Well, screw this...

We need contributors, contributors, contributors to misquote a famous internet meme ;)
So if you want to be a new author writing wacky (or wicked) articles here on FreeGamer, contact us! Don't let this Blog die! And hey it's a good excuse to be lazy and not work on actual open-source games :D

FOSS game news

So what kind of gaming related news have piled up in my list during the last month (yes it has been nearly a month since goat's post :( )?

Freeroid recently got a major update, bringing it up to version 0.14. Another major update was given to us by the great Hedgewars team, so who needs worms if he can have hedgehogs? They also make better splashes under my car...*hust*.

Forget what I just said, FreeGamer minion! Concentrate on the news I bring regarding the the FOSS MMORPG Ryzom. You might remember that this game has gone free as in freedom (but not as in beer) some time ago, and besides various improvements, it now resulted in a working Linux client. So go and try out their free 21 day trial if you are on Linux (you better be ;) ).

Older Ryzom Linux vid

On the FPS side of things I have both good and bad news: First the bad ones... the very promising project Axis Revenge has closed down again for unspecified reasons. Some of their stuff will be going towards the also very nice looking Xreal based Weaver project. But no, that wasn't the good news yet... I recently came across another promising project based on the Cube2 engine, called CLONE, a rather funny name given that they want to make a CS like game ;) Not much to see yet, but the guys involved seem quite dedicated and experienced. So lets wait and see.

Hmm... what else? Ahh yes, the creator of the great AlienArena recently showed up in our forums to give us a peak at a new trailer for the upcoming AlienArena2011:

AlienArena 2011 trailer

Another Cube2 /Syntensity based project I am currently closely following, is CubeCreate. It tries to become a really polished FOSS game engine and distribution platform, and so far I like their approach (like LUA scripting).

Oh year, for the RTS fans... the new Warzone2100 3.0 Beta looks rather nice, and also has a test build with an improved netcode now. Personally I can't wait to see the Art-Revolution models integrated however. So watch this space for updates on that!

I guess that's it for tonight, hope you all stay a loyal readers even though the blog has slowed down a lot lately. And please... consider contributing as explained in the beginning!

Weaver: Magic FPS, OpenArena 0.8.5, Evidyon, Code Summers and web findings

Weaver

Weaver [introduction] is an objective-based ("invade checkpoints") team fps with a simple gesture sequence spell casting system. It uses the XreaL engine and is currently in an early development stage. Maps are under construction and a few spells are in place. Code is GPL-licensed, "Media will aim to use Creative Commons licenses."

Weaver concept art

Weaver's current spellcasting interface (Goethe's color wheel [1] ;) )

The level work I was able to witness is impressive. TRaK is the designer, which explains it.

Strolling in bow_block of Weaver - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh5NQ1iT3Gg

Weaver's introduction includes a simple game design document. Compilation instructions are located here, communication happens over forum and IRC.

OpenArena 0.8.5

OpenArena has a new website look and a new patch release. It provides new or improved weapon effects, player skins, menu UI (video, compare to old), icons...

OA 0.8.1 icons

OA 0.8.5 icons

...and maps. For example:

OA 0.8.5 Botmatch DM on am_underworks2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIrzGKL3zcg

Even though OpenArena is supposed to be a freely licensed Quake3 clone (with an anime theme) it also adds new weapons and game modes. I recently tested some of them, for example the Overload game mode, in which you have to destroy the enemy's base crystal:

OA 0.8.5 Overload on ps9ctf - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Cpfldgsso

Evidyon

The Evidyon MMORPG's developer expressed their interest for making the game run on Linux and finds it to be relatively simple task. More info in this thread.

Don't have much to add to that. I'm glad to hear that it's possible and I hope that somebody will want to take such a programming job. Here's the latest gameplay video of the game to make completing this task more desirable: :)

Evidyon Town Guards - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpWcCH6Td0Q

Google and Ruby Summers of Code

Battle for Wesnoth, Blender, Crystal Space, FreedroidRPG, Thousand Parsec, Tux4Kids and WorldForge take part in GoogleStudentsOpenCash.

EDIT: I was just informed, that NeL will share WorldForge's GSoC permission.

By accident (I wanted to get on the Rigs of Rods IRC channel but found myself on a ruby one) I discovered the existence of the RubyStudentsOpenCash. Any FOSS game projects besides Rubygame that could benefit from this? :)

And.. some websites

Blendswap, the new blender file sharing site will probably use CC0, BY and BY-SA as available licenses [2] and that makes me glad..

I discovered SampleSwap (via this post), which has a CC-licensed music category. It is impossible to filter by license (non-free CC flavors are supported), but at least it is easy to identify it, if you care about the terms. It uses yahoo's handy proprietary flash audio player and lists individual tracks instead of the ancient album-model that Jamendo chose. This makes it much nicer to browse for me.

Last bit of info: GameBoom is a site that wants to bring foss games to the people. It tries to do so not by covering only foss games but by allowing gratis games, while promoting the free as in freedom ones.

They are looking for bloggers/game reviewers, so if you are not on a strict foss diet, maybe there's a game you would like to introduce over there? Always remember though, that guest posts are welcome on this blog as well. ;) Just contact us via forum, irc or email (I'm sure you'll be able to find the links up there :) ).

EDIT: Remember GameJolt, another games-thing, where open source games are given attention.