Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

The Short
Pros
- Back to the linear Castlevania format
- Graphics are a hybrid between the first Castlevania and Simon's Quest, and look fantastic
- Music is kickin'
- Four playable characters (three of which you have to discover) help mix up the gameplay
- Branching and split paths
- Some of the levels are ingenious

Cons
- Really, really hard
- Like, absurdly hard. You won't beat it. Ever. Unless you have Game Genie
- Seriously though, sometimes I think this and the Mega Man games were invented solely to sell Game Genies.
- Not nearly as tightly designed as the first Castlevania game was

This looks really familiar.

The Long

Castlevania III: Breaking Dawn Part 2 feels like a compromise. It's as if the people who made Simon's Quest were insistent that Simon's Quest wasn't all bad, but it was clear that people really just wanted more of Castlevania's linear style. "But you go outside the castle!" the Simon's Quest fans cried. "That's cool! And you have options to go different places and in a different order!"

Castlevania III: Dracula's Purse is a good Castlevania game, unlike Simon's Quest. But it should have been the best one on the NES, and instead it's just in second place. And it's a game that goes to show that even if you add a bunch of stuff to a tried-and-true formula, if you don't nail the "tried-and-true formula" part, you're going to screw up your game.

What I'm trying to say is Castlevania III is too hard. 

It does have a pretty sick intro, though. 

Castlevania III is a prequel to the first Castlevania, though with these old NES games you really have to rely on the manuals or Nintendo Power to know that. It stars Trevor Belmont, who looks exactly like Simon from the first game except Trevor has a cape, and he's on a quest to whip Dracula into shape. As in kill him. Not jazzercise him into shape, if that was confusing.

On it's surface it looks like a return to form from the series. Hearts again are used for subweapons, not as an economic staple. Levels are linear and challenging and are chock full of enemies ready to murder you. Stages end with a challenging boss fight (though the bosses have a tendency to be recycled) and give you a glowing orb thing that refills your health. It's Castlevania again, hooray!

With a few twists that should make it better, and...sort of do?

Finally, a female playable character in a Castlevania game!

First off, after every stage or two you're given an option to branch to a split path. A little background image on the far right shows you the general gist of what you're getting in each excursion, so you can easily identify the clock tower level and avoid it. Some paths contain hidden characters (like Syfa above) which you can then swap out for at any time in your journey. Others give you nothing but death and an empty feeling inside. All eventually get to Dracula's castle, but there is very distinctly a "right way" to get through the game, and the game doesn't tell you what way that is. You'll have to find out by playing it through a half-dozen times or going to Gamefaqs (or grabbing a Nintendo Power).

The extra characters, of which there are three (Grant, Syfa, and Alucard's first appearance) are all surprisingly unique and yet can all tackle each stage. I imagine that's why the stages don't feel as "tight" as they did in Castlevania 1: Eclipse; they had to be designed so that four distinctly different characters could beat them. That bit of "looseness" in the levels is a bit of a downer, as I'd imagine if they'd cut the characters back they probably could have made the levels feel more designed for the specific characters rather than a "one size fits all" thing.

Except that size is hard, and the fit is your death.

This seems fair. 

Castlevania III is infamous for it's absurd difficulty, and I'm just going to prove to be the echo in the Grand Canyon in that regard. The game is hard, really hard. About the time you hit the ghost ship you'll be thinking, "man, was Castlevania this hard?" When you hit the Red Keep (or that's what I call it anyway) you'll wonder if the game developers are sadists. And if you ever make it to Dracula...good luck. That's all I'm saying.

Since the game community is such a nonjudgemental and supporting one, I feel obligated to give this disclaimer: I like hard games. I'm not a "casual" or a "noob." One of my biggest draws to old-school gaming is the lack of handholding and the sometimes malicious difficulty curve. It's gaming at its purest, when it's pulled off successfully, and gaming at it's most frustrating when it isn't. Castlevania III skirts the line in that regard: it's a lot of fun for a good portion of the game, and it's very frustrating for another portion. As such, you'll probably play it for about half an hour before getting stuck, and only the elite will continue to bash their heads against the brick wall of whatever level it is until finally persisting through. That or they'll grab the Game Genie. 

See if you can find Trevor. Here's a hint: he's totally boned. 

The game still looks quite good, sort of a graphical hybrid of Simon's Quest and Castlevania (and probably another compromise between the Simon's Quest apologetics and the Castlevania purists). While Castlevania relied heavily on color contrasts, Castlevania III does as well...for the most part. In some instances it's impossible to tell the background from the black-outlined flight of stairs you're supposed to take down, and the dark-outlined enemies can often feel mashed into the background. It's still an incredibly gorgeous game and a monument of pixel art, and while it's certainly one of the best looking games on the system it doesn't have the "pop" that Castlevania had.

The music is some of the best in the series, top to bottom, though still pales in comparison to the first game. The opening theme, however, is killer.

Here's just the whole soundtrack because why not?

Castlevania III: Dracula's Quest is a fine decent game, but one few people will ever actually see the end of. If you're a collector then you've obviously got your eye set on it, but if you're browsing the Wii Virtual Console and needing a Castlevania fix, there's better options (not Simon's Quest, mind). If you want an absurdly hard challenge to bang your face against for the next few weeks (or months. Or years) then this game is an excellent example of "Nintendo Hard" for you to get all nostalgic over and then be glad they don't make games this difficult anymore. 

It's still one of the better Castlevania games, and since they don't make 2D linear ones any more your options are forever limited. Plus that cover art is just incredible. I guess the point I'm trying to make is in the compromise mentioned at the beginning, in the end the Castlevania guys won out. But that doesn't stop some bad decisions from Simon's Quest to nearly spoil the experience. 

Get this game if you hate yourself. Three out of five stars. 

Purple tombstones are what I want to be buried in. 

Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest

The Short

Pros

- Feels like a grand adventure

- Adds a leveling/currency sense of progression to the series

- Attempts to give an open world, which oddly enough is believable

- Has phenomenal music

- Looks decent enough

- Has a day/night cycle that actually changes how the game is played

Cons

- Level design is a joke

- Bad translations and obscure puzzles are a poor mixture

- Next to no bosses to speak of

- The game turns into farming for hearts (currency) to continue

- Graphics lack the visual "pop" from Castlevania

Say what you like about the game, I love the way this forest background looks.

The Long

If there's one thing I can really say that's positive about Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest it's that it made me realize how much time and care had to have gone into the original Castlevania. That or the first game was a total fluke, in which case I am sad.

Simon's Quest is universally scorned by gamers, and is considered one of the "unholy trinity" of odd game sequels to come out of the NES (the other two being Mario 2 and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, both of which I think are great games). More than a few people have made videos about it, and honestly it seems you can't be a frustrated gamer on youtube these days without covering Simon's Quest at some point. But what it boils down to is this: Simon's Quest clearly meant well, it was just misguided. And in an industry where gaming journalists scoff and scorn at the lack of innovation only to criticize a game a moment later for not fitting their review criteria, Simon's Quest probably deserves another, fresher look.

The game is still pretty rotten, don't get me wrong. But there's a good deal to still enjoy here.

There's a Death Cab for Cutie song about this, I think. 

Simon's Quest is rare as it is a direct sequel story-wise to Castlevania, something they didn't really do until Dracula X --> Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow --> Dawn of Sorrow later down the road. Simon has killed Dracula, but he seems to be under a curse. Not Dracula's Curse (that's the third game), but some sort of other curse. Anyway, the only way to fix it is to gather up various parts of Dracula's anatomy, put them all in a pot, and revive him. And then kill him again. No, I don't get it either.

Story doesn't matter, what matters is the game objectives. You start by finding yourself in a town, not Dracula's castle, in fact his whole castle seems to be missing in this game and is instead replaced by a variety of mansions. It's almost as if the developers played Legend of Zelda, realized that they liked the puzzles, items, rupees, and dungeons on that game and wanted to make it in a 2D platformer sense. Which, now that I've typed that out, sounds pretty great. Too bad Simon's Quest isn't. 

Well, at least I know my neck is safe. 

Simon's Quest differs from Castlevania so dramatically I hesitate to even call it a Castlevania game. Gone is the linear platforming, the obvious tight level design and arcade-style points system. Instead we're on an adventure, or a "quest" if you will. Simon murders various Halloween-style monsters to procure hearts, which have gone from ammo to currency in the weirdest economy known to man, and then spends those bloodbags on powerups he needs to beat the game. Shields, flame whips, holy water, and so forth. Most of the sub weapons are now used for specific objectives rather than primarily as weapons (again, this is Zelda-esque) and can be employed to uncover secrets.

The world itself is also quite nice to look it. It does fall into that "everything has a black outline so the game looks darker than the back of the moon" vibe that many third-party NES games fell victim to, but the sprites are well detailed and the backgrounds especially are large and feel detailed. The forest is genuinely claustrophobic and the open mountain spaces feel as real to me as the planes of Skyrim, if that's saying something.

So for the first ten to fifteen minutes of Simon's Quest you're probably going to have a great time, just soaking in the atmosphere, great music, and the familiar controls. It's when you try to progress in the game that the big deep problems emerge.

Thank you. That is very helpful.

Simon's Quest, first off, is heavily dependent on grinding. Stuff costs lots of hearts, and so you'll be bashing monsters left and right for them. Seeing as dying to a Continue causes you to lose all your hearts, you'll quickly realize the best way to get hearts is to stay close to whatever village has the item you want and just murder easy werewolves or skeletons outside. Which means running back and forth over the same two or three screens for half an hour to buy the item you need. Strike one.

The next problem comes with knowing where to go. While you may brave out past the three safe screens near town to explore this monster-ridden world, odds are you won't find much in ways of guidance. The village people aren't much help - it appears English is their fifteenth language - and signs and even hints you can buy a cryptic or flat out wrong. While finding the first mansion is certainly possible by simple exploration, will you know you need a wooden stake to destroy the orb at the end? Well, you do. Just FYI. You can thank me later. Strike two.

Pray all you want, it won't fix their bad translations.

Lastly, the dungeons themselves. Obviously meant to be the best parts of the game (or at least, I'd imagine that's the case) even they're rather unfun. There's a handful of reasons (bad enemy placement, having to backtrack back out after completion) but what really buttered my biscuit was the invisible drops. Some blocks you can walk on. Others, you can't. How do you tell them apart? By lobbing holy water at them like a deranged priest. Since there's no visual indication whatsoever without seeing of the water jar passes through, you'll have to lob every single square of floor in these mansions just to be certain you don't fall down and get impaled on spikes or something. Whomever thought that idea up should have been fired on the spot and slapped, not necessarily in that order. It's a load of rot and an absolutely unforgivable waste of gamers' time. Strike Three.

Now, I am going to be fair here: Simon's Quest did lay a framework for what would eventually become games like Symphony of the Night and the GBA and DS Castlevania games. Persistent leveling, a non-linear world, money to buy stuff with, dungeons to explore; all of these things carried over in one way or another. And I applaud them for at least trying to experiment with it. But while I can commend them for their attempt, I can't reconcile the final product. Simon's Quest just isn't fun, and is designed with systems that exist only to waste your time and provide frustration. While much of this game could be a good idea in theory, little of it transitions over to being ok in practice. 

At least the music is great. Or this song, anyway. 

Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest is the only one of the unholy triforce of NES sequels that I think is a rotten apple, and even then it isn't...horrible. It mean, it's totally playable. It controls decently enough, looks fine, and has...a lot of...content. 

Who am I kidding? This game's rubbish. Though it does go to show one thing: many of the design choices in this game developed solely to waste your time are being actively used today. Providing minor rewards to give the illusion of progress, an open world with a whole lot of nothing actually in it, and other such "advances" are usually given high marks in reviews these days. The difference is that modern games have done a lot better at hiding the fact that these elements are there to waste your time, either by upping the immersion factor (which is almost enough to save Simon's Quest for me, if I'm being totally honest here) or making them so addicting you just don't notice the fact you're being abused. And I realize now I might have no idea what I'm talking about, so I'm going to shut up.

Point being: Simon's Quest isn't good. It exists to waste your time, and as such playing it will...waste your time. Bet you didn't see that one coming. 

It's not completely irredeemable, but it sure tries its hardest to be. Though I will say you may get some enjoyment booting it up clean and just wandering about for a half-hour or so with no actual intent of getting anywhere. Just soak in those great graphics and sense of adventure. Then put it away and repeat the process in a few months when you need to justify having bought it.

Two out of five stars. 

Sorry Simon, your quest is in another castle.

Much activity for Zero-K and some other news

Zero-K, the probably coolest fully FOSS offspring of the SpringRTS engine has seen at least two new releases since it last crossed my mind to check their page... a pity actually as the new features of version 1.1.7.0 (and prior) seem quite nice.
And for those not into the game (yet), there is now a channel with commented multi-player matches like this one:



Just a pity that the game-play doesn't really allow much zooming in to see the graphically really nice units ;)

In unrelated news:

• New release of Arx Libertatis (1.1.1)
• Tesseract is getting its own "base game" it seems
• There is a constant stream of new betas from Octaforge
• The Unvanquished summer tournament is under way, but matches so far have been a bit one-sided ;)
• Check out the new 3.8.0-beta1 version of MegaGlest

Hmm, there is probably much more... so please comment below :D

DevCorner: Open (Game Art) Bundle

An interesting mixture to "pay what you want" and "ransom funding" has recently surfaced with the Open Bundle:



You can buy all the offered game art and use them under the CC-by license and if the total threshold is reached (10k, 1 day remaining, 9.3k already pledged) all the game art (2d sprites and music) will be officially released under the CC0. A split of the funds is btw. shared with the EFF and Creative Commons.

For those wondering: no, it is not done by our friends of OpenGameArt.org, but they think it is a good project anyways. Interestingly the creator is also thinking of expanding the idea:

Do you want to host your own "public domain ransom"?
I'd love to help you! Email me at nick@commonly.cc

P.S.: While we are on last day notices: Today ends the registration period for the Unvanquished summer tournament. Also check out their latest Alpha 17.

Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, funded!

The self described open-source rogue-like survivalcraft / driving game in a sci-fi zombie apocalypse has successfully reached its goal on Kickstarter, and one of the developers will now be able to work on it full-time for a few months to implement for example a back-end for proper graphics.

But see and hear about it yourself:


The first stretch-goal is close too, with 12 days remaining to pledge money towards this cool project.

Less rosy does it look for the previously featured Data Dealer project. With only 48 hours to go, but still about 10k missing it will be a close finish if at all. They got some remarkable press lately though and jumped up about 10k in the last days, so it is still possible. So if you haven't done it yet, pledge here.

Actraiser

The Short

Pros
- Awesome hybrid of a God/City Sim with an action platformer
- Music is amazing
- Graphics for the platforming segments are quite pretty
- Getting better towns levels your avatar, making you even cooler in the platforming segments
- Battery saves your game
- Like the box says, "Create order from chaos!" That totally happens. Sort of.

Cons
- City/God Sim segments seem under fleshed out
- Platforming segments have a really weird difficulty curve and controls are a bit clunky
- Shooting star magic negates half the game (ie IT'S TOO GOOD)
- Really deserved an amazing sequel, got stupid Actraiser 2 instead

Before Grumpy Cat, there was Grumpy Tree.

The Long

Enix really knocked it out of the park with the SNES. While their relationship with the NES will probably be best remembered by the Dragon Warrior games, on the SNES Enix was just like "Aw, screw it, let's make games with RPG elements in every genre ever." And they did. And it was rad. 

A common theme across these games was restoration, one that permeated the Actraiser games, their later Soul Blazer/Illusion of Gaia/Terrawhatever that game is called games. Of them all, Actraiser came first, in what we would now call "launch window." In Japan it came out about a month after the Super Famicom hit, and in the US it was the holiday season following the SNES's release. So this is a really early SNES game is what I'm saying.

And guess what? For being a near launch-title, it's one of the best games on the system, mashing genre's together like some deranged Jamba Juice employee does with fruit.

This review has already gotten off the wall, so I'd better just get on with it.

And you wonder why your real estate market crashed. YOU NAMED YOUR TOWN '"BLOODPOOL."

Actraiser puts you in the role of God. As in the literal, capital "G" "God," in a battle against Satan himself. That is, this happens if you are playing the Japanese version. In the US you're just the "Master" and the final boss is "Tanzra," but it's pretty obvious what's going on here.

As God/Master, you live in a flying cloud city and help your citizens of this magical world expand their cities, purge monsters from the world, and just generally expand into rampant overpopulation. It's pretty great.

How do you do this, you ask? Well, since you are the literal God, who in this game is sort of an incorporeal twinkling star thing with a baby cherub sidekick, you posses a badass warrior avatar to go murder monsters for you, because you are God and you can't be bothered. Every platforming segment starts and ends with God breathing life into this awesome stone statue (or unbreathing, at the end) and then kicking butt. I dunno why, but that's rad.

God's deadliest foe: angry floating faces. Also, is that one a cat?

The game follows a fairly simple pattern:

- Go to new area

- Warp down as God/Avatar/Master/Whatever and kill the boss monster so your people can populate

- Help the people expand the city, purge other monster lairs, and get some "plot"

- Usually by doing this another big beastie has appeared, so then you go back down again and kill this guy too.

- Move to the next city. Repeat 5-6 times (I can't be bothered to look it up) and you win the game. Yay!

Despite it appearing formulaic, the game is anything but. Each city provides new challenges and problems that you, as the Master, have to help your subjects deal with. As divinity you have the power to use the elements of nature to kick butt: Lightning to blast bushes to push city expansion (or kill baddies), Wind to blow...windmills, Rain to put out fires, Earthquake to destroy everything or change the shape of the world itself, or...actually I think that's it. Maybe there's some fire move that melts ice, I don't remember.

Most of the time spent over the city you're your chubby cherubic minion, who floats around and can down baddies with his extremely weak crossbow. Killing enemies is a temporary thing to get them to stop harassing your cities (and some enemies get genuinely difficult), but the real goal is to clear a path to direct your villagers to get to the monster "lairs" (read: spawn points) and seal them (read: kill the spawns). While they do this they automatically expand, gain in population, and find you items that they offer up to you as a devotion of their fealty and faith.

And sometimes they're sad and whiny.

There are usually two main villagers in each city who act as spokespeople for your followers (I guess these guys are like prophets or something?), but mostly you just see them as tiny dots. You have minimal influence over what they build where, though you can guide the city's expansion directions (as in, point them towards monster lairs) as well as provide some bonuses as you find more items (music makes them happy, grain makes them expand/get more population faster, etc.).

What is worth noting is that, despite these guys being tiny little pixels on the map, some of the stories they tell are genuinely touching. One devout follower risks his life to help other villagers and is on the brink of death. Knowing you can't restore his life (or just afraid to ask for that), he instead asks that you shed your tears on him (read: summon rain on him) before he dies. He then passes away, and the next time the village prays there's only one person. It's actually kind of sad!

My favorite village is where the people go off and worship some other deity instead of you, so that the temple is abandoned. So you obviously have to go down and kick this false god's butt, which brings the people back to you (after you Earthquake their entire city to show them who is boss. Or maybe I just do that). 

Point is that these small stories aren't melodramatic or overwrought, but they're still oddly compelling. You really get to feeling for your little cities and you want to help the people expand. Or you're a douche and lightning their houses; hey, you decided what kind of god you are.

And the Lord said unto them, "Addith some sick drops," and thus Dubstep was born. 

The platforming segments range from easy to absolutely unfairly difficult. Each city has two stages as mentioned above, one that cleans the city and prepares it for habitation, and one at the end of the "plot arc" where you have to free the city of evil once and for all. As you expand your cities, the villagers give you gifts that improve you (such as magic or more MP to use magic in the platforming segments), and the higher your overall population, the more experience you as god/master/whatever get and your health increases. So you want your cities to be as awesome as possible before you go killin'.

The problem here is the platforming is a bit clunky at first, and takes some getting used to. Your jumping feels a bit like gravity likes you too much, and your sword-swings have a rather long recovery time after stabbing (unless you are duck stabbing) and stabbing in the air can be tricky to time. They also designed a bunch of jumps that can only be made if you are exactly on the edge, which is frustrating when the game is throwing a trillion projectiles at you.

The bosses are also hard...for a while. Eventually, in like the third city, you get the Shooting Star magic. This magic is absurdly overpowered and murders most bosses in just a few casts, littering the screen with damage. It kind of breaks the game, to be honest, though it doesn't make the stages before the bosses any easier.

A nice touch, though, is that if you lose all your lives and fail it isn't a game over, you just get punched back to the Sky Palace with your health and magic restored to try again. In fact, I don't think there is a Game Over screen in this entire game. Which makes sense, as you are God. Not like you're gonna die or anything (unless you're in Xenogears I guess).

"What if two swallows carried it together?"

The graphics are outstanding, especially for an early SNES game. Enemies are rarely pallet swapped, most stages having a unique blend of mythological creatures for you to bash up. Bosses are especially gorgeous, as are the vibrant backgrounds that really use the power of the SNES to do some awesome things. Panning down to your city shows some Mode-7 goodness, and the whole game has an artistic theme to it that I really enjoy.

But on top of that is the amazing music. The game starts with a punch to the face with the best song in the game (Fillmore's stage), but the music when you are helping your cities expand and in other stages is great too. Some of the sound effects are a bit weak (your guy's "HWAA!" sound and "UUH!" sound is weird, and is recycled in Enix's Soul Blazer game), but it doesn't detract. I also like that EVERYTHING EXPLODES WHEN YOU KILL IT. AS IT SHOULD BE. 

My only gripe with Actraiser is it's a bit short and all the elements, while amazing that they work together, could have been fleshed out more to make it an even better game. This is the kind of game you play and think, "That was amazing, but holy cow...the sequel's gonna rock my socks off!"

Unfortunately, Actraiser 2 ditched the whole city-sim portion (aka the glue that held this game together) for a straight platformer, and a really hard one at that, which is unfortunate. As such, Actraiser hasn't seen any future installments, which is a damned shame. Hey, Enix! I have an idea! Actraiser reboot on next-gen systems! Make the action levels like Dark/Demon's Souls and expand the city-building to be more robust! Oh my gosh, that would be the greatest thing ever!

Regardless, as a "launch window" game, Actraiser really blew it away. It's a bit short (if you are good at platforming and get Shooting Star you can beat the game in something like 3-5 hours) and it's elements come off as a tad clunky, but that doesn't matter. It's an exceptionally cool idea and executed well enough to be fun (and super addicting; I had a hard time quitting to write this review) and is a must for people who like games that hybridize genres. Or like games in general. Just play it, already.

The game I believe is out on the Wii's Virtual Console for like $10, but carts are pretty cheap too (usually around $20-25). This is an essential SNES game. Go get it, play it, love it. And skip the sequel.

Four out of five stars. 

Bubbles. God's chosen mode of transportation since 10,000,000,000,000 BC

Open Source Never Dies

The beauty of open source is that projects never officially die as long as the source is available.

Some classics simply keep moving forward because of this.  They get written off, domains expire, progress seems non-existent, but then somebody with a bit of knowledge and drive does something and the project is alive again!  That is the beauty of Free / Libre & Open Source Software.

Super Tux

The last Super Tux release was 0.3.3 in March 2010; that isn't even labelled stable.  The last stable release was, y'know I couldn't even find out.  It was before 2007, that's all I know.

Progress is slowly made though behind the scenes - something more obvious since the project recently acquired a forum with FreeGameDev.  There are several 'clones' (a GIT term) that have been worked on in the last year or so, with the master branch receiving plenty of love this year.

One of their problems is that some things are hard to find out without quizzing the developer(s).  For example, the editor for the development version is a separate project (as explained here), but that doesn't appear to be documented for the time being.

Status: Release required, Web News or Blog required

Extreme Tux Racer

Now here's a blast from the past.  Extreme Tux Racer, long ago losing its domain/forums, has come back to life seemingly from the brink.  With the forums moved to Sourceforge, there's been a stream of development activity.

(I even helped by managing to acquire admin access to the project in order to give it to the new developers.)

And it isn't just background noise; version 0.6 beta1 has been released!

Still, without a website or much PR beyond the forum they could do with a few fresh faces.  Forums can be quite closed communities - if you don't check it, you wouldn't know of this release.  I bet they would appreciate some feedback, so check it out if you can.

Status: Website required, Outreach required

Other News

• Cataclysm, zombie survival game, kickstarter campaign!!!
  (Deserves it's own blog post)
• Speed Dreams is moving away from PLIB to Open Scene Graph
• GSoC 2013 sees some graphical panache coming to Super Tux Kart
• Flightgear shows off some sumptuous weather graphics
• VDrift released a new build last month
• MegaGlest team pushed out 3.8.0beta1
• Probably a million more FLOSS game goodness I missed; comment!

Are there any other open source games that look stalled on the surface but are coming back to life?  Comment!