One of the new things for this year will be the regular Linux Game Awards done by various Linux and FOSS gaming site (and which has been spearheaded by the great LGDB).
And the first winner is:
The votes have been quite clear, but our friends from SuperTuxKart got a very respectable 2nd place:
You can expect some further promotional news coming up this month for 0 A.D. so stay tuned :)
If you follow our planet, this is no news, but the recent advances in graphics, networking a other stuff from SuperTuxKart are quite nice. This is basically a result of them being accepted to this years Google Summer of Code.
Not showing most of the new features yet is this nice video featuring the mascot of OpenGameArt.org as a new player character:
But their blog has many interesting technical details (and other screenshots + videos) to show off the new features.
So if you like to also contribute, or just want to praise the great work, have a look at their FreeGamer hosted forums :)
Google's Summer of Code, is an annual sponsorship of programmers to improve selected open-source programs (or games :D ). This year, quite a few interesting FOSS game projects got accepted (again) and one being our very own friends of the SuperTuxKart project.
First, after 12 years of development, SuperTuxKart is a candidate for the March project of the month at Sourceforge. This is a huge honor and a significant boost for the project, so please vote for us here.
Second, last month we were featured in Microsoft's IllumiRoom demo alongside Red Eclipse (another FOSS game) and Halo. For those who are interested, you can find the video in the last post. It's the second time STK has been featured in an unexpected place. The game has previously appeared in an episode of the show Friday Night Lights. The episode was critical of drug use and videogames, so downloads for the game probably didn't go up. I am not entirely sure why they chose a kart racer game over, let's say, postal 3, but licensing issues are likely to have played a prominent role in their decision. STK's permissive licenses mean, companies don't need to contact us before using it in media.
Development news
To try these new features out by compiling the latest source code from sourceforge page. Links are located at the bottom of the page.
Bubblegum: The Bubble gum powerup currently can be dropped by a player to create a track obstacle. While not finalized, there is an idea to make it more useful by including a second phase to this particular powerup. The first phase occurs when the player activates the gum, it expands into a pink force-field which protects the player from enemy attacks for 15 seconds. If the player is hit by a weapon while the force-field is up, the shield is destroyed, and bubble gum shrapnel will hit any players within a certain proximity blinding them for a couple seconds. It will also leave a smear on the ground which if hit, will cause a moderate decrease in the players speed.
The second phase happens if the fifteen seconds pass without the shield being destroyed. It shrinks back down and the player can then drop it on the ground like in the current version of the game.
The new icon
Planetarium:
This is a level Samuncle is currently working on.
Konqi's new kart:
Here's what will likely be the final version of Konqi's new kart. It now includes pedals and a steering wheel. It's looking good.
New Peripheral Support: Wiimote
Funto is working on adding wiimote support via the open source library “wiiuse” https://github.com/rpavlik/wiiuse. After 3 years it's finally coming together. Wiimotes now work on Linux and Windows (if you compile from the latest svn). It is not working on OS X yet, but Auria is buying a wiimote to try to get it working on her Mac. There are also some issues with tuning and steering that need to be worked out and we have not integrated support for motionplus, because only the external version was working. So wiimotes with motionplus built in will not work (older models will). We may add the motionplus functionality in later and we always appreciate help.
Game Tutorial:
Auria is developing a gameplay tutorials covering the core gameplay elements for new players. The tutorial takes place on a modified version of the track “Hacienda” and the player takes a single lap around the track. During the lap the game pauses periodically to explains things like how to control the kart, obtaining and using weapons and powerups, how to use nitro boosters and the skidding feature.
New WIP Game Mode: Soccer
Soccer mode is one of our developer funto's, pet projects. It's a multiplayer game mode where two teams fight to push an oversized soccer ball into the opposing team's goal. There is a test level derived from the Stadium arena. Currently, obstacles have been removed, but map makers could always re-add them. It's WIP, and the scoring system is not currently implemented and the system for making team's is still a WIP.
Other enhancements:
- Sparking particles now emit from the kart's wheel's while drifting. It's a welcomed addition. You can also compare Konqi's old kart (below) to the new one (above).
- Characters can now wear customizable hats. We'd love to see what people can make
Hat tip to forum member TheLastProject who posted about a promotional video for a proof of concept research project called 'IllumiRoom'. The main game shown is Red Eclipse, but SuperTuxKart also briefly appears (implicitly as the game played by a girl!) around the 0:48-50 mark.
I doubt they were actually showing an Xbox as I'm unaware of either Red Eclipse or SuperTuxKart being able to run on one.
I find it fascinating that 2 FOSS games would appear this way. Either this is an indication of red tape avoidance (no permission required for GPL games) or a cultural shift within Microsoft - or perhaps I'm just reading too much into it.
It certainly adds some validation to the games themselves, indicating they are impressive enough to feature as part of a video by one of the world's foremost technology companies. So hats off to the developers of both projects and also the projects that enabled them (CubeSauerbraten, TuxKart) - I like it that both games are good examples of open source in action.
