Strife: Veteran Edition

Just in case you can stand having Steam DRM installed in your system, I recommend taking a look at Strife: Veteran Edition. Strife is a Shooter/RPG based on the Doom Engine and dating back to 1996. The developers for this new remake had the wits and sensibility to use the Chocolate Doom engine as the main code base, which is, of course 100% licensed under the GPL. With so many top quality Free Software engine remakes around here, it really astounds me why so few developers choose to use them on modern HD remakes and ports (I'm looking at YOU, upcoming remake of Heroes of Might and Magic III not using VCMI).

As mentioned, so far the game is available exclusively on Steam, but I'm pretty sure a DRM-free GOG version will eventually follow, as it usually does.

Code License: GPLv2 + LGPL

Assets License: Proprietary

Website

Source Code (Github)

Citadel makes big promises

There's a new big remake effort a-brewing in the Free Software world, this time for prominent shooter/RPG, System Shock. under the shape of project Citadel. According to project description, the goal is to recreate the original game using the widely known GPLed platform Darkplaces Engine, upgrading the game's graphics to full 3D but keeping game aesthetics close to the origianl game. Added modding capabilities and cooperative multiplayer will also be a part of the project. 

Details, however, are somewhat scarce, so far, as development is happening behind closed doors, and creator Josiah Jack just announced the existence of the project itself after months of programming in secret. While the code will certainly be all GPL or GPL-compatible due to Darkplaces licensing requirements, the game appears to rely on original proprietary assets, as well as using its own whose license nature is yet to be disclosed.

With a release date planned for the the 23rd of December, System Shock's CD release anniversary, I guess we'll have to wait and see if this project will deliver.

Tales of Maj'Eyal (ToME) version 1.1.0 and Steam edition

The great roguelike RPG Tales of Maj'Eyal (ToME) is available as a new version (1.1.0) nicknamed "Full Steam Ahead". Here is a slightly older trailer for version 1.0.5.:



Release highlights:

• New necromancer tree: Animus
• All achievements now feature beautiful 128x128 images
• Improved Alchemist interaction with its golem
• Tons of fixes and balance adjustements
• Many improvements for addon creators, including a way to enable debug mode and a tool (inthe debug menu) to register and upload addons to te4.org directly from the game.
• Includes a Fez. Fezzes are cool!

Interestingly it has also been "greenlit" on the popular game distribution channel Steam, so if you want to donate to the developers you can also do it by buying ToME through this channel. The currently discounted version includes a DLC with an updated UI (and the hint for a Steampunk themed extension) which seems to me like a planned way of funding the development of the game in the future.

Zelda can now be free as in freedom

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.

Code License: GPLv3
Mystery of Solarus DX Artwork License: Mixed  (original Solarus assets under CC-BY-SA, but the game also uses spritework taken directly the A Link to the Past rom)

Lips of Suna 0.8.0 released

And another great new release :)

Our favorite work in progress & not quite serious anime RPG Lips of Suna bumps its release number to 0.8 (change-log).

I know what you are thinking...

Most notable changes:

• New player model and animations contributed by gruntunbur.
• Lots of sound effects contributed by qubodup.
• More powerful animation blending.
• Performance improvements.
• Better eye, face and hair color customization.
• Fixed the AI not being able to use many kind of weapons correctly.
• Procedural map area placement and planning system.
• Procedural dungeon generation with corridors, rooms, treasures and monsters.
• Balanced the movement speed and physics behavior of player characters.
• Terrain chunks close to the player character load much faster.

Comment away below or in our forums.

Addition (2013-11-21): Now there are also windows binaries available.

Valyria Tear 0.6.0 released

I have to admit that we are a bit slow on reporting the news on FOSS gaming projects with we actually host ourselves via the freegamedev.net forums. Valyria Tear is sadly no exception, and their new 0.6.0 release has been out a few days already. Sorry to all whom this may concern.

For those not in the loop, Valyria Tear is based on the engine of Hero of Allacrost and aims to be an all FOSS jRPG. To give you a better idea of the game-play, here is a (slightly older) cool video of it done by some Linux enthusiasts:



(Thanks also to Rootgamer who reminded me of this news).

If you like the new release, give them some praise on our forums!

WebGL dungeon crawler Moonshades now FOSS

More browser-based RPG goods for you today: the developer behind the game Moonshades recently indicated on the Opengameart.org forums that this neat old-school (ok not as old-school as Heroine Dusk) dungeon crawler is now fully open-source.

Have a look at the alpha game-play:


It seems the entire game (including the source-code) is released under the rather art focused Creative Commons Attribution (cc-by 3.0) license, but since that is pretty compatible even to the GPL, this shouldn't really matter at all.

Have fun playing!

Lips of Suna 0.7.0 released

After a long hibernation a new version of the 3D RPG Lips of Suna was released today!

Take that you, ermm brown something?

More screenshots here, and there are quite a few great new features:

• New terrain system.
• More responsive controls.
• Real single player mode.
• New spell and enchantment systems.
• Many graphical improvements.
• Added limited scope game modes.
• Improved script performance.
• Extended character modeling support.
• User interface improvements.
• Improved mod loading.
• Major code cleanup.
• Several less interesting changes.

Looks like the developers are back at it full-force, so give them some encuraging feedback over here!

Lost Sky Tactical J-RPG [PyGame]

Lost Sky is a PyGame-based Tactical J-RPG that runs on Linux, OS X and Windows.

To play on a system that has mercurial and pygame installed, run:

hg clone https://bitbucket.org/featheredmelody/lost-sky-project-public
cd lost-sky-project-public/Story\ of\ a\ Lost\ Sky/
chmod +x srpg.py
./srpg.py

Lost Sky screenshots

Video: Lost Sky Gameplay: Tactical jRPG on Linux [PyGame] 

Story of a Lost Sky is a Turn Based Strategy RPG with gameplay that is similar to Fire Emblem. Units are placed on a tile map and each side takes turns moving and attacking. Outside the battle map, the player is able to customize their characters and equip new spells and traits.

This project was discovered by seeing a link banner on Valyria Tear's blog. Yay networking!

Code License: New BSD
Content License: Various: PD, CC-BY 3.0, CC-Sampling+ (non-free), Unknown

Erebus RPG for Desktop, Tablet and Smartphone

Video: Erebus - Open Source RPG for Android, Linux and Symbian

Erebus is a hack & slash role-playing game under heavy development, yet playable with currently three missions.

Features:

• Classic point-n-click style RPG, with dungeons to explore, enemies to fight, NPCs to talk to, sub-quests to complete, scenery to interact with, weapons, treasure and other items to find.

• Also supports Rogue-like keyboard controls.

• Multiple quests (currently three, more will be added as development progresses!)

• Choice of starting characters (currently Barbarian, Elf, Halfling, Ranger, Warrior).

• Start straight into the action - none of this "For your first quest, please find your next door neighbour's pet cat".

• Vector-based world rather than tile-based - so items/scenery can be placed in any position, or aligned in any direction.

• 2D animated graphics, with zoom in/out, and lighting effects.

• Completely free and Open Source - no ads, unlike many free Android apps.

• User interface optimised to work with mouse, keyboard and/or touchscreen.

• Cross-platform - available for Windows, Linux, Nokia Symbian and Android devices.

Code License: GPLv3+
Content License: Various (Most DFSG approved, CC-BY 2.x might be problematic)

Winter Shorts 3: PyWeek #16 in April, Rainbow Rooms, Valyria Tear on OS X

PyWeek #16 in April

PyWeek logo

PyWeek is a game jam that obviously goes on for one week and requires the use of Python. It takes place online and there are overall winners in team and solo categories, as well as awards. The dates of the 16th PyWeek challenge are 00:00 UTC April 14, 2013 to 00:00 UTC April 21, 2013. Registration opens on 15. March 2013.

There is a message board for the community and there are interesting methods to publish Python games as HTML/JavaScript using pyjs, as demonstrated by the PyWeek #15 entry Kaos.

License Requirements: At least Shared Source required. Free software licenses recommended.

PyWeek #15 Entry: Rainbow Rooms

Rainbow Rooms Video

Rainbow Rooms is a physical-nonsense-maze puzzle game based on libtcod.

Various fonts are being used, some of which might be problematic license-wise for including in for example Debian's official repositories but it should be possible to replace them in less than two hours including research and documentation.

Code License: GPLv2
Content License: Unclear

Valyria Tear: "Final Release of Half-Episode I"

New Valyria Tear GUI screens

Valyria Tear Half-Episode I has been released, which I suppose we can take as 50% of Episode I's acts being complete.

The release brings new graphical interfaces and development is ongoing.

An OS X version can now also be grabbed from the OSX thread.

Code License: GPLv2
Content License: Various (DFSG approved)