0 A.D. and Megaglest updates

Some assorted news from the FOSS RTS thematic area.

First of all, Megagest saw another somewhat bigger release (3.7.x), and someone also made a nice cinematic for them:

Popular

Cortex Command releases code under the AGPL v3

Image
Cortex Command is a mess, but in a good way. This bizarrely entertaining strategy blend has been undergoing continuous development since the early 2000s, having had its first main release in 2012. Seven years later, its creators decided it's time to let the community have a say. Just one day ago developer Data Realms announced on the game's Steam page it was freeing the game's code under the GNU Affero License v3 . While this release does not include any of the game's data or graphics, meaning you still have to purchase a full copy or replace them with your own, it is nevertheless welcoming news to see game studios embracing Free Software licensing, enabling users to modify the game at their own will. The game itself is as fun as ever. An ungodly hybrid between X-COM, Terraria, and Starcraft, Cortex Command is one of those games whose chaotic approach to physics simulation can lead to some pretty hilarious moments. The game pits several factions in a messy planetary w...
Read more

Looks like battleMETAL will fill some Mechwarrior 2 nostalgia

Image
Just came across this cool video and project which aims to implement a Mecha game and SDK on the Quake1 engine ( Darkplaces specifically): You can find more details on their website and the Github repository . Art assets are apparently not available yet due to some non-free placeholders, but I hope this will be changed soon. Also no multiplayer, but that might be possible to fix . Also really cool would be a Occulus Quest VR port via the already available and quite awesome Darkplaces VR port called QuakeQuest . Leave a comment on our forums.
Read more

Hex Tower Defence and Java vector tools

Image
HexTD close view Hex Tower Defence is a Java-powered tower defense game inspired by the unfree, flash-based VectorTD . You can play it inside the browser or grab hold of the code and install/compile it with the help of these instructions . Gazelle desktop HexTD uses the SVG Salamander Java vector library. It's author is Mark McKay , who is also working on an animation suite, which supports Scalable Vector Graphics: Gazelle . Gazelle is a movie editor that makes it easy for you to create short keyframed animations on your computer. There are some tutorial videos available. I look forward to playing around with Gazelle, as I'm very interested in using SVGs to create (animated) game media or to even use them directly in games. HexTD gameplay (likely to be found boring ;) - also there's no sound by default)
Read more