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Showing posts from February, 2010

Game sfx maker tool ... sfxr in flash!

What's all this then? This is as3sfxr , flash port of sfxr . It makes sounds for your games. You only have to press buttons and listen and press buttons again. This is great: no need to understand how sound synthesis works, ability learn a little about sound synthesis by pressing buttons/moving controls randomly, no need to download/compile/install anything either. Oh how I would wish for more tools of this kind, maybe specialized stuff like (non-8-bit) fire effect generators, ice effects, explosions... There are some sfx gens for pure data but it will take a little more time to get them running. At the top of this post, there is an embedded flash applet. If you are a user of an open source flash player: do you see it? Can you use it? How many of you already knew of sfxr but only now did try it through as3sfxr? I hope this 'no info about games' post does not shock you.

Pretty Warzone; What's to see in Linwarrior; Sauerbraten and content

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Warzone 2100 has pretty new textures! Oh wait, didn't I report this more than one year ago ? Well.. the release after the next is supposed to feature them, finally.. But I *do* have news to offer: Building models are being re-modeled and re-textured ! Slightly related: There is a tutorial on making models and texturing them on their forums.  Warzone 2100: re-worked buildings Hmm... I wish there were "tower defense" maps for Warzone 2100... and that moving units wouldn't be such a torture.. Speaking of torture, do you wish you could test WZ with new textures but don't have the time to figure out how to get the svn version? Well, maybe the following showcase video of the textures in-game will ease your pain. ^^ LinWarrior3D 2009_11_08 r15 was released a while ago. As a lover of the game that served as inspiration for LinWarrior, I'm compelled to like it. After all: you can shoot (and destroy stuff even!), you can move torso and legs individually and you have

Beautiful Open Source Puzzle Games

The beauty of a (puzzle) game is not only what we see and hear, but also what we feel when pressing buttons and moving the mouse. Controls are important and I prefer them crispy. No free software puzzle game has more flavor than Krank . The player piece is a string of circles, which follow the cursor to collide with smaller pieces, which need to be connected to static pieces in different combinations. Unfortunately I fail at recording videos of the game and screenshots can't communicate the feel of the movement and sounds.. Speaking of movement, the controls are not as sharp as they should be, according to my ideal. However, this seems to fit the game very much, slow music, slow pace, 'swimming' controls. At first I was frustrated, because trying to do precise movements quickly leads to disaster (or just a harder time finishing levels than if you would do it slowly) but then I learned to relax. Anyways, you have to try the python-based game for yourself! Just listen! :)

Contributors, contributors, contributors

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The development structure of FOSS game projects can be a one-man show, it can be semi-closed by having a fixed team and little web presence, it can have lots of tasks without anybody knowing what needs to be done, or it can be plain frozen until a developer decides to pick it up. Today, I will try to pick some of the open development ones that provide some kind of ordered task list and provide instructions in the case of media creation being the job. Programming Rocket Race in Syntensity [ more ] Syntensity has some open tasks (having played the game helps understanding :) ), which involve tinkering with the Sauerbraten-based engine and JavaScript. latest UFO:AI world view I just found out on #ufoait that UFO:AI is soon to release the first version that allows you to win the game. This will make the squad tactics game be eligible to a line on our list of complete foss games ! There are still a few tasks to complete before 2.3, a humble list compared to all the open issues . PARPG

A3P: Acquire, Attack, Asplode, PWN!

Hey FreeGamer crowd, I hope there are still a few people around ;) Today there will be only a short update, as I simply can't believe this gem of a game (see below) has not been featured on this page! EDIT: Do not miss qudobup's post about FOSS engine news directly below this one! A unique arena shooter So someone had the balls (pun intended) and released a completely unique arena shooter with many nifty features, described by the creator as a mix of TPS/RTS/OMG/BBQ ;) Check out A3P , if that has sparked your interest! At it's current version (0.5) it can be described as a third person arena shooter with some small RTS/squad command elements, and it is definitely fun to play: A3P gameplay video 4 The technical specs are rather interesting too: Based on the BSD licensed Panda3D engine (while itself being licensed MIT; the media license is unclear though) it has all the bells and whistles one can expect from a modern game (Full GLSL shader based rendering, networked ODE

Open Source 3D Game Engines Updates

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Crystal Space 1.4 is out. Features include improved animations ("integrating vertex based animation with skeletal animation") and terrain ("improves rendering and handling of large outdoor areas"), OpenAL for sound and an internationalization plug-in. Engine screenshots are very informative. This is Panda3D by the way. Panda3D has a prettier website, it released version 1.7.0 and apparently has a web-plug in . The new version makes it easier to crash the computer, but also gives a performance boost - with the magic of ' pointer textures '. I have a little crush on Panda3D, because it gives access to 3D and audio with no complicated setting up through a scripting language (Python). On the other hand it requires 3D models to be in its own format and I find converting not very convenient. For example there have been problems importing animations into Radakan . OGRE mascot Ogre has a mascot , and it might even become freely licensed, somebody just needs to c