Assorted FPS news

Lets start with the big news for today :)

A new version of Cube2:Sauerbraten was released today: Justice Edition!

Changes include two new player-models, 30 new maps, a mini radar and the new hold and efficiency game modes. For a full change log click here.

The blue base!

The new game mode "efficiency" gives you a set amount of ammunition and all weapons, and you can only "reload" when re-spawning and in the "hold" mode you get points when holding the flag for 30 seconds for your team

Upcoming changes in AlienArena

In this other open-source online arena FPS (sadly also with un-free media) some major changes in the rendering engine have been announced recently. Version 7.45 will include the new IQM skeletal animation format, which speeds up and increases the rendering quality tremendously on all somewhat new GPUs!

Furthermore changes to the shadowing code have been made:

Improved self shadowing

Edit (07/29/2010): 7.45 was released today, get it here.

ZeroBallistics completely FOSS???

Ok maybe I am jumping the gun here, but this interesting post has recently appeared on the Phoronix message-boards. It seems like the former commercial indi game Zero Ballistics (an unrealistic tank battle multiplayer game with pretty sweet graphics) has gone completely FOSS (GPL including the media and even the .blend model source files).

Zero Ballistics trailer

Details are a bit shady, as there was a post on the currently offline webpage about ZB going to be released for "free", but no mention of the exact licensing. However now a complete repository has appeared on the Sourceforge page (tagged as GPL), so speculations are that it is completely FOSS!

We are currently trying to confirm this with the authors listed at the sf.net page, but so far there was no response :( But lets wait and see!

Edit (07/29/2010): I can now confirm that ZeroBallistics is indeed completely FOSS :) Stay tuned for a more in depth preview here on FreeGamer.

Cube2: Is it finally taking off?

Ahh, qudobup and Charly are back and posting. Lots of interesting news even for me!
So what can I add to this? Well first of all I forgot to mention this awesome TBS in my last post: UFO2000, which is of course like UFO:AI a clone of a very well known series.
And I should have also mentioned Stellar Forces which is a remake of Laser Squad :)

Cube2 Engine

So as you might have guessed todays topic will be the Cube2/Sauerbraten engine, which besides being a mighty fine game on its own, has also spawned some great offspring projects lately. Blood Frontier has been mentioned before and since there have not been any new releases since then I will keep it short and just mention this video review which gives you an idea of the game play. But check it out if you have not done so yet!

Platinum Arts Sandbox

Plantinum Arts Sandbox has also been mentioned here before, and could be quickly described as a game development platform aimed at kids (and adults), utilizing all the nice in game editor features the Cube2 engine offers (and more).

Recent news are that they are hosting a nice contest , they have also just announced a new version. And besides offering the usual amount of fixes and updates, it now boasts a really nice 2D platformer template for you to create new games:

Sandbox's 2D platformer

Furthermore they have templates for RPG projects and for wanna be film makers a new tool called movie cube (movies made with game engines are also called Machinima for those unfamiliar with the term).

Syntensity

Syntensity is a project quite similar to the one mentioned above, albeit with a more mature focus. Their feature list is long and even though still under heavy development it is starting to be a really nice tool for game developers.

And besides the fact that we are happy to announce that they have chosen our network for hosting their community forums, they have also recently released a really nice new game template called Razanak:

Razanak gameplay

So check it out via the Syntensity lobby (the mod gets dowloaded automatically when you enter the corresponding portal), and see for yourself what a powerful game making tool Syntensity has become.