Gaming Daily A-Z

Just as a quick follow-up to last weeks post about ET:Xreal: Version 0.3.0 got released today ! ET:Xreal 0.3.0 As you can see, it is still a long way to go to replace all the non-free assets, and graphics sure don't look quite as great as all the features of that engine would make you believe (which proves again: it is the artists making a game look good :p ), but it's a start and you can begin brushing up your ET skills again ;)

About a year after the Wolf:ET source release, significant advances to the original game (in a playable and easily obtainable form) are sadly still MIA :( The quite promising ET:Xreal engine enhancement project is one possible exception, even though they just had to sadly announce that they wouldn't make their Nov. 5th first release date (I was originally waiting for news about this until then...). ET:Xreal with some Free high quality textures As you might have guessed, this project takes the advanced id-Tech3 (Quake3) renderer from the now defunct Xreal project and brings it over to the Enemy-Territory engine (also id-Tech3 based). But besides that it also aims to give the engine a general overhaul and possibly add additional advanced features like real physics etc. Additionally work has also started to replace the free-as-in-beer media from the original game, with much higher quality CC-by-SA textures to make use of the advanced engine features. To qoute one of the developers (...

Yes, I post only seldom, but when I do it I keep up the good old tradition of mixing totally unrelated projects in one big post :p So where to start today? Ahh yes: The puzzle type game Berusky 2 was recently FOSSified (code and art GPL) as pointed out in our forums (but I have to admit I saw it first on LGDB ). And as out great founder was quick to point out , it follows the great tradition of the first part with was also released under the terms of the GPL. In totally unrelated news, Lips of Suna version 0.5 got released last week, with a bunch of nice graphical and game-play improvements ( change log and discussion here ). For those living behind a rock, Lips of Suna is a crazy mix of Minecraft, slightly adult themed anime and a more classic RPG. Definitly worth a try, even though still under heavy development! Hmm and now a quick run-down of other (I'd say less important) news: Q3 Rally (now stand alone with the ioQuake3 engine) is nearing another release and OpenXcom is ...

Yes... slow days here on FreeGamer... so we will try to give you a bunch of smaller news and projects to check out: First another Minecraft clone (this time for the PSP, but with GPL code): Lamecaft (which is a title I approve... generally ;) ). Then we have a open-source reimplementation of the famous jump&run Cave-Story: NXEngine . Maybe it is something nice to make your own platformer with too? A bit more high profile I guess is this game I recently cam across: Turtle Arena , which you might have guessed is another game based on the ioQuake3 engine. Its goals are pretty ambitious (it wants to be "not annoying"...but with those hideous turtles that might be next to impossible :p ). Artwork is CC-by-SA too, but obviously a bit IP tainted. Turtle Arena Another offspring of the ioQuake3 project are the ioWolf (RTCW and ET) engine upgrades, which seemed rather dead all the time. However some people actually forked them and are working on their own versions, of which esp...

As the self proclaimed FPS expert here on FreeGamer (who doesn't have a PC to play any FPS right now :( ), I have to keep you updated on the newest released and developments of course! So what is the big news for this weekend? Well looks like the Cube2 engine powered Red Eclipse is finally getting an official release tomorrow :) Red Eclipse release teaser Head over to their IRC chat to not miss the release, which is expected for Sunday 13th of March, 2am GTM! Oh and they are also having a small donation drive to fund their new player-model which will be released as all art assets of the game under a FOSS compatible creative commons license (170 Australian $ still needed at this time) AFAIK. Alien Arena 7.51 released A smaller release comes from the Alien Arena team today . Not much changes in version 7.51 in regards to gameplay or media, but under the hood the engine got some serious performance upgrade ( full change log ). Enemy Territory Xreal development picked up again To m...

We need contributors, contributors, contributors to misquote a famous internet meme ;) So if you want to be a new author writing wacky (or wicked) articles here on FreeGamer, contact us! Don't let this Blog die! And hey it's a good excuse to be lazy and not work on actual open-source games :D FOSS game news So what kind of gaming related news have piled up in my list during the last month (yes it has been nearly a month since goat's post :( )? Freeroid recently got a major update, bringing it up to version 0.14 . Another major update was given to us by the great Hedgewars team, so who needs worms if he can have hedgehogs? They also make better splashes under my car...*hust*. Forget what I just said, FreeGamer minion! Concentrate on the news I bring regarding the the FOSS MMORPG Ryzom . You might remember that this game has gone free as in freedom (but not as in beer) some time ago, and besides various improvements , it now resulted in a working Linux client . So go and t...

Rejoice! Now you can become the CEO of a multinational evil energy empire on your home PC. Build as many nuclear power plants as you always wished, destroy the world's climate with coal electrification and make a big advertisement campaign to greenwash your evil plans with some wind-mills ;) Energy Tycoon You can download this great looking game called Energy Tycoon , for Windows and Linux, and the source-code is available under a MIT/BSD like license. It includes some non-free parts however (e.g. irrklang AFAIK) and the media license is unclear, but it's rare that such a polished game shows up as open-source more or less out of nowhere. Quick selection of other news A rather interesting GPL licensed racing project was recently released for the Blender game engine (BGE): SAAB-91 Virtual Race . Interesting especially because it seems to have some sort of official support by the designers of the car, but currently it is still at a very early stage. It's also nice to see th...

*Qubodup's eyes shift left and right* Qubodup mutters, "I smell death." *Charlie jumps out from behind a tree* "No! It's me!" Or maybe Q meant death by a thousand of Charlie's bad jokes? I got jokes, man. Ok, ok... games stuff. Enough inane joke stuff. Games... FreeOrion 0.3.14 came out with a fairly mega changelog . A preview of the 3d space combat is in there, as well as lots of fixing and balancing and content enhancing. It's becoming a very deep game and once the 3d combat is done it'll be one of the stand out open source games you can play, and only getting better. Hats off to the developers for their dedication to realising their dreams, it's been a long haul. Here be a video: FreeCol 0.9.3 just came out . Fixes ahoy! Good game, that, although I still don't understand how to play it. One day I'll swallow my pride and ask how the hell you assign hammers and build things. Danger from the Deep 0.4 preview release for ...

Weaver Weaver [ introduction ] is an objective-based ("invade checkpoints") team fps with a simple gesture sequence spell casting system . It uses the XreaL engine and is currently in an early development stage. Maps are under construction and a few spells are in place. Code is GPL-licensed, "Media will aim to use Creative Commons licenses." Weaver concept art Weaver's current spellcasting interface (Goethe's color wheel [ 1 ] ;) ) The level work I was able to witness is impressive. TRaK is the designer, which explains it. Strolling in bow_block of Weaver - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh5NQ1iT3Gg Weaver's introduction includes a simple game design document. Compilation instructions are located here , communication happens over forum and IRC . OpenArena 0.8.5 OpenArena has a new website look and a new patch release. It provides new or improved weapon effects, player skins, menu UI ( video , compare to old ), icons... OA 0.8.1 icons OA 0.8.5 icons ....

Well, I was fighting with myself not to post twice in a single day, but I have so much good stuff to post and the last post was simply a rant so it's OK! Topically, Extreme Tux Racer 0.4 has been released, bringing better graphics, a cleaner slicker ui, all new courses and more! You can find download information on the site. No new screenshots on the site yet though. I can't believe I've not seen this game mentioned anywhere else. (Who maintains the tome these days?! It doesn't even have an ETR entry!!!) ETCE XreaL ETCE (full name yet to be decided) is an already-underway project to create a successor to the popular (and proprietary) game Enemy Territory: Castle Wolfenstein. They have [wisely] chosen Sauerbraten as the base for the game. They have a forum , development screenshots , and buckets of enthusiasm. Could the gameplay of one of the most popular online FPS games of all time soon be found in a Free Software game? Let's hope so! Paintown is an a...