Tuxracer 1.0 Retail Version Finished

Nailer writes "Tuxracer 1.0 is complete Version 0.6 has been downloaded over a million times, and 1.0 looks like it will kick its older siblings arse. This latest version has a massively improved set of features compared to the earlier versions, including multiplayer support, far more detailed tracks, new hazards (giant boulders, better trees, vehicles, and entire towns with roads, houses, castles, fountains, etc) new players (a girl tux, a funky polar bear, and others), split screen multiplay, internationalization, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff. Take a look at the screenshots and trailer movie. The initial release of the game will be proprietary for Windows and Linux (and perhaps Mac), but some of the code from 1.0 will be released as Open Source. Sunspire are still looking for a publisher, but should be taking direct orders soon. And when they do, I'm buying it."

Comments

Re:Open To Closed

[dreamchaser]

I understand your sentiment, but it is hard to put food on the table if you give your product away. There is room in this world for both open source and proprietary software.

Of course, I expected to see at least a dozen comments like that. Not everything can be free, guys. People need to live and eat and take care of their families. That being said, open source is here to stay, and as I said above I think it can easily coexist with commercial software.

Who owns Tux?

[pr0nbot]

Just out of interest - who has intellectual property rights over the Tux character?

Re:Is it just me

[rm-r]

I have to agree, it's just joe racing game and there's plenty of those around already. It's not as if this is the first game to come out on Linux either (although granted they do normally take a few months after the windows release)

Will I get mod'ed down as well for having my own opinion?

'Real Work'

[EnglishTim]

The 'real work' in a game is pretty much split 50/50 between programming and things like artwork, level design etc. I'm sure there are exceptions (Final Fantasy could be one), but that's been pretty much the way it is on the games I've worked on.

This is one of the reasons I can't agree with RMS. Why is it that someone who creates some music, a level design, some textures or a model deserves compensation for their hard work, but somehow someone who spends just as much energy writing code does not?

Re:'Real Work'

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't. Artwork and music should be free too. In fact, all intellectual property should be free. Artists could make up for it by painting cathedral ceilings or doing portraits of rich Italian bankers. Musicians can make their money by selling t-shirts and doing concerts.

Anyway, Open Source is a fun concept as long as people don't push it to the extreme. If someone wants to do an open source project because they love it and it's a hobby and they want to share their work, more power to them. Demanding that all software be open source and that people should someone try to make money by selling support for it (and competing with 20 other companies selling support for your product too if it's good enough) is just plain whiney on our part. People deserve to make an honest day's wage.

Personally I don't think I'd buy Tuxracer as it got boring after about 5 minutes of playing the different levels, but it might be fun for a child.

Re:'Real Work'

[EnglishTim]

Obviously there are many people who code/make music/create art who do not ask to be compensated. Fair enough! that's their choice. But there are many who, although they still enjoy practising their art/skill, wish to be financially compensated for their work. Any time/work *is* worth money. To claim otherwise would be to reduce everything to the bare cost of the materials involved, which would not allow anybody to make a living from anything but farming and mining.

When you pay for software (and this applies to music and art as well...), you are effectively paying for a service - the service of someone writing the code instead of you having to do it. As a result of many people paying for it, you don't have to shoulder the entire cost of that development by yourself.

Re:'Real Work'

[praxim]

I'm killing my karma here, but someone needs to say it...

If I create something that people are willing to pay for, no one, certainly no pompous ass on slashdot or UNIX-bearded Bulgarian-dancing hacker has the right to insist that I have to find another way to make a living. You can't tell me that t-shirts are worth more money than quality music. (I don't listen to Radiohead because their t-shirts kick ass.)

They should have changed the name

[codexus]

TuxRacer started as an open-source game and as such it was right to use Tux. But as a commercial game I feel like little Tux has been betrayed.

Remember what Tux stands for. It's Tux not Mario or Sonic. He's a free animal and I want it to stay this way. I won't buy this game.

Re:Open To Closed

[Hobbex]

Games are one of those things that even RMS expects to be proprietary - the real work in a gmae is not usually the engine, but the level design, plot, artwork, etc.

I don't see why this should necessarily be true, I remember some wonderful and freely released TCs (Total Conversions) for Doom and Quake, as well as seemingly endless amounts of levels. The quality of the user made levels and artwork varies, of course, but it's not like that can't be said about Free software.

I think you have differentiate between replayable and non-replayable games. In replayable games, what you see is that a couple of models (like Civilization, and multiplayer Deathmatch) have been stumbled upon that except for technical updates have remained much the same for the last ten years. In Civilization we have seen a free implementation of the concept grow up quite well, and with Deathmatch JC of course GPLed a lot of the code himself - though I am unaware of any attempts to combine the GPLed code with user levels and artwork to make a totally free Quake.

I think that that the real reason that we have not seen a lot of Free games developed is that decent proprietary versions have been around. We have seen time and time again that there aren't often enough coders who are motivated by ethics for free software to thrive when there are propreitary programs available to do the same thing (cf the lack of a free RA decoder, and the bad state of the free Flash player (and Flash is even documented!))

For non-replayable games, the kind that people play through in 10-12 hours and then don't look back to, I might agree that free development might be difficult, at least not for the same amount as come out today. I think the world can do without them.

WAIT A MINUTE!!!

[skrowl]

Isn't closing the source on a GPL'd project a violation of the GPL?

Re:WAIT A MINUTE!!!

[Novus]

Isn't closing the source on a GPL'd project a violation of the GPL?

The original copyright holder is always free to relicense his code under whatever license he wishes. In other words, you can take GPL:ed code you have written, and put it under any license you like. However, if there's someone else's code in there, you'll have to remove it unless you get that person's permission.

Sunspire Studios had to rewrite parts of the game to get rid of other people's GPL:ed code, which they couldn't relicense.

Of course, the code on SourceForge is still GPL. They can't change that.

Re:TROLL A MINUTE!!!

[PhilHibbs]

The GPL is a grant of additional rights, that you the user has. It in no way restricts the original copyright owner from exercising their right to exploit their copyright in other ways. So long as no-one else contributed to the current code base, the fact that prior versions were GPL is irrelevant.

Re:Why don't they sell a gpl version at retailers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't the GPL version of the game have graphics and courses with scribbled "// Fix This!" all over the graphics (done by tigert in BrushedMetal theme)?

Open Source is great, however don't force it upon people who don't want to open source their products. People write software for a living you know - software that is good enough to not require support services. Games don't need support services - there is no market for single-player game support, only in selling the game itself. Sure, in multi-player games you can sell time on the server itself, but someone will just set up their own server anyway thus making the work worthless.

The art of coding should not be treated any differently from music creation or graphics creation. Why is coding considered to be less worthy? Let people write free opensource software if they wish, who are you to criticise them?

Why?

[EnglishTim]

Why should they be free?

Why shouldn't the person who created the code/art be entitled to compensation for the work they put in?

This is one of the things that I really don't understand about RMS's philosophy. He asks 'how can it be wrong to share a program with one's friend?' without asking 'how can it be fair to make use of another person's work without compensating them for the effort they put into it?'

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

If *I* write a program, piece of music, etc. I should have the write to share it with my friend. But I don't need a GPL to do that. I think it's more a matter of respecting the creator's rights. If I want the world to make free use of something I've done, fine. But I should have control over my own intellectual property (including the ability to declare I don't want control over it or that I want compensation for it) and those wishes should be respected as courtesy good [insert your favorite religion here] ethics.

It's kinda neat but..

[Junta]

I remember downloading it and thinking it was kinda neat. An OpenGL game written with linux in mind, and it's somewhat entertaining. While I think it above many other GPL games in many respects, I don't think it's so great as to be worth anything money wise when you look at the market out there.

The gameplay is pretty straightforward and boring. Doesn't even seem as interesting as, say, the snowboarding mini-game in Final Fantasy VII, which wasn't even meant to stand on its own. Snowboarding games and the like typically offer a significant deal more than TuxRacer, and for this reason if I was going to shell out cash for a game of this genre, I'd go with a good game.

For another thing, the graphics are not that spectacular. The scenery has some nice textures, but the characters and objects are simple gouraud shaded polygons, and even then the polygon count in the player models and how they are put together is now substandard. I understand that having a low polygon count helps performance, but companies like Square show how you can really have some decent looking graphics without complex geometry.

All in all it was a neat little game that kept my attention for a few minutes when I first got it. It's not on the level of any commercial competition in my opinion, considering games from 97 have roughly equivalent graphics and the gameplay is really boring and repetitive, with next to nothing to spruce it up.

Re:Open To Closed

[Anonymous Coward]

GPL also allow programmers to go hungry while freeloaders use their hard work for free.

Re:Great

[Rhone]

I've been following the development of this, and it's nice to see a game being developed simultaneously for Linux and Windows, rather than being released on Linux a year or more after the Windows counterpart.

I would certainly hope that a game starring Tux, the Official Linux Penguin, and originally developed on Linux, would not be available for Windows before it's available for Linux.

I also like the fact that the binaries for all platforms will be on one CD. I'm tired of buying two copies of games if I want to run them on both Linux and Windoze.

Yes, it's certainly nice when the game is developed, and originally released, as cross-platform. (Like Terminus.) Unfortunately, that's not really an option when a separate company like Loki does the porting after the game has been released, and it's kind of unfair to blame Loki for that. If gaming under Linux is important to you, then send a message by not buying Windows-only games; that way, you'll certainly not pay for the same game twice.

"Might be fun for a child?"

[raindog2]

OK, I'll admit that the one child I've tried Tux Racer out on enjoyed it a lot. But most people who aren't hardcore gamers will find even the free version pretty enjoyable.

I couldn't care less about Half-life or Diablo, and don't get me started about Super 3D Virtua Kick The Shit Out Of Rendered Anime Guys Champion Edition. I play a lot of MAME and newer games with outstanding gameplay like Bomberman, Myst, Quake 2, and Chu Chu Rocket. As far as racing goes I haven't really seen anything since Road Rash that was fun, and really Road Blasters was pretty much the pinnacle of fantasy driving experience. I can't imagine myself ever playing a snowboarding game, but Tux Racer is kinda pretty, whimsical, easy to pick up in 30 seconds and put down when you're bored with it, and satisfying.

Playing it with adult family members leads me to the same conclusion. For the 80% of the population who's never touched a Playstation 2, games like Tux Racer are an embarassment of riches. Finding out that it "just comes with Linux" just makes them sort of stare blankly and then a month later ask me if they should run Linux instead of Windows. (I still haven't answered "yes" to anyone because things like Reader Rabbit and American Greetings don't work under WINE yet.)

I'm not sure it'll make it if it ever gets to retail shelves, even with all the extra nice stuff I see in the screenshots -- I kind of expect to see it in the 10 dollar bin at Staples or computer shows pretty quickly -- but the vast middle ground of people who like games but not enough to know what "CTF" stands for or buy a Playstation are the perfect market for Tux Racer.

At any rate, I'm going to pick up a copy just so my partner and I can race each other in real time instead of having to take turns.