Slashdot Mirror
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."
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 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.
Hopefully they will find a partner and be successful. It could be a good shot in the arm for Linux game development. It will be hard for them to say who is running it on what platform though, but I can live with that in return for getting all of the binaries in one box.
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.
Just out of interest - who has intellectual property rights over the Tux character?
Well done slashdot / Nailer / Timothy.
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?
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.
True warriors use the Klingon Google
Yes, it's a troll, but I'll bite:
Emacs, GCC, glibc. Any questions?
Indeed, they seem to have taken it down. It was made a while ago and is in DivX format, and about 7 MB.
I have it - if you have the bandwidth to host it I'll mail it to you.
Mike
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.
Race with the Super Mario characters.
Race with the Disney characters.
Race with the Looney Tunes characters.
Race with the Hanna Barbera characters.
Race with the Donkey Kong characters.
Race with the Star Wars characters.
Race with the Austin Powers characters.
Race with the South Park characters.
Race with the Muppet Show characters.
Race with the Disney characters again, except something went wrong and only three disney characters are there.
You know where were heading, don't you? Mary-Kate and Ashley mall racing, that's where.
God help us. God help us all.
Forget the fact you can download it for free, or have it included with your favorite linux distribution; convience of getting it off the shelf at best buy under the GPL GAME SECTION for five bucks a pop, is the way to go.
The proprietary version will probably be 30$ and they'll sell 10,000 or so vs. 75,000 gpl'd games at 5$ a pop.
--the temptation to exploit users through hidden code is too great for proprietary software. ie.. haven't they learned anything yet? 300,000 gross sales for propiretary version vs. 375,000 for gpl games, you do the math!
More cool screenshots can be found at this link :
http://www.sunspirestudios.com/images/
Indeed - check out the new competitive team based mode, with voice commands and enemy taunts!
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.
No, he doesn't.
I've had an at length discussion about this matter with RMS, and his stances is that either the developers write free (using his definition) games (of a lower quality) while working at jobs who pay them to write free applications, or they don't write games at all.
Email me (me@thisisnurgle.org.uk), and I'll forward you the emails if you don't believe me...
"Faith is the last resort of a desperate man" - Me
Didn't see it anywhere on the site, but most competitors in the down-hill snowracers business (as in snowboard games & the likes although few on the PC) always features a bunch of tricks you can preform to obtain higher scores. Something that really increases the replay value. Or why not add weapons and downhill-deathmatch?
Imagine a 360-inverse-tux-flip or perhaps a tux-slide.. There's no end to the possibilities =)
That put aside, the linux version wil be mine.
I think this is the perfect platform to place this game on. This game is perfect for kids of all ages, which Nintendo prids them selves on having a platform of the same ideology. This could bring HUGE exposure to the game and probably be the place where it is most successful since consols make for better multiplayer splitscreen platforms than the Computer.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
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?'
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.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The tuxracer 0.61 tree has been forked - it is called Openracer and stays GPL.
e s/ OpenRacer
:pserver:anonymous:@cvs.openracer.sourceforge.net: /cvsroot/openracer
They try to move away from the original game, though, in order not to interfere with the commerical versions' development.
Their site is at:
http://moria.mit.edu:8080/wf/dev/systems/releas
You can check the source out from cvs using CVSROOT
Please note that it will need the newest plib version from CVS, too, though.
1.0 is a completely different game from 0.61. Yes, nobody would buy 0.61, its a vey ancient tech demo.
In 0.61 you:
* Skied / jumped down a slope
* Tried to race on icy bits to get the lowest time
* Collected herring which didn't do anything
* Enjoyed the occasional jump
* Stop moving when you hit something
In 0.1
* Race opponents (computer controled and split screen)
* Deal with hazard like falling ice blocks, moving vehicles, giant boulders, interfering opponents, logs across your path, stumps, moving cable cars, ice spikes, falling snow, etc.
* Have cool ice tunnels to use centrifugal force to climbs the walls within
* Actually collect herring to contribute to your score, which can be places in the sky and only accessible via jumping from a ramp or perhaps a hidden rooftop, making the game much more challenging
* Ski through slopes, towns, ice tunnels, fountains, roads, etc. More detailed backgrounds and artwork make the levels much more unique and complex, check out the realistic trees and beautiful sunsets
* Stop moving when you hit something in a way that makes it seem like you actually hit something
* The path may diverge in more than one direction, meaning there can be hidden shortcuts.
1.0 is nothing like 0.61. Yes, 0.61 sucks as a videogame (as I said, its an ancient tech demo) but 1.0 (from the screenshots and trailer movie) looks like being a quality game up there with most Nintendo titles, and, more to the point, worth my cash.