The Sky of Verdun 3D - dogfight in HTML5

Came across this seemingly fun little game over here, too bad I don't have a Occulus Rift (yet):



Check their page for the Win32 and browser server/client download.

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Code Combat: Open Source Javascript Tutorial Gamification (In A Good Way)

youtube.com/watch?v=dCOHjERswGw

Code Combat is a javascript programming learning IDE wrapped in a delicious cute RPG/2D RTS packaging that runs in the browser without any plugins. They recently announced their open source/free art release.

The current set of Code Combat tutorials starts with directional movement and activation of pre-programmed behavior, continues with coordinate movement and targeting and conditional behavior and continues towards prediction calculations.

Editor GUI

youtube.com/watch?v=H5u5ga5dHm8

There is an editor, officially described as "broken". I can confirm that the text editor was slow when I tried using it. :)

All in all, a very exciting project. I have noticed a few possible drawbacks so far:

• It's not yet clear which parts will not remain proprietary. It looks like the excellent humor (writing) unfortunately will do so (legal page).
• The music tends to be too exciting to code to.
• There's a CLA requirement for contributing.

What do you think? Persuaded to work on a HTML5 game yourself perhaps, seeing that this performs okay? :)

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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.

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Data Dealer, an interesting project to fund!

The the last Kickstarter game project we featured was sadly not successful and with only 11 days to go it doesn't look too good for Data Dealer either. But this HTML5 and CC-by-SA licensed game project comes with a pretty cool idea and is quite playable already.



It centers around the idea that services like Facebook & Google really arn't in the business of bringing you a good service (aka "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold") and makes a ironic game out of that.

Here is game-play trailer to give you an better idea:



Or try the current demo on their webpage.

Now of course as we have all recently learned (or at least got confirmation about), the reality is even more twisted than just the private business side of things. But over the revelations of the mass surveillance by the NSA & Co., we should still not forget that all those big internet companies arn't victims by far either.

P.S.: My best wishes go out to Mr. Snowden! You are a hero of our generation.

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Ancient Beast: HTML5 Hexagonal RTS' First Release

Ancient Beast is a FOSS game project that has been in development by Freezing Moon for a couple of years, tantalizing everyone with top notch concept art and 3D models. 

After a rather large restructuring in game scope, where they changed from attempting to create a 3D RTS in the Blender Game Engine, to a 2D hexagonal TBS built on HTML5, they have delivered a promising gameplay prototype that offers a mix of Heroes of Might and Magic and Magic: The Gathering's gameplay. 

Gameplay currently revolves around summoning creatures and using their abilities to defeat other summoners

Still in heavy development, the game still needs to implement the entirety of its sizable bestiary, as well as adding animated creatures by utilizing the models they have created.

So, if you have any skills in web development, jump aboard and help them complete this awesome game!

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Open Source Game Summer Screen Shorts 2012 #1

Knights, a top-down multiplayer quest/fighting game, received some GUI enhancements.

Tales of Gydia, a Liberated Pixel Cup fantasy turn-based RPG that focuses on UGC, was started on SourceForge.net.

Unknown Horizons, a historical city-building and economy RTS, received some new citizen building graphics from a first-time contributor.

Black Dog, an extremely atmospheric HTML5, fully-FOSS helicopter mini-game, got its (unfinished) Android port released.

Linus Torvalds not only showed his annoyance with Nvidia but also his love towards open source games in a recent talk (goto 58m20s).

ctdabomb, an active community member, converted and license-clarified the Art Museum SuperTuxKart racing track over the time span of about one and a half months, after asking the community for support.

SuperTux, a cute platformer, needs help finishing an animated owl sprite. To the left, you can see the current placeholder graphics.

FLARE, a hack'n'slash RPG engine and game, requested translations via email, pull request or forum post.

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April Snippets

Reaction 1.0 Beta is an Action Quake 2-like based on ioq3 with "freeware" BY-NC-SA assets.

A list of open source Minecraft-style games was recently shared in a Reddit thread.

219 bytes tron is:

<body id=b onkeyup=e=event onload=
  z=c.getContext('2d');
  z.fillRect(s=0,0,n=150,x=11325);
  setInterval("
    0<x%n
    &x<n*n
    &(z[x+=[1,-n,-1,n][e.which&3]]^=1)
      ?z.clearRect(x%n,x/n,1,1,s++)
      :b.innerHTML='game⬜over:'+s
  ",9)
><canvas id=c>

Swallow for browser-based games , as introduced in a AltDevBlogADay post, is:

• A directory scanner which packages files into a single JSON file
• A small part of your build chain

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Black Dog: HTML5 Helicopter in Hell by Wilbefast

screenshot of Black Dog: A fallen angel flying through hell's caves, burdened by mystical weights, with progress being limited by only slowly regenerating feathers, the many-tongued flying black beast directly behind the angel (interpretation of reviewer)

Black Dog is a dark-theme reaction/precision type side-scroller that will run in your modern HTML5/Javascript-supporting browser. It has beautiful minimal original pixel artwork and at the same time uses works from OpenGameArt.

I highly recommend following Wilbefast if you're interested in Android game development and game dev jams. Most content is related to open source and will soon be added to our FreeGameDev PlanetDev feed aggregator.

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Trophy 2.0: championship, shop, load/save

Trophy's shop

The top-down racing/shooting game Trophy 2.0 brings championship, shop, key configuration, load/save features and lot of code refactoring. It requires ClanLib 1.0, which unfortunately fails to compile on Arch Linux.

If you too can't get this game to run, there's still Bandit Racer for playing in the browser.

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Onslaught Arena Now Open Source Code!

Onslaught Arena

Onslaught Arena, a HTML5 top-down shooter that has a non-space-ship-scenario, is now open source code, non-free assets on GitHub.

video: Onslaught! Arena: How to beat the Green Dragon

The assets are included under non-commercial terms and the developers did not have the time to read about Creative Commons licenses, which I'm sure is one of the reasons why CC-BY-SA isn't widely adopted: time. If you are able to give a concise description, please do in this thread.

Three LostCast moderators

The team's blog is also home to a podcast about HTML5 games.

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Ancient Beast now Free as in Freedom!

A little while ago, Ancient Best dropped the NonCommercial license they were using for art and assets and are now DFSG-free.

Facebook announcement about Ancient Beast's license change

The game runs in HTML5 and is a turn based strategy in early, active development. It is supposed to run on low-spec computers.

Ancient Beast Battle Mock-Up

Their 1.4 G repository of concepts, drawings, mockups, audio files and 3d models is impressive:

 Ancient Beast Concept Art

Ancient Beast Icons

More can be seen in the official gallery

You can support the project through PayPal, Bitcoin and Flattr here.

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HTML5 2D Game/Engine crowdfunding: Time Hammer

When I was looking for last post's link to Justin's portraits, I found a collection of b/w portraits and a new crowdfunding game project: Time Hammer.

Timehammer project introduction video

What is Time Hammer?

1. A game where you run, jump, fall and die, try again, smash enemies, and have fun (hopefully!)  It's a retro, 8-bit throwback to an earlier time, but with some modern touches that we just couldn't help but include.  Low gravity, destructible environments, a kickin chip-tune soundtrack... yeah, it's a blast!
2. A gaming engine built from scratch in HTML5 / Javascript. Time Hammer will be the first fully-featured, plot-driven game featuring the HTML5
3. An indie community dream come true. The game engine will be released open-source on GitHub - meaning that anybody can download it, improve it, and use it for any purpose, free of charge.

"Which license?" was my first thought and question.

I haven't actually researched the nuance of those licenses, and honestly some of the kickstarter money would be used to get a lawyer to recommend one. Two strong contenders are the GPL and MIT license.

Isn't there a group of free software lawyers, who might consult for free beer or less? Supporters can voice their opinion to this topic on the comments page.

Going for USD 8,500

I was reassured, that flash will not be used at all, not even for sound.

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