Open Source Game Competition

[squamulus]

Hello,
I'm working with a few guys on a project for indie game developers. The two of them quit their jobs about a year ago to focus on building a marketplace for indie games that gives developers more freedom and opportunities to collaborate. We're now almost ready for an open beta, and we need both games and people to help us test the platform.

To that end, we thought we might hold a competition to find some noteworthy open source games. The goal of the competition would be to grant recognition to open source developers who have contributed to the community in a way you feel is important. Since our platform is based on indie game development, we're looking to celebrate the work of open source indies you love, granting their developers some recognition and allowing us to feature some favorite open source games from the community in our marketplace.

What do you think of this idea? Who are some people in the community with open source projects that you think deserve recognition?

Here's the with guidelines for the competition: http://digitalmancompetition.wordpress.com/. I'll be improving the site based on your feedback to make sure it's as awesome as possible, so feel free to drop your advice below. If you think the structure of the competition itself needs to be heavily modified I'll gladly take your suggestions. We'll be running more competitions in the future, so any input now would be great.

Thanks,
Samuel

[charlie]

Are you looking for the more established projects such as Battle for Wesnoth, Freeciv, Flightgear, UFO:AI, Sauerbraten etc?

[Julius]

It is really not quite clear what you want exactly.

Besides, I highly doubt that the prize (being somehow published on your indy game platform, which I guess is somewhat Steam like?) is of any real interest for open-source game projects.

P.S.: I hope your platform has support for Linux and Mac

[squamulus]

We've collected 10 nominations so far, including Battle for Wesnoth, Freeciv, and Sauerbraten. Established projects are certainly welcome, as are those that are lesser known or totally off the radar.

@Julius
The platform itself is meant to increase collaboration between developers, so open source projects are going to be the foundation for what we hope to accomplish.
While I haven't yet contacted the nominees (on the list for today!), I don't know if they would be as indifferent toward winning as you say, but we'll have to see. The main idea is to get the games out there and give their creators props for doing a good job.
And yes, the platform goes across Linux, Mac, and Windows right now and we're working on getting it on Droid phones and apple products, too.
Here's the link again if you guys want to participate: http://digitalmancompetition.wordpress.com/

Thanks for the feedback and the nominations!
-Samuel

ps - Julius your picture is disgustingly awesome.

[squamulus]

Quick update:

We've collected 14 nominations so far, and here they are in no particular order;
1) Battle for Wesnoth
2) FreeCiv
3) Frozen Bubble
4) Shotgun Debugger
5) BOFH
6) Pink Pony
7) Kernel Panic
8) Complete Annihilation
9) Red Eclipse
10) Syntensity
11) Alien Arena
12) Sleep is Death
13) Nexuiz
14) Xonotic

If you have a favorite that has not yet been suggested, come to www.digitalmancompetition.wordpress.com and toss your nomination in!

Thanks,
Samuel

[TheAncientGoat]

First of all, welcome to the FreeGameDev community, and thanks for your support of open source software and games, it's good to see initiatives like these being pursued. We may seem a little harsh here, but we're a bit cynical, quite a few Steam-likes have been announced in the past to no real success (and a couple others in current development)


I know I've nominated a few games (although red-eclipse and syntensity weren't really intentional nominations, but oh well ), but I do have a question regarding the entire "core" of the competition, which Julius kind of stated.

The prize of extra exposure is nice, but there are already loads of other applications and sites dedicated to this, where the inclusion is free, quick, and easy (take DJL for example, or the loads of other game-database sites). These are already well established, and thus provide more exposure, so it's a bit of a hard sell... It also brings into question "How hard is it to add games to your platform" and how open the selection process will be. Another tiddling issue for me is the fact that there is /no/ information about the platform on the site (I presume it's http://worldki.com/about.html ? ), making it even harder for the game dev to see the point. Then there's also the format of the competition (blog comments), but I guess that's just me being nit-picky :P

Another couple of things:

1. Have you done research into similar projects to yours, and contacted any devs if you've found any? (eg. Gluon, DJL, OpenCDS, ArchiveGames, glou)

2. Where else have you posted this? Battle for Wesnoth forums would be a good place, also HappyPenguin, LinuxGameDatabase, LinuxGamer, TIGForums maybe.. I'm sure there are lots of other places that could be added to that list

(That last link of yours is broken btw, but don't worry, the other two you posted still work.. Why not point to the nominations page directly?)

[squamulus]

AncientGoat!

First, I'd like to say thanks for the welcome and the nominations you've tossed up. Now, to address the lot of concerns:

The way the tech works is a bit different from the ones that are currently in existence. I was recently brought aboard to help get the community going and get excitement injected into developers and gamers alike. We've done research into the known and upcoming platforms that offer similar functionality as ours, but have so far not been met with one that fills the niche we intend to create.

The worldki platform is built to be used by developers to create their games. Early on, the tools the developers use will be relatively primitive and C++ experience will be required. As the community grows and more people get excited about it, and our own techs are freed from working on the platform itself, more tools will be developed so that eventually someone with little development skills will be able to create and market their game. This development takes place inside the platform itself, on the KiForge. Once a developer has created a tool or game they wish to sell, they can create their licensing/selling options and people will be able to browse, and play (if it is a game) their work using the KiViewer. Because the games and tools exist in the bubble, it can go cross-platform without any kind of formatting issues.

The website is currently being revamped, but the one section that gives more detail about the product is here.

I've been running about on around 20 forums, from game developers to open source game communities, posting the site. So far we've collected 40 nominations, so it's going quite well. And I'll take your nominations page suggestion to heart in future posts!

Thanks a bunch,
samuel

[charlie]

The video you have up for SCOURGE1 is not of that game.

Alien Arena is dubious. It's artwork/media is not under a Free license so really the game is only partly open source / Free software.

Other nominations...

Fish Fillets: http://fillets.sourceforge.net/
VDrift: http://vdrift.net/
TORCS: http://torcs.sf.net/
Speed Dreams: http://speed-dreams.org/
Flightgear: http://flightgear.org/
FreeCol: http://freecol.org/
WorldForge: http://worldforge.org/

There's tons more but I don't want to be here all night.

There's none of the MMORPG games on there, especially the CRPG inspired ones.

[TheAncientGoat]

Charlie, would you consider WorldForge to be complete/playable? For more than an hour?

The rest are cool though

(more MMO nominations now that charlie has mentioned it:
Haven and hearth http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/
The Mana World: http://themanaworld.org/
Eternal Lands http://www.eternal-lands.com/ )

squamulus: Thanks for the reply

I do think that Gluon is still very similar to what you are trying to accomplish, save maybe for the tools part. But anyhow

Are you posting in the forums of the games that have been nominated? I think that would be a very pertinent thing to do, and help get more votes + interest in the project

Anyhow, best of luck

[squamulus]

Thank you!

Though I do have one grievance with you, GOAT! I had to drink an extra cup of coffee in order to operate my keyboard with the blazing speeds required to add in the twenty-one nominations your blog post brought in.

Though I suppose things could be worse... ^^

Thanks a bundle. I had the founder check out Gluon, and he's still certain that what we've got is a different kind of beast altogether. If you or any of your C++ dev friends are wanting to take a swing at the tech, let me know. The windows build has recently been completed, so it's nearing that terrifying alpha/beta time.

And, for anyone who hasn't voted yet, come check it out: http://digitalmancompetition.wordpress.com

WOO,
samuel

[TheAncientGoat]

Samuel, we do have a bit of a problem, a few of the games don't qualify.

0 AD is not playable yet, its still in alpha
Spring 1944's content is non-free (at least, if I recall correctly, you'll have to check that up)
SoulFu might be problematic, seems like the domain has been bought by domain trolls
Nexuis, Alien Arena and Tremulous' content is also sketchy, you'll have to check with those projects to see if they are viable
OpenSonic is a landmine of trademark infringement

So, that's at least 2 games that will be disqualified, and more potentially. Sorry I didn't note this earlier

[Irritant]

Samuel, we do have a bit of a problem, a few of the games don't qualify.

0 AD is not playable yet, its still in alpha
Spring 1944's content is non-free (at least, if I recall correctly, you'll have to check that up)
SoulFu might be problematic, seems like the domain has been bought by domain trolls
Nexuis, Alien Arena and Tremulous' content is also sketchy, you'll have to check with those projects to see if they are viable
OpenSonic is a landmine of trademark infringement

So, that's at least 2 games that will be disqualified, and more potentially. Sorry I didn't note this earlier

I've already spoken to Samuel, he has our permission and blessing to redistribute Alien Arena, so there is no issue with the content. Also this is an "open source/indie" competition, not a "free as in freedom" competition. Alien Arena, Tremulous, Nexuiz, are all "open sourced" games.

[charlie]

FreeOrion is worthy:
http://freeorion.org/

As is Danger from the Deep:
http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/

[TheAncientGoat]

I've already spoken to Samuel, he has our permission and blessing to redistribute Alien Arena, so there is no issue with the content. Also this is an "open source/indie" competition, not a "free as in freedom" competition. Alien Arena, Tremulous, Nexuiz, are all "open sourced" games.

Yes, but the prize includes re-distribution, and WorldKi is a monetizationable platform, at least from what I've read, so they really have to step closely around games where the licensing isn't as permissive. I didn't mean to imply that all of the games on that list don't qualify, I just meant to indicate that they'll have to contact the devs regarding licensing on those games

[Irritant]

I've already spoken to Samuel, he has our permission and blessing to redistribute Alien Arena, so there is no issue with the content. Also this is an "open source/indie" competition, not a "free as in freedom" competition. Alien Arena, Tremulous, Nexuiz, are all "open sourced" games.

Yes, but the prize includes re-distribution, and WorldKi is a monetizationable platform, at least from what I've read, so they really have to step closely around games where the licensing isn't as permissive. I didn't mean to imply that all of the games on that list don't qualify, I just meant to indicate that they'll have to contact the devs regarding licensing on those games

Good point, and you're right he should definitely make sure that's not an issue, because it certainly could be in some cases. Also the Xonotic/Nexuiz issue is a bit dicey, not to mention Xonotic is not yet been released.

[TheAncientGoat]

That's true, is it even on a playable level yet?

[qubodup]

That's true, is it even on a playable level yet?

Xonotic is a Nexuiz fork. It contains nearly everything Nexuiz included. Or did I miss something?

Nexuiz/Xonotic content licensing issues? Anything that hasn't been mentioned over there?

[Irritant]

That's true, is it even on a playable level yet?

Xonotic is a Nexuiz fork. It contains nearly everything Nexuiz included. Or did I miss something?

It hasn't yet been released, so at this point, it makes no sense to be listed if it cannot be included, if it's just the same as Nexuiz at this point, then why list both? Also, how are people to judge it if they cannot download and play it?

[squamulus]

Helloooohooo!

The first round of the open source competition is complete. For the final round we're pitting the winners from each genre against one another to determine who is the best of the best. If you'd like to vote or check out the winners, click here and visit the site.

With regards to licensing, all the developers will be contacted should their games be given the option to port onto the platform. The specific details will be worked out with them so that we are certain we aren't infringing on anyone's rights or stealing a piece of a game.

Thanks for the comments and questions.
-sqm

[TheAncientGoat]

The results are interesting, but rather funny A lot of the games voted for Best Story/World don't have a story or coherent world to mention, and a lot of the Innovative gameplay awardees are very much just clones of existing games... But anyhow, I know you addressed this problem before, but it's still entertaining