Let's keep an eye out for Cytopia

With city builder games climbing back into popularity, it was about time for a serious libre project to tackle the genre once again. After many years of abandoned efforts, it is now the turn of Cytopia to try to scratch that itch.

The project had its inception in 2018, when now lead developer JimmySnails announced in a forum post the intention of creating an engine that could replicate most of the functionalities of the classic SimCity 2000, a game still near and dear to many players up to this day. Ever since then, Cytopia evolved into what appears to a fully-fledged independent game-in-progress, with its own graphics, features, and even an editor planned down the line.

Aside from the obvious SimCity 2000 influences, the game also appears to draw inspiration from the recently released TheoTown, with main graphics artist KingTut101 crafting assets in a very similar style.

Whether Cytopia will deliver where others have failed remains to be seen, but as usual we encourage you to download the initial tech demos and show support for the project.

The developers also have an official Patreon to help support hosting expenses.

Code License: GPLv3
Assets License: Unspecified (reverts to same license as the code, by default)

SuperTuxKart 1.0 release

It's been a long and winding road for mascot racer SuperTuxKart, but after more than ten years of continuous and dedicated progress, the team has finally announced the release of build 1.0, marking an important development milestone for the project.

 As quoted from the official release post:

Yes, if you have followed our development a bit, that might be a bit of a surprise. But we have been asked why we don't call this release 1.0, and the majority of us developers discussed this and decided that indeed this release is a major milestone that deserves the big 1.0 number.

Indeed a nice surprise and definitely a big step forward with the inclusion of online multiplayer!

See more new features in the official release video:



As usual you can download the game here. Also don't forget to head over to our forums to provide some feedback to the developers.


Code License: GPLv3
Assets License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Out in the shadows: Dark Mod 2.07 released

The hide-and-seek simulator The Dark Mod (TDM) has had a new release as of last week. For those who don't remember, TDM is a Doom 3 mod-gone-standalone that aims to recreate a similar game experience to that of Looking Glass Studio's Thief series. It is known amongst both stealth game aficionados and free software enthusiasts as a project of exceptional quality, with a dedicated community of content creators. The latest release 2.07 focuses on stability and performance.

Since we last reported on this amazing project, the game has progressed leaps and bounds both in content and quality. The extensive loading times and performance irks that plagued the initial standalone releases, from the project's early emancipation from Doom 3 game asset and codebase requirements, are now mostly a thing of the past, and are set to be improved even further, as multi-core support has finally been added to the engine (albeit as an experimental feature). Future updates will bring the game to OpenGL 3.3, transferring processing power from the CPU to the GPU.

On the graphics department, the implementation of advanced shadow maps promise near real-life shadow behavior. Improved antialiasing will generally upgrade looks for those with more powerful machines.

The release has also seen the addition of more Creative Commons licensed assets (under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) and map modules, which are free to use in either TDM fan missions or in any other mod or game project. Many fan missions are available under the same license, with incoming releases almost every month. They can be downloaded through the in-game GUI or by accessing the mission portal.

For further information you can access the full changelog here.

Code License: GPLv3
Assets License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Solarus 1.6 is out, progress on Ocean's Heart

Some of you might remember previous coverage of Solarus, the Free Software Zelda-like ARPG engine that comes with its own complete game creation suite and a pretty impressive palette of Zelda fan games already available under its wing. As of last December, version 1.6 has been released, and while the changes under the hood are too many to number (check the full announcement and changelog here), it is worth highlighting the package now includes a more varied amount of libre tilesets, meaning developers now have available a wider choice of default non-proprietary graphics to use on their own creations. While the community is still very much focused around Zelda fan-games and their respective copyrighted graphics, this is an important first step to attract more developers and spark future libre game projects.

The Ocean's Heart tileset, now part of the Solarus package.

One such project is Ocean's Heart, the brainchild of Solarus community member Max Mraz. The game follows a gameplay structure similar to classic Zelda games transported to a Viking age-inspired setting. It features an entirely original story and a beautiful pixelated tileset, which Max was kind enough to license under a Creative Commons license for integration with the Solarus suite. Upon completion it will become the first true libre Solarus-made ARPG in code and assets, which makes for very exciting news.

Stay tuned for further developments on this, and be sure to check the Solarus website for news on their upcoming game projects, along with complete instructions and tutorials on how to create your own game using the development tools.

Code License: GPLv3
Assets License: Mixed  (most sprite packages copyrighted by Nintendo, original Solarus assets under CC-BY-SA)

Download BOS Wars 2.7 RTS for Windows

BosWars Gameplay

Bos Wars is still a nice fast-paced and somewhat lightweight RTS for you to enjoy, even though the sound mixing is still brutal but getting your hands on the latest Version for Windows is not as straightforward, as it was in 2010.

Thankfully, you can get a working version for Windows from Portableapps.

The cool 3D pixel soldier in the thumbnail above is from OpenGameArt by the way. Still kicking, old design and all.

• BosWars homepage

DevCorner: FreeDink sound design replacements

FreeDink is older than some kids that downloaded open source games on their own by now. The two main cornerstones of the game are: low resolution, twisted humor. One really cool thing about FreeDink is that you can play it in a browser.

Anyway, I worked on replacing some sounds years ago and just recently the same bug bit me again and I made replacements for all sounds that didn't have free versions of themselves yet.

For creation, I remixed a *lot* of freesound.org sounds and uploaded all the remixes right back there. The attribution feature of Freesound is quite cool, especially if very different sounds are made (see screenshot above).

However, I underestimated how much effort it takes to test them and to give some clarity to myself as well as share the process with the world, I made a video showing the steps taken for testing sounds:

I could not have done it without the excellent documentation and progress report.

I will continue testing and hopefully, soon all the audio will be fully free on this um... cult classic™!

Dev's Corner is a featured article series focusing on tutorials and tips for game developers operating on a Libre Software environment.

Nerdy Space Game for Hackerspaces - 6 Years of Development

Space nerds in space is an impressive piece of work most of us will never play. But we get to enjoy watching others do so. And also 28 minutes of looking at the history of the game:

Six Years of Space Nerds In Space -- 2018-11-03

More videos on Stephen Cameron's channel.