10 Best Open Source RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
| 2:00 AM

By On 2:00 AM


 
Top ten RPGs - I made a video of this. People who love text so much they would marry it, will be delighted to see this concise side-product of that video. A list of sorts. With thoughts that came to me after the fact. Especially nagging thoughts.


The bestness of films is determined by their profitability. Which one can claim allows concluding the quality of the product. Maybe the marketing is part of that product.

Whatever the case, none of this is applicable to the underground niche pro-tip specialized target audience-seeking open source games, where using the word choice "open source" is valid enough to stop writing and discuss philosophy.

Thereby I declare that "best" means "complete-ish, playable, fun" which is 33%-66% objective. I present to you - in order of "not like in the video" - the best eleven minus one* RPGs that ever existed yet.

RPG platforming is still a concept to get used to but for some reason It works well. As for balancing: I have no idea if I could finish it with melee weapon choice. Ardentryst's ending is a little anticlimactic but I'm just happy to have an ending at all.

I don't actually know what the ending looks like of the classic Diablo-esque game for Linux and the open source sphere. Freedroid RPG seems however to dictate: pick either fun (hacking droids) or progression (experience point rewards in exchange for direct kills).

Custom resolution support AND 3d graphics is great, the UI is tiny however in DNT. I just reported a build error and a fix was pushed hours ago, so I'm looking forward to trying to compile it again! The vertical slice that is the game is not very thick but so colorful! Nerdy post-apocalyptic humor FTW.

The first time I saw FLARE art in another game was Erebus. The D&D feel is great for someone like me who loves the memory of playing Baldur's Gate II but hates actually investing the actual time to actually play it actually. The most boring part so far was finding new items - there seem to be so few and none seem special. On the other hand: less item micro-management.

It is weird that this even exists. It is so freaking polished. The only weird things are: shooting corners of walls and... I guess the android version setup. Theoretically FLARE is totally mod-able. I worry that the people that are not scared away by the documentation might be the kind of people who will just start writing their own engine instead.

I fell in love with only one jRPG - a genre I usually hate for the grinding and unskippable animations/sequences - because it had painless and low quantity grinding. Fall of Imiryn is short and sweet. I actually contributed a little. It is complete and done and as long as Python 2 remains, it will be playable. That is at least 5 more months and 6 days.

When I enjoy the humor of a game, that can be the hook it needs to catch me in its net. FreeDink is cartoonishly-brutal, silly, stupid. The hero is a prick. I like it. I haven't ever finished it yet but I am curious to one day find out his punishment.

Speaking of humor: this is a joke. I love it. I did play nethack but it was kind of a social pressure thing. For IVAN however I was glad to learn the initially painful controls.

I am very much not into Wesnoth or Panzer General. Therefore if I ever ran into Hale before, I had ignored it. I was wrong to do so. I like the spells, I like the relative casualness (compared to roguelikes). I don't know whether I like the inventory management yet. It has absolutely no sound, which is a problem for me. Others will love that fact.

When upon entering a game it feels like I should know what is going on, a variety of emotions is triggered. The end sum (pun intended): is it worth it, let me work it. Summoning Wars is dead, long live Summoning Wars. Just like OGRE. Im impressed by how much playtime it has already. The visuals (oh the grass textures) might prevent me from even going beyond the first few maps but still one of the best.

I lost my patience on my lest test-play of Valyria Tear and used Cheat Engine (don't ask). My only regret was that it took me hours to remember to use speedhack. The extreme difficulty is just as problematic as the slowness of movement and battle - for the kind of time-greedy being that I am. Story seems cool though and the characters too.

*try guessing (without watching the video) which of these actually does not belong on the top10 list!

While re-finding all these projects, I was really happy that SourceForge still exists. Didn't expect to ever think that thought again.

Please use the video comment section to discuss this article.

Solarus 1.6 is out, progress on Ocean's Heart
| 5:35 AM

By On 5:35 AM


Some of you might remember previous coverage of Solarus, the Free Software Zelda-like ARPG engine that comes with its own complete game creation suite and a pretty impressive palette of Zelda fan games already available under its wing. As of last December, version 1.6 has been released, and while the changes under the hood are too many to number (check the full announcement and changelog here), it is worth highlighting the package now includes a more varied amount of libre tilesets, meaning developers now have available a wider choice of default non-proprietary graphics to use on their own creations. While the community is still very much focused around Zelda fan-games and their respective copyrighted graphics, this is an important first step to attract more developers and spark future libre game projects.


The Ocean's Heart tileset, now part of the Solarus package.

One such project is Ocean's Heart, the brainchild of Solarus community member Max Mraz. The game follows a gameplay structure similar to classic Zelda games transported to a Viking age-inspired setting. It features an entirely original story and a beautiful pixelated tileset, which Max was kind enough to license under a Creative Commons license for integration with the Solarus suite. Upon completion it will become the first true libre Solarus-made ARPG in code and assets, which makes for very exciting news.



Stay tuned for further developments on this, and be sure to check the Solarus website for news on their upcoming game projects, along with complete instructions and tutorials on how to create your own game using the development tools.

Code License: GPLv3
Assets License: Mixed  (most sprite packages copyrighted by Nintendo, original Solarus assets under CC-BY-SA)

DevCorner: FreeDink sound design replacements
| 9:00 AM

By On 9:00 AM


FreeDink is older than some kids that downloaded open source games on their own by now. The two main cornerstones of the game are: low resolution, twisted humor. One really cool thing about FreeDink is that you can play it in a browser.

Anyway, I worked on replacing some sounds years ago and just recently the same bug bit me again and I made replacements for all sounds that didn't have free versions of themselves yet.


For creation, I remixed a *lot* of freesound.org sounds and uploaded all the remixes right back there. The attribution feature of Freesound is quite cool, especially if very different sounds are made (see screenshot above).

However, I underestimated how much effort it takes to test them and to give some clarity to myself as well as share the process with the world, I made a video showing the steps taken for testing sounds:


I could not have done it without the excellent documentation and progress report.

I will continue testing and hopefully, soon all the audio will be fully free on this um... cult classic™!

Dev's Corner is a featured article series focusing on tutorials and tips for game developers operating on a Libre Software environment.

Freeablo is that Diablo engine remake we've been wishing for, is currenly looking for contributors (and general ravings about Diablo. In fact, mostly that)
| 5:09 AM

By On 5:09 AM

Freeablo engine in its early stages
Who doesn't love the original Diablo? When it was first released in 1996, this game set a notable landmark for making the RPG genre more accessible to a broader audience, while still keeping many gameplay aspects of classic Rogue-derived RPGs, that kept the game fresh and unique even after being completed several times. This bridge between classic and modern aspects combined with an incredible attention to detail, a uniquely crafted atmosphere that still gives me the creeps, and a gameplay pacing and length that is just the right balance between level progression and grinding, has helped making Diablo one of my all time favourite games. Well, that and Battlenet, of course, we can never forget how Diablo was one of the first to make it so easy to just go dungeon crawling with a couple of friends online.

There is, however, one thing that I don't like about Diablo. One thing that annoyed me all over these years of repeated runs and occasional multiplayer meetups. And that is how Blizzard itself decided to neglect its maintenance and compatibility completely and practically drop all active support for it, despite keeping the Battlenet servers online. Yes, you will have a tough time trying to buy a fresh copy of this game nowadays, because Blizzard cares so much about their legacy games they don't even sell 'em anymore in their official store. But even if there still are plenty of used copies available online for cheap, running the game on modern systems can be a whole a new quest, given that the last patch is dated from 2000, which means no performance maintenance, no improved graphics compatibility, in fact, not even additional screen resolutions, and certainly no stability updates whatsoever. 

The first Cathedral levels loaded and randomly generated in Freeablo
As a matter of fact, Blizzard has a whole tradition of being disrespectful to legacy fans. They refuse to let resellers touch their games (physical Diablo II and Starcraft copies still go by $25 nowadays, with no Steam or GOG versions in sight), they frequently discourage and hamper any type of mod support or mod attempts, other than whatever's produced under their little walled garden editor-type programs and, obviously, they never ever released the source code of any of their games, just to make sure us, the plebeian fans, would never touch their precious abandoned heritage with our filthy paws.

Luckily, this might just be about to change, with the coming of a bold, new engine remake project most aptly named Freeablo. This project aims to rebuild and expand upon the original Diablo engine, keeping it fully portable and compatible with modern systems, as well as making it adaptable and moddable for anyone willing to modify the game. All of this while still paying due respect to Blizzard and requiring the original game files in order to run the game. Now isn't this nice? 

As of the current 0.1 release, there is still much to be done, which is why the project is open to contributors of all sorts. Hopefully, with enough time and effort, we can all free Diablo one day from the clutches of proprietary software and greedy corporate execs who are still stuck in a 90s mentality on how to commercialize and support video games.

Code License: GPLv3
Assets License: Relies on original proprietary data files

Official Website
Source Code (Github)

Zelda can now be free as in freedom
| 5:24 PM

By On 5:24 PM




Not only from the clutches of Ganondorf, but also from the dominion of proprietary software. All thanks to the magnificent Solarus Engine, a GPLed, SDL-based, 2D action RPG engine. This amazing project aims to provide a stable and easily customizable platform for users to create their own Zelda-like games, and so far, I must say, I am darn impressed by what I've seen. The engine already has two incredible launching titles, named The Legend of Zelda: Mystery of Solarus DX, and a parody of the former, Mystery of Solarus XD. Both are true love letters to the classic SNES RPG, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and amazing and enjoyable games on their own.

Mystery of Solarus DX

But hark, the mere words of a mortal make no justice to the grandiosity of this undertaking. Sheathe thy sword, get thy green cap and ready yourself to adventure! You can start by marching straight to the Solarus download section, or, if your intentions are more creative, you can check the various sources here, and the quest editor here.