did you know this game is compatible with the Master System FM-Synthesizer? Of course, in order to take advantage of it, you need either a Japanese Master System or to install a sound chip mod on your western console.

Pros:

- 3D graphics look pretty cool
- 2D sections can still be fun and challenging

Cons:

- Although they look cool, these 3D segments give you a poor depth perception and run at a low framerate

- Could've used some power ups
- The game is simply too hard

Final Grade: D

 (Excuse the glue residue folks)

I have to say, the boxart looks awesome, it's the sort of cover that you'd expect from some 80's action flick while browsing a videostore, definitely eye catching.

Unfortunately though, I don't own the manual so I can't compile a full packaging review.

Packaging score: N/A

The Castle Doctrine: New Jason Rohrer MMO

Jason Rohrer is a quite controversial independent game developer with a track record of thought provoking games. His latest offering (in alpha state for 50% off sale with public domain source code included) The Castle Doctrine is a MMO about "burglary and home defense". Better than I could do it here shortly, these two (1, 2) articles give you an idea what the game is about.

Build defenses to protect your family or is it just another puzzle to solve?

The interesting twist is that you are (can be?) both a home intruder and responsible for building defenses for your own home. In a sense it is thus a player created puzzle solving game if you look at it from a more game design (abstract) point of view. It however also rises some ethical questions about how you deal with the theme of the arms race between intruders and home defenders. In either way, it sounds like a fun game though :)

On an unrelated note, one of the guys behind last year's successful FOSS board game Kickstarter project A Las Barricadas, is now looking for financial subscriptions for him to create more FOSS art (CC-by) and to take some art classes the same time. If that sounds like a good way to spend your hard earned cash, check out some of his previous works here.

Ticket to Ride 2

On Friday night I introduced another non-gaming family to gaming with Ticket to Ride. I guess I chose TtR over Settlers of Catan because it plays for five, is actually easier to explain, and I sort of like it a bit more now than I used to (still not as much as SoC).

It was a success. I won the game by 8 points by virtue of having the longest route, and because one of the other players couldn't complete a 20 point ticket.

This morning I got a text from them asking me where to buy the game in Israel (unfortunately, I don't think you can right now; even if you can, it's almost twice the retail price, which is three times the store price in the US).

Ticket to Ride

Tal, Saarya, and I took our annual pre-Passover mini family vacation last weekend. We vacation before Passover because the rest of Israel vacations during Passover and everything is too crowded. Also, during Hol Hamoed there js Games Day, and I usually work the rest of the time.

We stayed at Nuriel Fruit and Guest Rooms in She'ar Yashuv. The place is run by Miriam, a friendly and helpful woman who tries hard to accommodate your every need. She doesn't serve any meals (no breakfast), but she will give you milk, the rooms come with tea and coffee, and you can pick fruit from her trees. We picked a dozen grapefruit, and Tal squeezed them into juice for us to drink over the weekend.

She'ar Yashuv is a small moshav a few meters from the Banias spring. You can walk from the moshav upstream past Snir and to the falls, which is one of the prettiest in Israel. I'm pretty sure you used to be able to swim in and around the falls, but there are no swimming signs everywhere now. You can walk out the front gate of the moshav to Tel Dan, which is nearly across the street. It's a short drive to Kiryat Shemonah.

The moshav's synagogue is small, and there was only barely a minyan on Sat morning. One interesting thing about the synagogue is that the parochet has the usual gold and silver threaded stitching, but in addition to depicting symbols of the tribes of Israel they show two helicopters, in commemoration for the 1997 helicopter crash that occurred right above the moshav.

On Thursday we stopped for dinner at El Rancho, a nice restaurant that was way overpriced (but we used a groupon for half off). Friday we bought groceries and ready made food in Kiryat Shemonah for the rest of the trip. Then we visited the Banias springs and falls.

Friday night we played Ticket to Ride, our first time playing the game together. I think Tal and Saarya had both played the game at friends' houses. Tal nearly didn't complete any tickets, but she finally managed to sneak a route through the center of the map. I picked what I thought would be a series of tickets that, after completion, would lend themselves to matching at least one new ticket when I came around to drawing new ones. Alas, only one of the new tickets came even close, and I still have to build two routes (4 and 5) to get it.

Saarya fared better in his new ticket draw and even drew new tickets a second time. He ended up not completing one of the final tickets he drew, but he still won the game. We were all within 15 points of each other with Saarya leading with 125 points or so.

The next day we mostly slept. Tal beat me in a game of Gin Rummy. I think I called Gin once.

Sat night we drove Saarya back to his base (he had to be back on Sat night, for some reason) and headed home, taking  home three soldiers from Saarya's base who were headed our way.

Are We Alone? Atmospheric 2D

Are We Alone screenshot: Safe on Earth

Let's Play Are We Alone?

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

Shunned Survivor: MMORTS Tower Defense

Defending your outpost in Shunned Survivor

Shunned Survivor Commentary Video

Shunned Survivor is one of the entries for PyWeek #15 September 2012 "One Way Trip".

In the genre mix between MMORTS, city building, economy simulation and tower defense game, you control an exiled human, with the apparent goal to get back to earth.

The interaction with other players is quite indirect. You can attack other player's bases and win the "data" resource this way, which you need to perform "research" actions. However, defeating a base does not change it, you simply get the reward and can attack again.

Shunned Survivor Server map

While researching, however, you need to perform in a tower defense minigame, during which your defensive towers can be destroyed. If you succeed, the research was successful. If not, you have to enforce your defenses and try again.

Even though quite a bit of the gameplay time is spent on waiting for resources to be generated by the various resource gathering buildings, I find this game very entertaining and highly recommend you to give it a try.

Code License: CC0
Content License: CC0

Purple Pawn 2012 Game Industry Survey is up

Check it out here.

Took a lot of work! -Yehuda

Erebus RPG for Desktop, Tablet and Smartphone

Video: Erebus - Open Source RPG for Android, Linux and Symbian

Erebus is a hack & slash role-playing game under heavy development, yet playable with currently three missions.

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)

Vacation Plans

Saarya, Tal, and I are heading up to the north Galil and Golan for the weekend for a little r and r: hiking, dinner, B and B, etc. Saarya is out for the week, but has to be back on base near Metullah on Sat night (seems odd to me, but that's the army for you).

Games Day in Jerusalem is the first day of Hol Hamoed, Wed Mar 27.

Tal and I can do some travelling in November. I am strongly considering BGG.con as part of my travels, but I'm not 100% sure yet. We can pretty much go anywhere in the world that we want for a week or two. I would love to go somewhere where we can stay with someone (giving us a local contact for ideas of what to do and saving on hotel expenses). Other than that, the world is our oyster.

Suggestions?

My vacation style does not involve relaxing, nor tourist or historical attractions (ok, if I went to Paris, I don't think I could pass up seeing the Louvre). I like to meet people, walk down side streets, hike near forest/water, browse country craft shops and garage sales, sit in cafes, take pictures of the street signs, meet local gamers, listen to live music and watch live theater. And I need access to kosher non-dairy food.

Yehuda

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:

• 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.

So go and kick some alien butt ;)

Gigalomania, LPC and updates

Some of you might remember Mega Lo Mania back from the days when you could be amazed by PC speaker voice output... so if you spend way too much of your childhood playing that game (like me) you should probably stay clear of the FOSS remake called Gigalomania!

Gigalomania now using LPC sprites

As the creator recently stated, it now uses the cool Liberated Pixels Cup contest sprites, but there is still the need to replace the castle graphics with nicer ones. Maybe *you* can help out with that?

On a related note, the LPC coding results are finally in, congratulations to the winners! I hope Bart will make a nice review on the quite awesome games here on FG soon.

Other recent updates not to be missed:

• Today a new Alpha 13 of Unvanquished was released, marking the one year aniversary of their first alpha release. As usual it comes with a bunch of new nice features and fixes.
• You can now download automatic snapshots of the development version of Megaglest. And there seems to be finally some progress in updating the graphic capabilities of the engine.
• O A.D. continues to amaze with news updates about development progress and music creation.
• And last but not least: the awesome Xonotic mod Overkill now has a website!

That's all for now :)