Weekend Gamings

Last week, my mom came for her second visit to my apt in Raanana. While it rained, we played 500 Rummy, which she won handily, and Scrabble, which I won handily (she was leading for the first third or so). She was surprised that I didn't know the word ROE.

This weekend I joined a great many of my family for a bar mitzvah in Jerusalem. We played Bridge a number of times, which is no more than expected. I taught some of them how to play Nefarious. Just like the last Raanana game night, they wanted to play a second time after having gotten comfortable on the first playing. The same guy won both games. In the first game he had 4 minions on Invent; in the second game he had 3 on it. I'm not sure if concentrating your minions on Invent is the smart move, but it's hard to argue with success.

I then taught some of them how to play Tichu, and we played a few rounds; not enough to really grasp the strategies. One of the players was one of my brother's sons, and he didn't care for the game after two rounds and quit. He is a Bridge fan, and didn't seem to have any patience to learn another 4 player card game. One of the other players was one of his friends, who seemed to like it. He DOESN'T like Bridge, so he was happy to have another card game to play instead (he's also the guy who won both games of Nefarious). The last was my older brother, and after the few rounds of play he seemed somewhat intrigued. I think he will be willing to play again.

Updates from Rogue Republic, that modern warfare 0 A.D. mod

The really nice looking modern warfare mod for 0 A.D. is steadily improving:

Rogue Republic's Russian buildings

You can now also check out their blog and facebook page, and to quote one of the main developers:

With hope of finding a proficient 0 A.D. coder

So please help out these guys, if you know some Javascript and are willing to learn how to code for 0 A.D.!

Looking to fund working on OpenGameArt.org full-time.

Hey folks!

Just a quick note.  I'm looking to fund work on OpenGameArt.org full time (probably via Kickstarter or similar) once my current work project is done, and I'm interested in hearing what people would like me to work on.  If you have any thoughts, please join the discussion on OGA:

http://opengameart.org/content/if-i-could-work-on-oga-full-time-what-would-people-want-me-to-code-or-do
...or on reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1d11ir/i_run_opengameartorg_and_im_looking_at_options_to/

Thanks!

Bart

WTactics Summer of Cards

WTactics is a beautiful, freely licensed card game which pleasantly surprises for example by having it's amazing assets under free licenses, not shying away from employing same-sex love themes and now, by inviting game designers to share an apartment in lovely Sweden on WTactics development during July 2013.

People all over the world are hereby welcomed to participate in Summer of Cards 2013 – the first ever real life gathering of the dev. team and all those of you that want to get aboard and contribute to the worlds first truly pro libre customizable card game, our dear WTactics. 1:st to 28:th of July 2013 is when this is going down in Malmö, Sweden, so do some reading in here and scribble us a mail already so we can start planning for wicked goodness. You come and stay as you may.

"A couchsurfing style gamejam" was approved as a possible description of the event.

Invitation to summer of cards 2013

Your host says hi!

Once this returns positive results, I will be hoping for the first free, open source monastery being found by 2015... :)

Gears of War

Developer: Epic Games/People Can Fly

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Gears of War was without a doubt the Xbox 360's first killer app so it makes sense Microsoft would want to publish its finest console game onto the PC as a means to promote the unpopular service Games for Windows Live, so with that said, is the PC version any good? Yes it is... but I honestly think someone intentionally sabotaged this release, why do I say that? Oh where do I begin.

After installing the game I was faced with a DRM issue that prevented me from playing it even though I have a legitimate copy, turns out I had to set the Windows clock to June 2008 to get it to run (wut?) after that, I discovered that the game would stop responding at random intervals, sometimes it would play for hours without issue while other times I couldn't even play it for five minutes, I tried several methods to fix it, but none worked. But enough about technical issues, how is the game itself?

Well, the game doesn't have much of a story to tell you other than you're on some planet or other with a very 1950's art-deco style and it's being overrun by a horde of underground creatures known as the Locust, who for the most part look like pale skinned hulking lumbering masses of muscles, teeth and bone and now it's up to you and Delta Squad to deliver a latch ditch blow to your enemies.

Yeah the story is pretty lame and the characters are for the most part uninteresting, though I did like Baird, the guy is snarky as hell and he seems to be the only character in the game who's good at something other than shooting.

Speaking of shooting, how is the gunplay? In a word: Awesome! All of the weapons feel worn and rusted out while still packing quite a punch, which is a good thing considering how much your average locust can bleed without being killed, my favorite weapon has to be the chainsaw Bayonet, it gives you the option to either shoot your enemies or slice them to pieces, you also have other awesome weapons like explosive crossbows and a laser satellite homing beacon.

Gears of War does give you a good enemy variety, though you wouldn't have guessed it from the first two chapters where it seems like you're fighting the same guys over and over again, luckily the rest of the game REALLY picks up, made even better by the fact the PC port has some extra levels not found in the Xbox 360 version so overall the campaign will likely last you 8 hours, depending on your play style.

On the multiplayer side of things, you'd expect the fact that the online is free would mean you'd find at least someone to play with, but alas, no such luck, whether it's co-op or competitive online play, the servers are all empty, the PC port also doesn't have split-screen co-op so if you want to play locally you'll need to set up a lan connection...lame.

Graphically the game is pretty good by 2007 standards, the characters models still look pretty by 2013 standards, but the animations and environments definitely look dated, I also noticed the game introduced too much blur and field depth for my taste, but there was no way to turn it off in the options, instead I had to hunt down the game's .ini file and turn it off from there, again... lame.

Overall, the PC version SHOULD have been the definitive version, but honestly between DRM issues, crashes and the lack of a proper graphical setting option I have to say I was somewhat disappointed, especially because at its core the game is a very fun romp, a slow starting romp, but a fun one.

Pros:

- Gunplay is awesome
- Campaign is very fun
- Nice Enemy variety
- Character models still hold surprisingly well

Cons:

- DRM issues, crashing issues and poor graphical options

- The first two chapters are pretty boring
- Multiplayer servers are empty
- Characters and story are pretty forgetful.

Final Grade: B-

I am not a fan of the cover, the color balance is fine and quite attractive, but how come Marcus is squatting out in the open with his back turned to the action? Is he trying to get himself killed? Even if we ignore his team mates on the background who are facing the opposite direction and clearly hiding behind walls, what is the point in showing us a close-up of a character who is just not the least bit interesting?

Inside you'll find two cards one is an ad for Microsoft Sidewinder gear and the other is a free month of GFWL (hahaha!) silliness aside, I do feel the color balance works even better in these small cards, but again, why is Marcus staring at us?

The game's manual is... surprisingly good it gives you some backstory, weapon descriptions, concept art for said weapons and they go into great detail on how to play the game and its multiplayer modes, supporting the text with either screenshots or more concept art. Kudos to the developers for crafting a good manual in this day and age.

Packaging Grade: B+

Project Leadership & Management in Free, Open Source Games

Both 0 A.D. and Unknown Horizons experience a change in leadership!

For 0 A.D., Erik Johansson steps down from project leadership and Michael D. Hafer assumes that role.

In Unknown Horizons, Nightraven steps back and Kilian fills the project management role.

Leadership in free and open source game projects is an exciting topic with much opinion about which style will lead to a successful game - whatever the subject's definition of "success" is - and too few examples to make objective statements about it.

Are you following any specific projects and their leadership structures an want to comment on these? I must admit that I am out of the loop with many, many projects, although I am pretty sure that for example Flare, NAEV and Valyria Tear have (successful) Benevolent Dictator for Life style leadership.

On related note: FIFE (the isometric 2d engine used by Unknown Horizons) moved to GitHub.

Yom Hazikaron in Raanana

The Raanana municipality ran a beautiful ceremony for Yom Hazikaron - Remembrance Day.

The event was held (as it is every year) in front of the Yad L'Banim [1] building, whose courtyard also functions as the city square. The square was also used for Holocaust Memorial Day and is used for other events like concerts and the annual sukkot market.

There were few people there when I showed up at 7:00. By 8:00, I estimated the crowd to be over 6,000 people. It eventually swelled to around 8,000 or so. The people spilled over into and across the streets beside the square. Police kept the streets closed down for the ceremony, which included Ahuza street, Raanana's main artery.

There was complete unity of religious and secular, old and young, left and right, native and immigrant. Everyone stood for the siren at 8:00. The speeches and sad, poignant songs had biblical or ritual references. Everyone, secular or religious, stood up as the haredi chief Rabbi of Raanana walked up to the podium; he spoke about connection of between today's soldiers and the armies who fought the Pelishtim during the time of King Saul.

The ceremony included recitations of the names of all soldiers and terror victims from Raanana, from the early 1920s until just last year. Along with the names were pictures and personal details. Some of the relatives, together with young soldiers, laid wreaths. The square was draped with projections of faces and/or rolling clouds or fire at different times, and there was live music, a singer, a clarinetist, and a hazan to read El Malei Rachamim.

I felt that this, or something like it, must be happening in each town around Israel: whole populations stopped to pay tribute to their fallen soldiers, every name read out and remembered, year after year. I never went to a ceremony like this in Jerusalem (usually I went to something small in the local synagogue), but it felt right to go to this one. Maybe it's Raanana, which seems to have a kind of unity that I hadn't noticed and I haven't seen elsewhere. Or maybe it's because my own son is now in the army.

[1] Yad L'Banim is an organization dedicated to fallen Israeli soldiers.

SuperTuxKart accepted in GSoC2013!

Google's Summer of Code, is an annual sponsorship of programmers to improve selected open-source programs (or games :D ).
This year, quite a few interesting FOSS game projects got accepted (again) and one being our very own friends of the SuperTuxKart project.

Read more about their role as a mentoring organization here. So how about applying as a participant yourself and helping out this great FOSS game?

You can also browse other accepted mentoring projects here, if SuperTuxKart isn't your thing. Other notable FOSS game (engine) projects accepted are:

• Battle for Wesnoth
• WorldForge (Hosting also Ryzom Core & CEGUI)
• Crystal Space
• OGRE3D
• Blender 3D

Nice summer of coding ahead :)

Catching Up On Games Played

Last day of Pesach

At a friend's house, their daughter is particularly into Dominion. She has the base game, Seaside, and Cornucopia. I'd never played the latter, so she, I, and Nadine played a game with all Cornucopia cards: Fairgrounds, Farming Village, Fortune Teller, Hamlet, Horn of Plenty, Hunting Party, Jester, Menagerie, Remake, and Tournament.

When all the cards come from this expansion, you really have no choice but to play the "correct" strategy, which is to gain one of as many types of cards as possible. Maybe if you only add one or two cards from this set this won't be the case; then again, maybe these cards won't then be very desirable.

In the afternoon I taught Nadine how to play Magic. Actually, she had half learned how to play a previous time, but she hadn't played. She was surprised at the depth of the game, although not entirely since she knew how much David and I liked the game. She intends to borrow some cards and start playing with Gili.

Shabbat in Jerusalem

I brought a new  player (Marne) over to play at Nadine's house in the afternoon. She was highly nervous, having not played any modern games and afraid that they would be too much for her. When I saw the game that Nadine had picked out (Walnut Grove) for her first game, I was also nervous. Thankfully she had a great time; I don't know if she had a "join the weekly game group 'good time'" but still.

This was my first play of Walnut Grove since BGG.con over a year ago, and the first play for both Mace and Marne. Nadine has played a few times, but some of those times were with the wrong rules. This is not entirely her fault, since several of the rules are written vaguely, and there is no way to know what the author means. I will have to look on BGG for clarifications, if I can find any.

As I said, it went well. Actually, I fared a little better than I did the last time I played, though I still came in last place (Mace won). I was calculating before the game started as to how to turn cubes into more cubes and how many cubes to each victory point. It didn't help me win, but I felt like I had more control over what was happening. I played a starvation strategy, collecting people and improvement tiles together with 6 begging tiles. Not counting the begging cards, I had the highest score, but I dropped to just behind third place after these were counted. I will have to try something new next time.

When I suggested Tichu for the next game, it was Nadine's turn to be nervous, but Marne picked up the rules by the end of the first hand. She appears to be a natural gamer. With just a little strategy suggestion here and there, she knew how to play and why most of the time. This was Mace's second time playing. Nadine called and (barely) made the only Tichu. We all had a great time.

Some idTech4 games progress

Great news from the people behind the idTech4 powered stealth FPS The Dark Mod: They are making great steps to leave their Doom3 mod legacy behind and a standalone version should not be all that far from now.

New The Dark Mod replacement artwork

You can follow the progress here on their forums, and maybe you can also give them an helping hand.

Interestingly there are two other recently updated Doom3 mods, that could easily fit in as The Dark Mod mods, e.g. going stand alone with The Dark Mod's help.

The first one is a Hexen remake, called Hexen: Edge of Chaos:



And the other one is a prequel to the Arx: Fatalis (engine also FOSS, btw.) game, called Arx: End of Sun:



Sadly both of them use proprietary themes (and one could even argue that The Dark Mod is borderline infringing on one too), but I am still looking forward to try out these nice community creations once they become stand-alone!

Bushido Blocks: Slicing Puzzle

Bushido Blocks is a puzzle game for Android under GPL license,  inspired by block-bashing games such as Bejeweled, Diamond Dash and Tap Blox.

Bushido Blocks Screenshots

Tap matches of three or more blocks to slice them with your katana. The more blocks you can slice in one go, the more time you gain on the clock. Special blocks eliminate whole rows of blocks but don't give you any extra time, so use them wisely.

Links:

• GitHub project
• Bushido Blocks on Google Play
• Music (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Code License: GPL

Content License: Unknown

2x0ng: Procedural Puzzle-Action Adventure

Retro and art-game fans will love this.

2x0ng is a challenging action/puzzle game with procedurally generated levels. It is pronounced "TWO-zong", and is the sequel to David O'Toole's 2009 PC puzzler Xong.

2x0ng framebuffer examples

At its core, this game is a mashup. 2x0ng's design is a nonlinear combination of several different late 70s/early 80s home video games, combining related aspects of each into something new. In 2x0ng, you move a guy around the screen and shoot at enemies in all directions, as in Berzerk. The ball you throw ricochets and comes back to you, like in Tron Deadly Discs. You break colored bricks with the ball, like in Breakout. You transfer colors from one place to another in order to complete the level, similar to Revenge Of The Beefsteak Tomatoes. 

To reach the next level, you must successively unlock new areas by opening color-coded gates in the correct order. The levels are procedurally generated, so the game experience is different each time. Later levels are much larger than the screen, and feature substantially more moving/colliding objects than would have been possible in a real home video game from that era.

Downloads:

• 2x0ng 1.0rc1 for Linux
• 2x0ng 1.0rc1 for Mac OSX
• 2x0ng 1.0rc1 for Windows (32-bit) 
• 2x0ng 1.0rc1c for Windows (64-bit) 

More links:

• 2x0ng homepage
• Soundtrack

Code License: GPLv3

Content License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

Jedi Knight source-code liberated & Flare 0.18

In a pretty surprising move the source-code of the idTech3 based games Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy were released under the GPL by Activision and Raven Software. You can find the original source drops here and here.
The content is obviously still propitiatory (e.g. you need to buy it), but some people have already plans to upgrade the source as OpenJK (most likely back-ports from ioQuake3) and make a Linux version most likely.
Would be also cool if a nice stand-alone FOSS 3rd person sword-fighting game would come out of this... but the detailed player animations will likely be the biggest road-block.

Ahh well... and since I hate posting something with no pictures or videos I include the pretty nice new Flare 0.18 release:



It includes some pretty nice new features too:

• 10 Equipment Slots, up from 4 (and easily configurable)
• Starting "Class" choice (beginner's power/item kit)
• Environmental/Ambient Sounds on maps
• Much improved handling of Animations, Effects, and Sounds
• New Powers: Stealth, Traps, Thrown Weapons
• New Item Bonuses: XP gain, Gold Find, Item Find, and more
• Improved support for various input devices
• Two new starting quests

That's all for now :)

0 A.D. Alpha 13 and other less fanboyish updates

Ok I admit it... I am a bit of a 0 A.D. fanboy! But the new Alpha 13 release is also great again, and deserved an update post:



Also pretty cool is the new OpenMW 0.22 release, that finally features player and NPC animations, and thus starts to look more like a functioning game:



Other unrelated news:

• To progress on their standalone version, the developers of The Dark Mod are looking for support in their sound department mostly.
• That non-stop programmer "TheDushan" has started porting the Torque3D engine to Linux. Pretty amazing progress if you ask me :)

Julius out!