Outlaws on Interstates

A little bit late today, but that's ok because tomorrow is Sunday, a Holy day, a day of rest, so I don't have to post. :-D

Eek, where to start?

Tilt-n-Roll is an innovative open source project that uses the tilting mechanism in modern laptops to recreate the classic wooden labyrinth experience. GPL, runs on Lin, Mac, and Win. What more could you ask for?

Version 1.4 of the semi-open source 3D RPG game SoulFu is available for download from Aaron Bishop's homepage. The page only lists .exe downloads but I'm sure Linux versions will appear in the official forums sooner rather than later.

SoulFu minivid

Soul Fu creator Aaron has responsed to the general querying of his "unique" distribution methods for the game:

I wanted to make a good game, and I do want people to improve it -- I simply don't have the time or desire to do it myself. Getting millions and millions of people to play the game is a goal, but SoulFu is a lot of things... It's a little experiment in creative marketing, an object lesson in morality, a nice résumé, and a tool for would-be game makers. I personally think SoulFu is more fun than most games you'd buy in the store -- they sell the sizzle, not the steak. And it has the potential to be much more, especially if you get a couple of friends together...

The game has a lot of interest and support. If, from the get go, he'd released it as open source, set up merchandising with cafepress and added Google ads to his sites, he'd be making more money than he is now and SoulFu would have many more people contributing to it and helping him market it.

So, yesterday I commented on how similar Automanic and Interstate Outlaws were. The main author of IO dropped me an email:

Just letting you know whats going on with Automanic, as you seem to be hanging out for it. I'm the guy that was working on it, but I've since dropped Automanic, and am now coding Interstate Outlaws. That's probably why they seemed similar to you :) You should try IO, i think it is better than Automanic was, and is probably similar to what Automanic 0.3 or maybe 0.4 would have been.

D'oh.

After posting I did think to myself this could be the case but was busy with other stuff so didn't go back and post a note saying as such. Still, not much to say other than, "Common Sense 1 - 0 Charlie". That and Interstate Outlaws is a way cooler name than Automanic. ;-)

Java Classic RPG project has another snapshot release, showing off day-night cycles and lots of foilage. It's starting to look quite cool although a long way off being an actual game, but every step is a step closer. :-)

Also version 2.2.0 of Bygfoot Football Manager has been released. Not much change from the 2.1.x releases other than stability and translations. I still don't like the UI but haven't had time to work on my own creation yet... *evil grin* soon, my children, soon...

Interstate Outlaws

Interstate Outlaws

Interstate Outlaws is a 3D vehicle deathmatch game based on the 2 Interstate games released by Activision. Developed using Crystal Space, they announced their first public release which shows a lot of promise. It is available for Linux and Windows.

It reminds me a little bit of Automanic which is also a 3D vehicle deathmatch game based on the Interstate games and developed using Crystal Space. Automanic development seems to have stalled for the time being though. :-(

There's rumblings of development resuming on Dungeon Digger, the Dungeon Keeper inspired project. Good. I was getting concerned that it was another early, promising project to bite the hard reality dust.

FreeCol 0.7.0 is supposed to be out today. Also SuperTuxKart 3.0 was branched a week ago in svn so must be imminent too. Both should have Windows and Linux releases possibly with Mac releases to follow later.

*twiddles thumbs impatiently*

Some Cool Game Updates

UFO:AI

Hot off the press is the 2.0 rc3 release from the UFO:AI team, which is shaping up as a flagship open source game after it briefly floundered due to developer desertion last year. This is another example of why indie games being open source is a Good Idea (tm). Had this been closed source, the promising initial release (tech demo 1) would have the end of the line. Fortunately it was the beginning of an era.

Another important Free strategy game was updated today - Warzone Resurrection. If you haven't played this yet, I don't know what you are waiting for. It's about as polished as you will come across for an open source game, mainly due to it's commercial roots.

When it rains, it pours. TA:Spring, the advanced Total Annihilation engine, was updated on the 17th to version 0.72b1. The changelog is impressive, with the main new features being a new shield system and custom explosions, both mainly for modders. I'm hopeful that TA:Spring will turn into a respectable standalone game in it's own right based on some of the budding mods. I know you can play it without the original TA but I hope they really back and bundle some officially.

There was also another major update to TA3D, a friendly competitor to TA:Spring. I haven't researched the difference between the two but I get the impression the latter is at a more advanced stage of development.

Automanic

In a departure from the tactical flavour of this post, the promising Carmageddon-alike Automanic saw it's second official release, achieving version 0.2 earlier in the week. I'm really enjoying the progress of Automanic, especially after seeing promising games like Slickworm and DIE stagnate and, er, die. I hope that a community builds around it and keeps development alive and kicking.

The original Carmaggedon was awesome and it would be great to top it and improve on the genre with a Free game. I hope the Automanic developers avoid the dreaded rewrite bug that tends to kill off a lot of open source games. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!