FreeGameDev

Hey community!

I am thinking about making a new blog-post about FOSS RTS games in the next days.
I would like to include 0-AD, recent Warzone2100 developments, some new Glest stuff and Spring 1944 (and maybe other Spring mods).
Any other suggestions or specific links to nice videos or screenshots you can contribute?

Maybe another post about TBS games would be nice also, games that come to mind would be UFO-AI, Wesnoth, Advanced strategic command... maybe some of the risk clones and that Battletech board-game conversion... other suggestions? Wasn't there also a nice Panzergeneral clone?

Perhaps http://globulation2.org/wiki/Main_Page

Is that actually good at *all*? I remember trying it once long time ago and found it horribly boring

Not exactly RTSs:

Widelands - will have a coding meetup in 2010 http://wl.widelands.org/

PyTowerDefense (Playable Alpha) - makes interesting use of mindmap for design http://sourceforge.net/projects/pytowerdefense/ http://www.mindmeister.com/31183260/tower-defense

outdated but maybe interesting :
http://kahvipapu.com/blog/2007/06/19/li ... egy-games/
http://kahvipapu.com/blog/2007/06/21/li ... continued/

a few spring screesnhots and vids i had noted, also old :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y5IMq6u4hc
http://spring.clan-sy.com/media.php?play=16000
http://www.wolfegames.com/TA_Section/Ro ... aust01.jpg

warzone 2100 http://wz2100.net/

ORTS:
http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~mburo/orts/

NetPanzer:
http://www.netpanzer.org/

Battle City:
http://battlecity.looble.com/

Boson:
http://boson.eu.org/

BosWars
http://boswars.org/

Hmm ORTS seems not bad... do you know if it is actually playable? It seems like I am too stupid to compile it on my Ubuntu box

Julius {l Wrote}:Is that actually good at *all*? I remember trying it once long time ago and found it horribly boring

Glob2 is like the only real innovation in FOSS RTS games, really. The tutorial needs a bit balls and patience to get through, but the basic concept is amazingly amusing once you introduce more enemies and stuff.

Julius {l Wrote}:Hmm ORTS seems not bad... do you know if it is actually playable? It seems like I am too stupid to compile it on my Ubuntu box

I was able to get it to run a month or two ago but there were no missions, just a map with resources and miners. I think it's not more than an rts engine and I'm not sure battle is implemented yet.
PS: It appears that I'm incorrect about battle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pAHGDb2QtU

Uhmm... well and given the lack of recent progress I guess it's not really what I am looking for then.

I guess I will focus on stuff like Warzone2100 then.
With the new terrain renderer and all the other graphical updates looks quite nice though... I really don't get why they don't release a version with that included. It seems rather complete already.
It's really a pity that Spring is such a mess to set up, Glest doesn't have properly implemented multiplayer and Warzone2100 looks so old... it seems like there are three in theory great FOSS RTS, but each one is severely lacking in one area, resulting in no good RTS at all... well and 0-AD seems like a newer ending story

Check out Glest Advanced Engine. That has a multiplayer/network implementation.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/glestae
http://glest.org/glest_board/index.php?board=15.0

Yeah I was going to write about that.. but it seems not really ready for normal gamers either

So, has Glest become fun playing now or is it as dull as it ever was?

There is another FOSS RTS, Battle For Rashitoul but it is a little bit dead since 2004...
This game won a special prize from a French contest for Open-Source and Free Games organized by the French Research Ministry !
I'm willing to revive this project but I runs out of time...

DarkBaboon {l Wrote}:There is another FOSS RTS, Battle For Rashitoul...

Man was it annoying to find the screenshots, anyways, they are here: http://rashitoul.net/fr/htm/captures.htm
Thanks for informing us of that game! It looks weird and interesting.

Sindwiller {l Wrote}:So, has Glest become fun playing now or is it as dull as it ever was?

Well it is a pretty standard RTS, but if the multiplayer was working it might actually be fun Never really got into single-player RTS anyways...

Julius {l Wrote}:

Sindwiller {l Wrote}:So, has Glest become fun playing now or is it as dull as it ever was? :P

Well it is a pretty standard RTS, but if the multiplayer was working it might actually be fun Never really got into single-player RTS anyways...

It's a below-standards game. Even if it has all the basic elements a RTS needs, it's unplayable due to unbalanced gameplay, blocky GUI and controls and intransparent unit trees.

charlie {l Wrote}:Battle City:
http://battlecity.looble.com/

As an impartial judge simply willing to contribute to this conversation, I would have to say, Battle City is an excellent candidate for a blog post. I highly encourage everyone to write about Battle City. In fact, putting up signs in your neighborhood is good too.

Also, if you have a giant laser, please send me a private message. I am having difficulty acquiring one. I'd say its for non-profit charity use, but who am I kidding - giant lasers are always for large ransom demands...

Deceth {l Wrote}:Also, if you have a giant laser, please send me a private message. I am having difficulty acquiring one. I'd say its for non-profit charity use, but who am I kidding - giant lasers are always for large ransom demands...

So if you get giant laser gfx and sfx, such a unit will be made available in the game?...

I like where this is going...

@Deceth: Is there a Linux version available I can test?

Oh and I also found this game:
http://www.maxr.org/
It can be either used with the original M.A.X. data or stand alone (no sound etc then though).
It's somewhat of a mixture between RTS and TBS though... and still under heavy development it seems.

@qubodup / Yes, if I acquire giant laser gfx and sfx, then a giant laser item will most certainly be made available in the game. Of course, it will be exclusively available to me so that I can terrorize those who are deserving of punishment - and once in a while someone innocent who is not...

@Julius / Unfortunately right now there is no official Linux version. I do know of several players who successfully use WINE to get online. I'm currently searching for some minions to whom I can make empty promises of power in exchange for their free labor on the code. These minions shall be instructed to clean up the code and to replace any Windows dependencies with better solutions.

Ok made a update to the blog:
http://freegamer.blogspot.com/2009/12/f ... games.html

In the end I decided to mention only 0AD and Warzone2100 in more detail... I was thinking about Glest GAE, but there is not really anything great to show about that yet I believe.

Good post. Is that mech mod for Warzone already playable? I'm too lazy to read the thread. When the new renderer is ready I might be willing to download and play it again (I still have my original Warzone 2100 CD hehe).

Skorpio {l Wrote}:Good post. Is that mech mod for Warzone already playable? I'm too lazy to read the thread. When the new renderer is ready I might be willing to download and play it again (I still have my original Warzone 2100 CD hehe).

No the mech mod is currently more or less only a set of models, and it is unclear when and if it will be actually playable. The models are nice though, and thus it would be a pity if not.

I liked the post too!

Skorpio: I asked the same thing and got a positive reply