Four Indie Games Going Open-Source!

[BlackStar]

Not sure what you mean there...

I mean that it would be awesome, what else? Replace the 10 boring Gnome and KDE games with something genuinely captivating and start eroding the "Linux doesn't have games" mindset.

If you are thinking that this won't have any effect in the long run, allow me to politely disagree. In my country, every 11-year-old child recently acquired a free netbook with Ubuntu pre-installed (on most of them at least). Pretty much each one of those lads (and ladies) I have spoken with likes Ubuntu more than their WinXP installations - and pretty much all of them run WinXP anyway, because "games don't work on Ubuntu".

Some of them have discovered the Ubuntu Software Center and started installing games from there (I was mightily surprised when I saw my cousin playing bzflag on an impromptu lan party!) but that's still not enough: no Starcraft, no Counterstrike, no Unreal Tournament (all of those run but are far too slow to be playable on Wine - plus, Wine is far too difficult to setup).

My point? Add a few quality games to Ubuntu and people *will* come. That's all.

[BlackStar]

He probably means that they could change the default usually mostly crappy games for these. Question is whether the code is open sourced but the brand stays closed or all is free.

Exactly. Reading the wolfire blog, it seems that Lugaru has released the code under the GPL and the assets under a non-commercial license. This probably doesn't meet Debian's policy requirements but it might still be good enough for inclusion on the Ubuntu cd.

[SkyHiRider]

Debian doesn't matter much, as Ubuntu is currently the flag ship of desktop Linux. As long as it can be legally included in the repos it's an enormous plus. Also, perhaps a few fans could take the code and build a new game using the source (wouldn't personally mind some sort of Aquaria clone, thou keeping the art so classy and stylish could be a real challenge).

[BlackStar]

Debian doesn't matter much, as Ubuntu is currently the flag ship of desktop Linux. As long as it can be legally included in the repos it's an enormous plus. Also, perhaps a few fans could take the code and build a new game using the source (wouldn't personally mind some sort of Aquaria clone, thou keeping the art so classy and stylish could be a real challenge).

Aquaria itself could use some usability enhancements but the real challenge is the artwork and music. I somehow doubt crowd-sourced development can match the original in pure style and beauty.

And I certainly wouldn't mind a clone, either!

[whizse]

They've only released the data from the demo (to be redistributable but not sold) so you will still need to buy the game. I expect the rest of the titles will do something similar.

It really sounds like you need to educate your young Ubuntu users a bit better (or maybe Ubuntu needs to make games easier to install from the software center?), the games that comes with the default WIndows install isn't much better.

There are quite a few best of/top ten etc. lists for Linux games, and I expect also specifically for Ubuntu.

[BlackStar]

According to the wolfire post on Lugaru,

The game assets are included in the snapshot, and can be redistributed for free, but cannot be resold without our permission.

I haven't downloaded the snapshot (waiting for the repository instead), but this implies that all assets are included, not just the ones in the demo.

Edit: also, yeah, but no Linux game can really match Starcraft.

[whizse]

According to the wolfire post on Lugaru,


I haven't downloaded the snapshot (waiting for the repository instead), but this implies that all assets are included, not just the ones in the demo.

A little bit below it:

We have included enough of the game data to run the demo version. Please note that the game data is not under the GPL, and forbids commercial redistribution.

[BlackStar]

A little bit below it:

Oops, you are right!

[pingufunkybeat]

This is certainly great stuff.

The sad part is that the OSS community is better at producing engines than at producing high-quality contents, so this might not be as much of a boost for new OSS games as one might imagine.

Still, it will be great to port the titles to new platforms, fix bugs, improve integration with the OS, add some features, and help users create new levels.

[puntarenas]

Aquaria itself could use some usability enhancements [...]

Aquaria (which is a wonderful game btw - good looking, wonderful musik, nice gameplay) plays like a charm under Fedora 13 with a XBox360-Controller out of the box. Could you specify what kind of usability enhancements you would like to see?