Hexoshi (forum thread) is a libre game generally inspired by the Metroid series, notably the older versions.
It is seeking funding using CrowdSupply for a budget of at least $1100 to achieve "Milestone 1" which involves fleshing out the first world of the game, including new enemies, player abilities, and 30-40 rooms, and the graphics for it all (which seems to be the bulk of the funding requirement).
It already looks quite well done, even though it is in the early stages of development. Smooth animations, accurate and responsive movement, and fun music all make it quite a compelling game and something the FOSS game scene doesn't really have.
Hexoshi is developed by Julie Merchant, aka onpon4 on the FreeGameDev forums. It is written in Python and SGE. Julie/onpon4 also developed ReTux (forum thread) - a project that received less credit than it deserved, likely because it looked so similar to SuperTux due to re-using graphics from the classic FOSS platformer. In my opinion, ReTux is a better and more original game than SuperTux and a remarkable achievement given it was a 1 man effort with a relatively short development time. However, when the developer tried to get ambitious funding for ReTux there seemed to be little response.
This time around, Hexoshi has no such problems with potential mistaken identity. The caveat is that the graphics do not exist for Julie to pick up and use. The crowd funding effort is already on track to succeed.
Wymrsun 1.6.0 was recently released (announcement on our forums and on Steam). Wyrmsun is inspired by the original Warcraft games and many reviewers on Steam compare it to Warcraft II. The project continues a steady development pace which is always a good sign so I encourage RTS fans to try it out.
Wyrmsum
Naev 0.6.1 has been released. After a long period without releases until release 0.6.0 appeared in March, this follow up release indicates a return to regular progress for the project. Naev is a 2D space trading and combat game.
I couldn't find a more recent video but here's a bit of a development log of some features for the 0.6.0 release.
Speaking of resurgent projects, Valyria Tear has some news.
The most noticeable change is that I killed a few days ago a very nasty bug that was there from the beginning, making the lua threads never freed from memory. This means the game won't end up anymore swallowing gigs of memory for nothing and crash due to some memory overflow.
Well that does sound like a bit of a killjoy, so good to see it fixed. Other changes are in the blog post.
Onto more things slightly more dubiously open source in nature...
ReTux 0.2 has been released. ReTux is a new Super Tux inspired game. It is a completely rewritten (in Python) codebase although uses many of the assets from the original Super Tux so naturally people will mistake the two despite the significant differences. I already covered the IndieGoGo campaign in a previous article.
ReTux
I'm not really on board with the way the developer Onpon4 is now soliciting $20 for access to the code. I think he's both hurting himself by limiting exposure of the game (you need a password to access the downloads) as well as asking for a fairly significant sum in an age where AAA games are of a similar price a year after release (and regularly on offer, as any Humble Bundle or Steam user will know).
I would say he should just get it on Steam, sell it there, and be open source outside of that. Perhaps have additional levels in the Steam version but accept that charging for the source code is as pointless as it is ineffective.
A couple of long standing open source game projects have received significant updates.
OpenDungeons, an open source dungeon management game, has seen release 0.6 make it out the door. Release highlights from the changelog:
New spell logic with cooldown, targets and cost management
Fancy new spells: Heal, Explosion and Haste
Particle effects!
Reworked library logic and made research order configurable
New creature overlays that show the creatures' mood
Customisable creature sound effects!
Doors to better block enemies and macromanage allies
In-game settings menu support!
New claimed walls graphics and various other graphical improvements
New minimap camera with real-time rendering
Dedicated server support with command-line parameters
There's plenty of screenshots in the announcement on the frontpage of the OpenDungeons website (but no direct link for the announcement, frustratingly).
Explosions! Spells!
The research tree
The project has some very regular contributors (both programming and art) and the game has multiplayer support which the developers test with the occasional weekend virtual lan party. OpenDungeons has certainly gone from strength to strength in the last year.
FreeOrion version 0.4.5 (announcement with changelog) wraps up the last year's worth of development. Much of the work seems to have been motivated by trying to make the game more fun to play — "performance, responsiveness, AI, balancing etc." —which is nice to see. At some point a project has to stop pushing new features and work on improving the game experience.
I couldn't find any screenshots of 0.4.5 to share, but here's a recent gameplay video posted on YouTube which should give an idea, although he's well into a game at this point:
Finally, and a little too late unfortunately, here's some coverage of ReTux. At first glance, it would seem somebody has taken Super Tux and tried to profit off of it. However, author Julian Merchant (onpon4 on the FGD forums) has written a new engine from scratch in Python. Whilst there are the obvious similarities with the original Super Tux, due to ReTux using many of the same graphics and sounds, there are a number of notable gameplay changes many of which can be seen in the 'Concept Castle' video (I really think his IndieGoGo campaign should have used this video at the very beginning of it).
Julian only raised $378 in the 30 days the campaign lasted, which was very short of the $50,000 goal. Reasons for this will be likely poor coverage (no FG article!) but also probably the perception that it was basically the same as Super Tux. For example, the IGG page starts with a video which the first 2 minutes or so (aside from the change to the fireflower) could easily be recreated by substituting the Super Tux logo for ReTux.
I do think avoiding the more popular media sites (e.g. no YouTube video) hurt the campaign. I can find little-to-no mention of ReTux when searching for it.
It also highlights one of the problems with developing Free games i.e. generally there's no money in it. Julian is obviously passionate about the concept, having done so much work on it already, and I hope he continues with it. As to where he goes from here? I would suggest perhaps trying to get it greenlit on Steam or another platform where he can solicit a small fee from players whilst still maintaining the open source status of the project - a great example being Tales of Maj’Eyal which is also selling well on Steam.
Don't give up Julian. Persistence is the key to success with any endeavour. You just have to find the right path.
