Gaming Daily A-Z

In my never ending search for a FOSS game engine that is usable for game modding with out having to reinvent the wheel (nor requiring to be a C++ code master) & having decent tools for content creation (because I am spoiled and think that is a minimum requirement for a game engine) I have become quite disillusioned lately. That is because *spoiler alert* sadly there is none so far... but a few are close luckily. The usual contenders for 3D action games are your mixed assortment of idTech based engines, most notably ioQuake3 . There are a few upcoming contenders like Unvanquished's Daemon engine (which is a mix of ET:Wolf, ioQuake3 and Xreal) and a yet to emerge idTech4 based champion (my uninformed guess is that it will be dhewm3 ). But all of them lack a decent game-play scripting function. On the other side of the idTech spectrum, there is the idTech1 based granddaddy DarkPlaces , which while having advanced to an quite impressive feature set, suffers a quite a bit from its...

We're a week into what has been an absolutely thrilling experience so far. What was more of an experiment to see what some developers might pull off with the new Beta release has far exceeded our expectations. Prizes include a free copy of the upcoming "jMonkeyEngine 3 Beginner's Guide" and a free theme from the WooThemes shop. Additional prizes might be added. If you want to get caught up you should read the following articles: Brief Announcement Exhaustive Contest Rules Contest Prizes Even if you've never used jMonkeyEngine before, 1 and 1/2 months could be enough time to put a game together if you have some experience in Java programming and game development already. We highly encourage developers to download the jMonkeyEngine 3 SDK as the recommended route to a quick start. From there the wiki and community forum are mere clicks away. We hope this contest will bring some new blood into our lively community, and we trust you'll find it worth your while.

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

Long time no see! Before you look at the pictures: I can only recommend following the FGD Game Planet and Dev Planet . That is all ;). Games CONS CONS is a NOOB FRIENDLY!!! roguelike written in Lisp. It is 'friendly' because the amount of possible actions is low and they are all tooltip-explained in the main window. I also like the color scheme and simple look. Follow the developer on his blog . I know I do. Xenowar Xenowar is a simple-gfx squad tactics game and it runs on Windows and Android. Didn't try it yet. skunks is a "3D game with cars, stunts and software rendering, based on Open Dynamics Engine" by Matei Petrescu, who also brought us simple3d/simcar . Contests SDLTutorials.com is hosting a little top-down car racing game contest (runs until 31. Dec) Game On 2010 is an open web game contest started by Mozilla Labs. Deadline: January 11, 2011. [ Rules ] Assets OpenGameArt is getting bigger and bigger and nicer and nicer and their forums cover more an...

Levelhead I don't really know yet how to play Levelhead , but it has GPL -ed code and CC-BY-SA -ed art assets. This means it's good, right? Right? Well, I'll try to find out whether or not you can play it without having to cut a LCD display in mouth-sized pieces first. Sandbox co-operative map editing There's news regarding Sandbox , the child-friendly Sauerbraten-based 3D game/engine/editor. A completely freely licensed version is in the works. (Code and media.) So, hopefully we'll have a release soon, which will be includable in Debian for example. I'm very interested in this project, as it's obvious aim is to make content/game-creation a child's play! MonkeyWorld 3D MonkeyWorld 3D is a BSD License d scene editor for the jMonkeyEngine which I found through a thread on Radakan's forums . Radakan's WorldTool is currently frozen as the energy is now aimed towards the general MonkeyWorld 3D editor. Maybe even jClassicRPG will benefit from it....

Radakan 's devs have decided to use the jME aka jMonkeyEngine , just like JCRPG does! Neat! I admit that I was expecting the project to evaporate, it just had too pretty a website and some team member was very concerned with picking the right wiki and installing a flash audio player on the site, while there was nothing of the game in sight. (I also was afraid the team would come up with some idea like " Hey, let's make our own 3D engine! Right? ") I'm glad I seem to be wrong, the first tech demo video has been uploaded. (I'm not sure if that's not just some engine-bundled terrain and model, but even if it is, what the hell! They're grappling with it! Enough proof of interest and engagement for me!) I just hope they won't let the plans for game story get in the development's way. But I might be wrong worrying about that - Radakan is a "single-player sandbox 3D RPG". Sounds like something that is free of the bug feature "storyl...

Last Remaining Last Remaining is a 3D FPS RPG in the same vein as Deus Ex. The idea is to have an engrossing storyline where the player must take whatever action is necessary to get to the bottom of the mystery. The game is written in Java with JMonkeyEngine and first version was uploaded yesterday . Intriguing and definitely one to watch. :-) The author is the same guy behind Passenger and Nuclear Graveyard , and has a devblog on his various game programming endeavours. A previous release of Nuclear Graveyard had managed to become corrupted when uploaded, a fact which - much to the author's dismay - nobody reported for nearly 2 months despite over 100 downloads. Anyway, if you were one of those people who downloaded the game and (benefit of the doubt) was unable to get it working then now would be a good time to try again ! He is also moving Passenger from JOGL to jMonkeyEngine (which uses JOGL) which should make subsequent development of the game easier. Anybody who thin...