Inside a Star-Filled Sky (Public Domain For-Pay) + Video Review + Jason Rohrer on open source

Inside a Star-Filled Sky (IaSFS? InaStFiSk?) is a game. And art. [You want a game?=art discussion? Go to page 9! ;)] This art runs on OSX, Linux and Windows.

So you move around in procedurally generated mazes in real-time, shoot enemies, pick up stuff and change between levels. Sounds like.. GoblinHack so far (the graphics are softer though).

But.
The mazes are people.
Or pixelated monsters for that matter. Or upgrades.
You control a thing inside another thing. the thing is a maze.

The game costs at least $1.75 because it's pay what you want + fees.

I was lucky to get Jason to answer two of my questions.

Q: Is IaSFS in the public domain?
Jason Rohrer: Yes, it's all in the public domain (which is why no license file is included).

Q: Why do you release your games as open source? Why does open source matter (to you)?
Jason Rohrer: I release all of my work as open source because there's no reason not to.  People mostly "hide" their source code out of fear, but I think that fear is unfounded.  In the game world, releasing source code is almost unheard of, except for decades-old abandonware projects.  Long ago, I used to harbor the romantic hope that some other coder would benefit from reusing or at least studying my source code.  But over 12 years of releasing all of my source code, that has happened only rarely.  Instead, the main benefit has come from making my work as portable and as long-lived as possible.  Binaries break eventually as platforms change, and they cannot be repaired.  A source distribution can survive and remain functional much longer.  My passion for open source has transitioned from idealistic to pragmatic over the years.

IMHO Jason is a very interesting guy to listen to [video search "Jason Rohrer"].

About public domain: There is no PD statement in Jason's code as far as I can tell but I was told via email that it is PD. UPDATE: fortify dependency has been removed. The game code contains (depends on?) the non-free fortify.

I could upload the game and share the link. It'd be legal. I would feel guilty though. So instead I offer you my help at buying the game if you can't use the payment method available. If you can transfer to a German bank account or are located in/near Berlin, Germany, contact me and I'll buy the game for you if you somehow give me the money you want to pay.

I guess we need screens...

Enjoy! It's from the official gallery!

I guess a video can't hurt (I'm probably wrong)...

Enjoy the video! (F-Word Warning!) +1 and I commented it! (Here's another by me, without comments but boring gameplay)

If you have problems with video/flash/youtube... youtube-dl!

After making the video, I realized that playing on higher (lower?) levels (levels?) is amazing fun and reminds me of Meritous. Meritous is a hard punisher though. In (In a) Star-Filled Sky is is awesome getting destroyed in all these amazing ways just to get destroyed in even more amazing ways few seconds afterwards and sometimes even get to destroy something in amazing ways by chance or even skill! Awesome.

I really need to hear people's opinion about 1. this game 2. this payment model.

Dev-Corner: the challenges of developing long, plot-heavy FOSS games

Xenogear: Fighting Elly's Gear

Xenogears is one of my favorite games of all time. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it was a Japanese RPG for the Sony PS1 in 1998. Not everyone agrees that it was an amazing game, but it's undeniably one of the longest, most plot-heavy RPGs ever made, especially given the fact that most of the plot is in the form of the main story line as opposed to random side-quests that have very little to do with the overall goal. Xenogears is particularly interesting in that each time you play it through, you'll pick up more and more little plot details that you missed the first time around. This is because not only does it have a massive main plot, it also has a massive back story spanning several thousand years, which is only really revealed in small details that are only apparent once you're already familiar with the main plot.

By this time, some of you are probably wondering why I'm raving about a proprietary console game on a FOSS gaming blog. Well, there's another interesting fact about Xenogears that makes it very relevant to the topic of developing games with long, linear plots: it was never really finished. There's all sorts of speculation as to why this might have been; my own pet theory is that upper management decided they'd been waiting too long and paying too much, cut the project short, and told them to shove it out the door as-is. This becomes very apparent when you reach the second half of the game -- it goes very abruptly from a deep, plot-heavy game to an irritating scene where they briefly summarize massive amounts of plot that would have added about thirty to fifty hours of gameplay, before finally releasing you back out into the world to do a few last quests and fight the final boss.

So Xenogears, the Unfinished Symphony of JRPGs, is as example of two really important points:

• It's difficult to predict the real scope of a project until after you've already committed to it, and...
• Even big teams with large amounts of money often have trouble finishing ambitious projects in a timely fashion.

Painfully, these issues apply in even greater force to non-commercial game projects (a category that the vast majority of FOSS game projects fall into). On average, FOSS developers tend to have less time and be less reliable than people working on large, proprietary, commercial projects. This isn't because they're less reliable people in general, but because they're real people with real day jobs who are largely doing their FOSS coding work on a volunteer basis. Hence, developers and artists tend to come and go, and even when they're with the project for a long time, they tend to have a wildly variable amount of time that they're able to devote to it, depending on what else is going on in their lives. As such, maintaining a level of coding an artistic consistently equal to that of a large, heavily funded project is a tremendous challenge, because in general you're working with smaller units of work from a much larger team.

So as I see it, if we as FOSS developers want to create the sort of plot-heavy games that I'm referring to (be they JRPGs or whatever else), the odds are stacked against us from the outset. So here's what I'd like to discuss:

FOSS software development undeniably has certain strengths that closed development lacks -- the sheer volume of ideas, as well as the fact that, since FOSS development is primarily done on a volunteer basis, you aren't limited by time or budget in the traditional sense -- your project can continue as long as people remain interested and dedicated, and there's no one in upper management to tell you it's time to throw away your efforts. With this in mind, I'd like to pose some questions for everyone, and hopefully get some discussion going:

• How can we, as a community, apply these strengths to the sort of project that requires a large development team and a grand, unifying vision?
• How do you go about convincing a large number of people to join an ambitious project? As someone who has been following FOSS game development for quite a while now, overly ambitious projects tend to make me very skeptical. How do you overcome this skepticism and convince people to help you out, if you're dealing with the sort of project where it's not practical to start small?
• Once people are on board, how do you keep the quality consistent? How do you keep a ton of people interested in working on a grand plot line that's already been fleshed out essentially from start to finish? FOSS developers need (and deserve) to give input to the projects they're helping with. How do you maintain a vision while simultaneously leaving room for input?
• One bit of advice I find myself giving out over and over is not to be too ambitious to start with. Sometimes, though, you need to be ambitious in order to make a project work. How can you divide things up in such a way that you can be ambitious yet still start small enough to get your project going?

Anyway, I'm serious about these questions. I've been giving ambitious projects (not a particular ambitious project, but rather the idea of them in general) a lot of thought lately, and I'm hoping that maybe we can put our heads together as a community and come up with some sort of strategy for tackling them.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Peace,

Bart K
Founder, OpenGameArt.org

Bulletstorm

Gameplay:
Bulletstorm is very unique and different than any other FPS. Now Epic games is the creator of Bulletstorm, therefore, it is running on the Unreal Engine and is very similar to the Unreal series. What makes this game different from the Unreal games is the fact that you "kill with skill". What I mean by that is if you kill an enemy with a skill kill you get points for it. In the campaign there is an in game currency which allows you to buy ammo, charges, ammo upgrades and charge upgrades. Charges are basically ammo for the guns secondary shots. For example if you have the shotgun and press "RB" opposite button of the leash you are able to switch to the shotguns secondary shot with unleashes a supersonic wave which vaporizes enemies. There are over 130 different kinds of kills which will earn you more points. Each gun has it's own list of skill kills including environmental skill kills which can all be accessed pressing the "back" or "select" button. The game can be fairly short depending on the difficulty you are on. I beat the game on normal in about 5 hours.If you play on a harder difficulty and try to find all of the news bots and whiskey bottles then it will take you much longer. During the campaign there are some pretty cool quick time events. If you hit the correct buttons, depending on your reaction time, you are rewarded with a large amount of points, but if you do not hit the buttons at all your action will still process but you will not be rewarded with any points.

Right in the face!

Now the only problems I had with the game was that most of the vulgar language was completely unnecessary. The language did not bother me at all, it was just too much and overused at some points in the game. Some of it is hilarious and used at just the right moments but most of it is overused. Another problem I had was it was a little bit to short and some stuff just happened was to fast. The story is good but stuff happened to quickly and the game was too short.

Overall:
9/10

Graphics:
The game like I said earlier is run on the Unreal Engine as the graphics are very well done and the environments are absolutely breathtaking especially when you are walking up towards the water dam. The visual effects in the environment are well done as well as in the water effects, background environment (ie. nature, animals, etc...). I also really enjoyed the visuals of the guns. When you use the big guns it actually looks like it hurts. When you activate the guns secondary your screen and controller will vibrate giving you that feeling of power. The enemies are really cool as well and are all very unique. The animations, art style, and animations as well as special effects are nicely one as well.

Damn he's big!

The only bad thing I can think of is during some of the cut scenes where Trishka's hair would randomly flip in the air which catches you off guard. Some of the cut scenes also have a lag or drop in FPS issue where it rarely gets choppy. Also there is a rare and not noticeable cut scene where the animations look cheesy.

Overall:

9/10

Audio:

The audio in Bulletstorm is exceptional and is very well done. Lets start with the music. What I really enjoyed about the music is that it gets your adrenaline pumped especially when your in a big battle or big moment in the game. When these events happen in the game the music will pick up and has a metal sound to it where it is fast paced just to give you that "Epic" feeling.

The voice acting in Bulletstorm is very well done as well. Gray which is the main character almost sounds like Jack Nicholas. Not much to say about the voice acting but that it sounds great. The enemies don't really talk but some of their screams sound scary as in when they yell or chase after you....RUN!!! Even the sound of the enemies exploding or being ripped to shreds sounds gruesome yet is very satisfying because you killed them "with skill".

Overall:

9/10

Conclusion:

Overall Bulletstorm is a must get game but please consider the ESRB rating, M for Mature. I say this because this game has already gotten enough of the media on their backs because parents cannot control their kids. Bulletstorm is a very fast paced and wild game. The kills are gruesome, fun, funny, and very satisfying. When you beat the game make sure you go and beat Echo Mode as well. If you are a fan of the Unreal games or even an over the top FPS fan, go and please pick this game up.

Overall Game Rating:

9/10