New Forums Available

With many thanks to ghoulsblade and hagish of SFZ fame, there is a new Free Gamer forum. :-)

Unfortunately there is no way to transfer to old database over and even if it was possible the majority of useful content was posted during the period of data loss (anything after June 30th). However, lessons learned, this new forum should be more responsive (freeforums.org was slow), have better uptime (freeforums.org was frequently down) and is far more customizable (i.e. expect a FG theme in the near future etc).

Parallel Universe

There's a new release of Privateer Gemini Gold. Bug fixes and some improved artwork prompted the team to release 1.02a just a month after 1.02 - release early, release often so this is a good thing in my book. I'm not sure if they have addressed the reported high difficulty level of the game though. If you find PGG too difficult, check out Privateer Remake and/or Parallel Universe.

Or wait for the new Vega Strike release which is coming in August. It's looking sumptuous.

JCRPG development is still at a good pace. To get an idea of the feel of this old fashioned RPG engine, the author posted a video:

JCRPG in action

Busy Gamer

PR: Parallel Universe

Too busy to post properly today. :-(

• Ecksdee is not dead (news update)


• Parallel Universe (a mod for Privateer Remake - which itself is a Vega Strike mod) now has a gallery


• Interstate Outlaws is definitely open source (confirmed with the author)


• SoulFu author leaves game to community development but still under dubious license

More information on the latter two tomorrow.

Privateer Parallel Universe

Parallel Universe, a modification of Privateer Remake, has gotten itself a rather smart website and community forums. There's a good bit of work going on over there and the feedback on PU is generally pretty good. Definitely worth a look for space game fans. It is also part of a rather complex development scene based around Privateer & Wing Commander games. I'll get back to that in a bit.

A couple of Ubuntu users have posted their first serious effort at a game, Slingshot. It's a fairly simple 2D affair, take it in turns to shoot at each other, your shots being affected by the gravity pulls of planets.

I've mentioned Egoboo Resurrection a few times - a continuation of the classic game Egoboo. I've not really mentioned that it's only released for Windows despite the original predominantly being a Linux game. It just comes down to a lack of Linux based contributors. However there's another "branch" called Egoboo 2.x which has binaries for Mac OS X and Windows. I'm sure eventually a Linux guy will pop up and help out but until then it seems us Lusers are a bit stuck when it comes to getting an Egoboo fix. I guess there is always SoulFu. Anyway, to encourage contributors one of the Egoboo Resurrection devs posted a development bundle which comes with game editing tools as well as the source.

There's now a Mac OS X binary up for the latest Warzone 2100 release, 2.0.7. Good day for Mac users, eh? :-)

Back to PU and a bit about the scene which PU comes from, and it's all a bit complex, rotating around the Vega Strike engine. Some of the VS devs (herein called the 'devs') made Privateer Remake. This got noticed by the Wing Commander nuts at crius.net (herein called the 'canons') who are dedicated to their cause. Some less fierce but equally obsessed WC fans (herein called the 'non-canons') at the same time started forming Wing Commander Universe, a super-mod that encompassed all things WC, a lot of which started making it's way into PR. Unhappy at the way PR was not completely true to the original Privateer, the canons - with help from the devs - created Privateer Gemini Gold, a fork of PR. The canons publicly denounce WCU. The non-canons decided that not only was the limitations imposed on gameplay in PGG not conducive to a fun game, but they did not go far enough, so created Parallel Universe, something even less true to it's WC heritage that embraces fun over accuracy.

So you now have a triangle of groups - the devs with VS and PR, the canons with PGG who gets help from the devs, the non-canons with WCU and PU who collaborate with the devs on PR. It's quite an interesting thing to follow. It's quite a caustic atmosphere between the canons and the non-canons. At the end of the day, not everybody can always get along, and the canons are abrasive at best, with questionable forum policies and immature moderation the last time I encountered them.

Anyway, my point was that PGG is the most well known of all the projects. However, feedback isn't that great on the latest release 1.02 which new players are finding incredibly hard with a high starting difficulty. The PU team could flank PGG in terms of community by being a more fun game to play so attracting more players and contributors. And there's PR in the middle that will no doubt continue to, well, be in the middle.

I hope I got that all correct. Whilst it was a stormy path to the projects we have today, I think each project serves a niche and they can coexist harmoneously. It may even turn out to be one of those situations where the existance of one is what spurs on the other - Yin and Yang etc. :-)

Buy Me A Centurion

Privateer Gemini Gold 1.02 rc1 - the game bringing the classic commercial title Privateer kicking and screaming into the modern era - is ready and they require testers. They only provide a Windows binary, however the game is based on the cross-platform Vega Strike game engine and previous versions have had Linux and Mac binaries too.

PGG is just one of the variants to spring from the original Privateer Remake. Another one, Privateer Universe, seems to be gaining a bit of popularity - it adds to the gameplay whereas PGG strives to remain true to the original. It's a 3D space combat RPG, for the very few that don't already know.

Freeciv Tileset updates - Freeciv 2.1 imminent? Hmm, rumour mill, speculation, and sensationalism, all in one. ;-)

Er, "A Sauer Mod"

The so-titled Unnamed Sauer Mod is looking promising as the developer continues to make progress - now with zombies. In case you didn't read about it previously here on FG (I did mention it, right?) it is a single player FPS game where you take on a zombie infested habitation on Mars. It looks like it'll be a cross between Doom and House of the Dead in terms of gameplay although obviously it's a small team (one man?) effort so perhaps comparing it to commercial titles is a little unfair - but you know what I mean. Sauer allows for rapid map creation so it seems to be making the job a bit easier, as was the original intention of the Sauer authors!

Trophy development has resumed. Trophy is a Free Software top-down 3D-ish racing game. The new development brings the game up to date with the latest clanlib release and hopefully a new Trophy release will reinvigourate the project. :-)

I came across another top-down-ish 3D-ish racing game, - GeneRally although it is only freeware and only available for Windows. :-(

It looks cute. There's loads of user-created tracks to play and it seems to have a very active playing community. If only it was open source though, I'm sure it would be even better. Hmm, I moaned quite a bit about Simutrans not being open source and lo and behold yesterday things changed. Perhaps I should do the same with GeneRally? Then somebody can port it away from the monstrousity that is Direct-puke-X and educated people can play it as well as those 'dozey peons. :-D

Just because I can, here's another [this time 2D] racing game - Road Fighter, a remake of a classic game from the 80s which I'm too lazy to find information on. The source version is compatabile with Lin, Mac, Win but I think only a Windows binary is available to download. Retro but looks O.K. Enjoy!

Open Source 3D Space Games

Welcome to a space game special on Free Gamer!

No Gravity

Vega Strike

Oolite

Parsec

Crimson Space

At the heart of open source space game development is Vega Strike, a 3D space trading and combat game. With a dynamic universe and dynamic econmies, there is massive depth to the game. However the current stable version (0.4.3) is aging. While there is an update to the development version, it is not yet stable nor easy to try but does include some great new models and art on top of various gameplay improvements. Feature-wise it rivals commercial counterparts and the next releases should restore Vega Strikes position as one of the showcase open source games.

Vega Strike is highly moddable and has spawned some excellent mods. There's something for Babylon 5, Star Wars, and Star Trek fans, with the latter moving forward nicely.

The most well-known mod is Privateer Remake, a modernization of Wing Commander: Privateer - an offshoot of the Wing Commander series. Privateer Remake was forked to form Privateer Gemini Gold, a version more true to the original Privateer. Both games breathe life back into a popular franchise, dragging it into 20th century gaming with vastly superior graphics to the original. There are more Wing Commander game remakes being developed out of the Vega Srike mod stable, springing from the meta-project Wing Commander Universe that spawned Privateer Remake.

No Gravity is a 3D arcade space shooter set in a fantastic universe made of 5 intergalatic worlds. The website is one of the best looking sites I've seen for an open source game. The game itself does not look as pretty as more recent titles like Vega Strike, but it looks fun nonetheless. It's gameplay reminded me of X-Wing vs TIE Figheter although it's been a long time since I played that so I could be mistaken.

Another space game whose progress has been steady is Oolite. It is basically Elite for the modern PC and was developed as a response to the withdrawl of Elite - A New Kind from the Internet (although it is still available from a few freeware sites). Oolite continues to exceed Elite in many ways and should delight fans of the original as well as attracting new players to the Elite brand.

Then there's FreeSpace 2. I was somehow under the impression that the whole game had been made Free Software. However, I could only find the FreeSpace 2 Source Code Project which did not contain much useful information, let alone a useful download. Increasingly convinced that the original FreeSpace 2 data was required and not Free, my interest quickly waned. If I'm wrong then could somebody please correct me.

Sadly there are those game development efforts that never quite make it. I came across Reaper whilst poking around the Internet. It's development ceased in 2002. Another space game whose candle went out a while ago is Andromeda 9, so it joins the echelons of once-promising projects.

Then there is Parsec. Once a darling of Linux gaming, Parsec suffered from being closed source. By the time the developers realised their mistake and open sourced Parsec, it was too late to interest a future maintainer.

Update: I have stumbled across Crimson Space that looks intriguing - you can enter a planet's atmosphere, it has several ships - although I'm uncertain of how complete it is and development ceased in 2002.

For people wanting an immediate fix, I would suggest No Gravity, Oolite, and Privateer Gemini Gold. No Gravity has the polish, Oolite has the depth, and Privateer the great 3D graphics. For people who are not afraid of rough edges, Vega Strike and it's burgeoning mod scene will push your 3D cards and engross you at the same time; Vega Strike is the open source future of this genre. One thing is certain, the open source 3D space game scene is very healthy.

Please comment if I missed an important open source 3D space game.