Gaming Daily A-Z

Hallow thar Free Gamers! Warmux , the project formerly known as Wormux, is dying. (It amuses me how "formerly" sounds like "formally", doesn't it? Or is that my colloquial pronunciation?) The current development version has rather minor changes: improved game mode (ie including weapon), new "squad" play (teams can ally). But there's little more coming. What this means is that the next version - if any - of WarMUX, might be the last. At least, it is most probably over for the author of these words. Who knows. It was not long ago that the PARPG lead was calling that dead (and I scolded him for it, did I). The great thing about Free software is that it can live on. Moving on to more vibrant projects, and ToME4 beta 29 30 31 is in the wild. The current development pace is quite astonishing. More graphical tiles, bug fixes, play balancing, and some useful optimizations - don't get addicted! zzoxx In a similar vein, the author of Sco...

SuperTuxKart now has an add-on/DLC/community-content manager, which allows you to download tracks and karts from inside the game, without having to move or unzip files. I am very excited about this feature, which hopefully will be a strong motivation for community members to create new content for the game. Suzanne's kart One example of the advantages of this feature: a few days after the release of 0.7.2 the amazing Suzanne (Blender's mascot) kart was finished. Instead of having to manually download and install it or wait for 0.7.3, players can simply get the kart in the add-on manager. [edit:  unfortunately  right now Suzanne is only in SVN and not yet in the add-on manager (to be fixed)] Here's a video of some of the content you can get via the add-on manager: SuperTuxKart 0.7.2 DLC In case you are on Linux or OS X, consider getting the 0.7.2a release, which should perform much better [ info here ]. Beastie Two more content addition in this version are: New Beastie Kar...

The commercial abandonware 2002 game No One Lives Forever ( trailer ) has been released under the GPLv2 . The NOLF2 source code has been released under the GPLv2 by Touchdown Entertainment. Along with the game source code, you will find the engine source code, as well the tools behind it. It's great news for the entire NOLF2 modding community, since now we'll be able to keep the game alive! I have uploaded the package to free services since the Touchdown Entertainment website is down: http://www.multiupload.com/WBO4EQHRAE It isn't yet clear what license the assets are released under, but as with most commercial game source releases I suspect that it is not part of the source release. Do these commercial source pseudo-Free releases have any merit beyond giving loyal followers a way to keep their fun alive? It has been of great benefit to have had the ID engines released as Free software, but they were the platform for a number of very significant free projects that wo...

RIOT  is a game coding competition for Caanoo, Wiz, Pandora and Dingoo's Dingux developers. In the future, probably also for nD devs, unless that one turns out to be vaporware. The contest entry dealine is over but  votes are running until July 22 2011. Four RIOT entries that provide source So far, four of the entries provided their source, you can filter them out here .

When I was looking for last post's link to Justin's portraits , I found a collection of b/w portraits and a new crowdfunding game project: Time Hammer. Timehammer project introduction video What is Time Hammer ? A game where you run, jump, fall and die, try again, smash enemies, and have fun (hopefully!)  It's a retro, 8-bit throwback to an earlier time, but with some modern touches that we just couldn't help but include.  Low gravity, destructible environments, a kickin chip-tune soundtrack... yeah, it's a blast! A gaming engine built from scratch in HTML5 / Javascript. Time Hammer will be the first fully-featured, plot-driven game featuring the HTML5 An indie community dream come true. The game engine will be released open-source on GitHub - meaning that anybody can download it, improve it, and use it for any purpose, free of charge. " Which license? " was my first thought and question. I haven't actually researched the nuance of those licenses, a...

The last version of Flare that Free Gamer took a look at was 0.11. The newest version is 0.14. Character customization in Flare Title and savegame loading screens now exist, adding to immersion. Character customization (gender, portrait and name) is now possible. (Note how much depth this part of starting a game can acchieve in some cases). The character portraits are a product of Justin Nichol's fantasy portrait marathon . Joystick support, conversations, vendors, quests, a new area and many more smaller additions included. It is now possible to configure keybindings and resolution, which leds to my first 720p HD video of Flare gameplay: Watch this video in 720p HD here Clint Bellanger, main developer of Flare, posted a  reflection  on game progress in Flare, which includes some simple but interesting statistics. You can show Flare some pocket love via Flattr .

I've been following the Warzone 2100 art revolution project for some time now... but after years of displaying only nice renders of cool new models, it finally seems to be getting closer to an actual game integration with the recent integration of GLSL normal-maps etc. into the latest Warzone2100 snapshot . More awesome (very much work in progress) screen-shots can be found in the Warzone2100 art dev forum (especially this thread ) and on the art revolution forum . And while there is still a lot of things to do... an actual Warzone2100 release with a massive graphical update seems not too unlikely in 2011! Lets hope for the best ;)

Yesterday we wrote about Java3d-based Callie . This project is also Java-based but uses the jMonkeyEngine . Script Blocks is a 3D .. environment, in which you can place blocks that produce or modify signals and blocks that react to them by changing color or by moving for example. I assume that the project is inspired by Minecraft's Redstone Circuits . And I think it's a great virtue that instead of yet another attempt to implement Minecraft, this project focuses on one (complex) mechanic and extends it. The video below is much better at explaining what the project is about: Script Blocks Introduction

Callie is an in-development 3D action game with jumping puzzles and guns. It runs using Java WebStart. This is Amy There are a few common problems with the project: animations are missing, the camera is hard to handle in the level environment, license info is missing for both assets and code. One very nice thing the developer did is providing  this simple control scheme . The use of Java3D in the project, lead to complaints and might discourage developers from contributing code. Apparently the problem is that Java3D is not an active project. Callie 0.4 gameplay

Yes, big summer hole here in FG... luckily we get at least some guest posts from Bart (aka the OpenGameArt founder). So, maybe today we just make a small summery of recent news that popped up in our Freegamedev forums (boring for the forum regulars I know :p ): First of all (as we mention that project way to little), find a release candidate of the latest SuperTuxKart version in this thread . In our showcase forum you can also find a nice (but low-fi) turn based strategy game called Strategic Initiative , which is made by the same guy who was also behind the classic Empire (well I didn't know it before ;) ). Also don't miss the updates on The Legend of Edgar . Back in the section of out hosted projects, the user Skorpio has been showcasing some nice Mechs for Linwarrior3D lately, which are now being integrated into the game: At the Red Eclipse forums an interesting collaboration project to make a mod loosely based on Team Fortress (classic?) recently showed up, with the us...