Notable changes:
Highlights in this release include integration of the FGCom voice communications client within the simulator, improved terrain rendering, faster scenery loading, and improved usability. This release also coincides with the release of FlightGear World Scenery 2.0 – massively improved scenery data covering the entirety of the planet and incorporating OpenStreetMap roads and detailed terrain information from a variety of sources.Also interesting is the "Bombable" add-on, which adds combat mechanics:
Global Game Jam 2012 is over and you can find all the by-nc-sa-licensed games here. We talked to the organizers about allowing free (as in freedom etc.) licenses and got some positive replies, but in the end it was too short a notice.
We ask you now to write a short message to GGJ, asking for the inclusion of further licenses, for example a GPL+CC-BY-SA combination for GGJ 2013. Also feel free to discuss this in the comments.
If you participated in GGJ, we would like to encourage you to release your games under free licenses in addition to the required nc license.
Speaking of jams, the 7day-jam-during-one-month by Experimental Gameplay Project is "Infinite Worlds" for this month.
As recently announced, one of the new features in SuperTuxKart 0.8 will be an overworld-connected challenge system.
Flight Gear's blog released a new interview. You can find the other interviews so far linked in this post.
- Piles replace Stockpiles. Everything is allowed and containers get automatically shuffled to where they are needed.
- Diseases will weaken and eventually kill your population if you don’t do anything about a growing population.
- Migratory animals will sometimes cross the map
- The spawning pool expands and spreads corruption in a smoother way, it’s improved from the abrupt way it was before.
- Cowardly creatures can now also panic if they encounter another panicking creature
- Death messages have been improved to give a bit more information, and a bit of variety has been added to them as well.
- Constructions strobe under the cursor now, to better visualize where one stops and another one begins.
- Portable mode. Just create a file named goblin-camp.portable in the directory where GC is installed and it’ll store all the files it needs in a sub-directory in that folder, instead of in the operating system’s default folder.
- Skeletons no longer bleed and other assorted bug fixes.
- Oliver Jacq: scenery designer/scripter
- Gijs de Rooy: modeller and scenery designer
- Stuart Buchanan: coder and aircraft designer
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's... wait, yes, it's a plane. The quintessential FOSS flight simulator gets updated, Flightgear 2.4 (announcement) has been released.
The FlightGear development team is proud to announce the release of version 2.4.0 of its free open source flight simulation program. FlightGear 2.4.0 reflects over one and a half years of development and incorporates several new and exciting features, as well as numerous bug fixes.
The feature list in the announcement is impressive. A summary won't do the release announcement justice (although in parts it is a bit dumbed down, but that's OK, not all of us are au fait with regards to computer game development). Still, here's an attempt:
- Realistic weather simulation, phenomena includes are fog layers that are limited in altitude, cold fronts, thermals, cloud formation in updraft winds along mountain ridges, and many, many more.
- Enhanced graphics including highly realistic mountain surfaces, 3-dimensional cityscapes, water moves realistically and sunlight is reflected from its surface.
- Many improved planes/models and additional cockpit systems - a choice of nearly 500 different aircraft, from historical to bleeding edge, from ultra-lights to the ultimate flying heavy metal.
Still no combat (see open source flight combat article) but I think that's probably a bit off topic for Flightgear.
The Flightgear project has reached what I call "critical mass" in that it no longer depends on a few active developers to maintain progress. A thriving contributor community outgrows the original development crew and it becomes owned by the community. Usually when a project attains critical mass, development accelerates massively. There are more people contributing to Flightgear than has ever been the case, it is flying. Pun intended.
In fact I can't think of many other FOSS games that have attained "critical mass" status. Battle for Wesnoth of course. Possibly Freeciv and OpenTTD (I wish they'd rename that). Some projects got close but never quite made it, such as Glest and Vega Strike. Others are knocking on the door, such as Pioneer, Speed Dreams, 0AD. (If I am being dozy and missing any such projects, point out in the comments!) The vast majority of projects never get close and usually only are actively developed as long as their originators / principle supporters are motivated.
What could be cuddly? Plee the Bear 0.6 has been released (announcement, forum thread). It features the first big boss. It is a very nice looking game with a lot of potential, and seems great for a younger player.
And the something fishy? Avid readers, those worth their salt, people who are true followers of the blog, those who will enter through the gates of St Peter before all others, they will know I am a big fan of Fish Fillets NG. Somebody has made a clone called, imaginatively, Fish Fillets Clone (screenshots). Whilst I don't like that it is an outright clone, I do like that it uses vector graphics. I think there's promise there.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Oh, yeah, hiiii to my Cuban female fanbase!
I took a quick look at the Gluon Talk and the games booth at LinuxTag 2011 and thought I'd share some pictures at least. :)
Check out the general rules and the current challenge rules in its thread in this forum. You don't even need to register to participate, just remember to include your author information and the correct tags ("Friday Challenge" and "ChallengeTitle", separate via ",") to your submission!
The challenges/competitions last from Monday till Friday, so there are still a bunch of hours left to submit something to the current "Homage" challenge. :) This feed will keep you updated about new challenges.
The following is a preview of the four pieces of music submitted to the first three challenges. (.ogg)
And here are the sound effects submitted to the first three challenges. (.ogg)
By the way, Blendswap apparently will implement license selection soon. Since I mentioned my preference for their poll, "licenses" has been leading with ~30 votes. Thanks! This means that, depending on what licenses will be selectable, models on Blendswap will be usable by foss games.
It feels good to post without embedding YT videos for a change. :)
Looks neat. But following video looks even better!
