leilei {l Wrote}:It's Word War vi.
Thanks for the correction. Fixed.
Armagetron Advanced is still a clone of the traditional Tron light cycles game. It'd fit in with your rejects list given your confusing and hypocritical determination on what a clone is and what defines 'distinction' and what's not allowed because it is technically a non-clone (based on original source but with new data), etc.
The reason Armagetron Advanced is included is because production-wise and gameplay-wise, it's far superior to the original 2-D, top-down game with (by today's standards) very basic graphics. Just for comparison, consider two other games: SuperTuxKart and XScavenger, which are on the "rejected" list.
If SuperTuxKart came out with very significant, distinguishing features that the current Mario Kart games don't have, or if it came out with a massive graphics overhaul that made it substantially better than the current Mario Kart games (which would be highly unlikely, it must be said), then SuperTuxKart would be added to the list too. As it is, while I like SuperTuxKart and appreciate what it's trying to do, it's stuck playing catch-up with Mario Kart for the most part. It doesn't even have online play yet, which is essential for a game like this in the modern age.
XScavenger is substantially improved, production-wise, over the original Lode Runner. If that was the end of the story, it would be added. However, the story doesn't end there: throughout the years, there have been several proprietary Lode Runner remakes, and several of them are better still than XScavenger. One of the best ones, Lode Runner: The Legend Returns (and its sequel, Lode Runner Online) is even much older than XScavenger. This old proprietary remake adds much more advanced graphics, several terrain types, several new items introducing all kinds of new game variations, great music, 2-player support, and support for putting items inside of terrain. XScavenger, on the other hand, only adds support for a gold piece you're rewarded for collecting first, and a special one-time enemy you find in the ground somewhere and kill permanently, plus graphics that are better than the original, but nowhere near as good as Lode Runner: The Legend Returns and other proprietary remakes of Lode Runner (like the XBLA version). It doesn't even begin to stack up. So while I like XScavenger (or rather, the SDL version of it, "SDLScav"), it has been rejected for inclusion on this list.
Note that Armagetron Advanced isn't the only game to get this treatment on my list. Other such games include: Criticalmass, Dopewars, Rocks'n'Diamonds, and SolarWolf.
I am of course willing to entertain arguments for any currently rejected games to be listed.
Flight of the Amazon Queen isn't completely libre and seems an odd duck on the list. It's not in the same librated tier as Dink and Warzone, and if that's included you might as well include the rest of the freeasinbeer-data adventure games for ScummVM. Beneath a Steel Sky's an excellent game that's oddly on the rejects list, it's one of the more unique pointandclicks out there....
Flight of the Amazon Queen is under a libre license. There's no source code, I'll grant, but I feel like the ScummVM-supported code has been reverse-engineered to the extent that it's a minor point. If you would like to argue against that, your first step should be to report its presence in Trisquel's repository as a bug. If GNU FSDG distros were to stop including libre-licensed ScummVM games for that reason, I would probably remove Amazon Queen from my list despite my disagreement.
As far as Beneath a Steel Sky goes, I found it to be a very poorly designed point-and-click advenure game, based on pixel hunts more than anything, and I found its production quality (especially its soundtrack) to be lacking. I don't know why you say it's "unique"; nothing about the interface stands out to me, the setting is just a run-of-the-mill dystopia, the story is bland and forgettable, and the gameplay mostly involves a massive game of trial and error combined with wandering all over the place. Actually, my strongest memory of this game is listening to the
atrocious music on... what is, it the second level?... for hours on end just trying to get out of there already.
So Beneath a Steel Sky is on the rejects list because it's nothing special as far as point-and-click adventure games go. It's on par gameplay-wise with something like King's Quest V at best (but at least that game was entertainingly bad; Beneath a Steel Sky was equally bad while being insanely boring), and production-wise it's horrible.
SDL-Sopwith is very much lacking.
Hm, I've played that briefly before and found it to be a completely unremarkable game. I'll try it again to make sure, though.
Also this
one and this
one, both of which sadly don't get enough love for not being born from a *nix programmer's mailing list argument.
I notice that it's only made available for Windows and DOS(Box). What is the reason for this?