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LGP Announces Game Development Team
Ronald Hymer writes "Linuxlookup.com is reporting Linux Game Publishing has announced the Linux Game Development Project team. The eight winners of LGP's game development company initiative were announced last evening and Linuxlookup's very own resident programmer Matt Wilson was granted one of the eight positions on the team. Along with project information, they link submitted code samples along with the team member URL's." See our previous story about this. Hey team: no penguins in your game, okay?
Good luck competing in todays PC gaming market (hope you have the cash to buy a good game engine instead of taking the time to make one from scratch).
Remember, graphics and wizbangs are what makes the sale, but plot and fun is what makes a game outlast time.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Hey team: no penguins in your game, okay?
Amen brother!
Cat, the other, tastier white meat.
...all those microsoft.com games that EVERY PERSON IN MY OFFICE SEEMS TO PLAY...
Bespelled, Bejeweled....hell, I was starting to think BeOS was making a comeback in the online games industry...
Actually, it would be great to see some Linux games that could still be enjoyable on slightly older machines...
But I second the opinion, please, no Giant Robotic penguins battling for supreme server space....
A nice Mech game would be good...
LosT
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
Looks like they haven't got any game to develop yet tho. Perhaps they can hook up with some other game designers and make their games more linux-friendly?
Try to make a Linux game that doesn't reek of amateurish game play and graphics for once...
Maybe we should help! Perhaps an approach similar to how we pick interview questions: take the top ten moderated ideas and send them the link!
Of course, they may have some vague ideas already. Personally, I'd like to see something combining the storyline of a good RPG with the action of a good FPS. Open ended would be nice, something like Privateer or Freelancer but in a fantasy or military setting rather than as a space sim.
Yes! I second this wholeheartedly!!!!1!11!!!!!!
I miss old-skool graphic adventures. Sure, go 3D if ya gotta, but stick to the gameplay similar to, say, the old Sierra *Quest series.
And remember... Story, Graphics, Story, Gameplay, Story!
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
how about
Duke Penguin
Mortal Linuks
Leisure Suit Linus
Max Penguin
Splinter Server: The M$ add-on
Sorry.
It's one of *those* days.
LosT
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
Having received only seven applications in all for the post, linuxlookup.com made up the deficit by "granting" the remaining position to one of their own programmers :)
Yeah, the only flaw I can find with Linux is the lack of games.
Yep,
And, hey, if they MUST use first person, why not a first person multi-player game WITH a story... imagine king's quest first person where you walk around a 3d environment... what if you took your friends along with you for the quest? That way you can chat with them and you can all cooperatively solve problems / puzzles / decide on things?
-Joe
If we're all god's children, what's so special about Jesus? - Jimmy Carr
This is the true story (true story) of eight unrelated programmers picked to work on a Linux project and have their code made open. This is what happens when programmers stop being nice, and start being real.
Seriously, I could see this as being the next big reality TV series. I have no doubt that there will be some serious "static" between these people. What kind of leadership model is there going ot be? Are they just throwing them together and letting them work it out amongst themselves? I worked on a Linux game with my best friend, and we were at each others throats within a week and had to ditch the project before we killed each other.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
I wan't a game with chicks, guns and blood.. NOT merchandise for the OS it runs best on...
I agree that the old *Quest games rule (personal fav is Heros Quest, or "Quest for Glory" as it used to be called), however, it was found that adventure games simply don't sell anymore. There was a sharp decline in adventure game sales as soon as FPS became popular.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
In the past ten years, people having been flocking to get MFAs in creative writing. There are tons of writers out there. However, it always seem like game developers think that it would be better if they wrote their own stories and scripts. Writing is not a trivial business. I mean, everyone can write, but everyone can sing too. Why not get a writer to write? I understand it becomes a matter of control, and that the developers want to put in their own birlliant anime-influenced ideas, but its like letting the programmers draw the graphics. I suggest getting a writer to write the story, and let them run the story.
... how I got labelled an "International Man of Mystery".
It's actually http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com - and the development company's site is http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/devcompany.php
HTH
Make one of those, please. The dependence on the 3D card of the user will be minimal. The influence of Linux will be huge. It'll be a new new thing, not a copy of the old new thing. It'll be a challenge.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Here's a few more:
Age of Geeks
Balmer's Gates
Ballmer's Gates II: Shadows of Redmond
(Eris S.) Rayman
Solid Snack: Sons of Lethargy
Without sounding sarcastic, what to they expect to accomplish? Loki tried; they had excellent game engines and talented programmers. Tribes 2, Hero's of Might & Magic 3, Heavy Gear 2, Heretic 2, Railroad Tycoon, Myth 1 & 2. Not to mention the Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3 and the ton of Quake 2/3 based games. **IF** Loki's biggest problem was indeed mismanagement then lets hope LGP has better people in charge.
:) Hey LGP!!! Give Sierra a call. I'm sure they will hook you up like they did Loki. "You can co-develop along with windows, can't release it till 6 months after the windows client is released. PLUS we will charge you 100's of 1000's of bucks for engine licensing. Then, we will release the engine for 100 bucks AFTER you've folded" /sarcasm
I think they should start with Tribes 3
I've nothing of importance to say, now go away before I taunt you with a second sig!
The entire writeup at linuxlookup.com was lifted verbatim from my announcement at happypenguin.org. As far as I know, this team has not been announced *anywhere* yet besides happypenguin. Plagiarism sucks, guys.
I much prefer an open-source game; it allows me to make tweaks and implement house rules; something a proprietary game does not allow.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
- Quake III Arena
- Unreal Tournament
- Return to Castle Wolfenstein
- Unreal Tournament 2003
- Doom III
What part of "Yes, there are blockbuster games available for Linux" do you not understand? All of these are Linux-native. No WineX needed.Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Personally, I'd like to see something combining the storyline of a good RPG with the action of a good FPS. Open ended would be nice, something like Privateer or Freelancer but in a fantasy or military setting rather than as a space sim.
Not that I'd mind any of those things, but when you can refer to the genre of your game in shorthand ("FPS") and you want to re-make existing games in a different setting, that's hardly breaking new ground. Do we want the open community to produce nothing but less-polished takes on overpriced, over-card-dependent consumer boxed titles?
(Anyone who can come up with a worthy successor to M.U.L.E. would have my blessing, such as it is.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
but plot and fun...
Remember, this is an English Language Query, NOT a boolean. Therefore the original poster did not mean you had to have plot AND fun in order for the game to have staying power, but that plot and fun were two members of the set of criteria that can result in staying power. Therefore, a game with plot alone can have staying power, a game with fun alone (Ms. Pacman for example) can have staying power, and a game with plot AND fun can have staying power.
You responded rudely to a post that did NOT exclude your game from the possible set of games with staying power. Ms. Pacman is "fun" and therefore has the possibility to have stying power within the parameters of the original post.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
The team were only informed that they'd been selected sometime late last night!
It's a bit early to expect anything other than "getting to know each other" chat via email.
www.sjbaker.org
I think in the original contest document, they stated that they'd purchase the required devlopment tools, eg. the torque engine (I think they should have called it the Newton-Metre engine, har har). Torque is a pretty nice engine really, good enough anyway, games aren't built on graphics alone. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing a game with some Tribes-like aspects. I found Tribes fun mostly because of the challenge, and freedom. The challenge comes from the speed, and funny physics they employ (most people don't slide down hills at 100kph ;)). Whenever you shoot your weapon at speed, just like real physics, it takes on the velocity you currently have. Aiming at your target isn't enough, or aiming where you think he'll be isn't enough, you have to aim such that you compensate for speed! It's really great fun, not to mention the fairly large map sizes, which give you pretty well all the running around room you could want. To make a game fun, I'd say you need a few things (from my point of view as a gamer anyway):
-it has to be hard enough, that you can be horrible at it to begin with, but eventually 'master' it and have some sense of accomplishment
-it has to have some innate sense of fun, all the typical fun qualities apply here: explosions, high speed, tension, humour, excessive brutality (not gruesome, but just enough for you to say "jeez, that was awfully painful looking")
-you should be able to play it for short periods of time, no sitting down for 2 hours just to make some marginal increase in progress. that's not fun, that's just repetition (everquest reference here really).
-if it is online, it should be VERY easy to be social. if people have friends in the game, they're more apt to play it, more apt to buy, etc.
-directly linked to the previous point, teamplay is important if it's online. online games really shine when you pretty well FORCE teamplay, because it makes people talk to each other, be more social, and overall have a better time! (which is what games are about right? having fun?)
-having said all that, it should have some sort of innovation. no one is expecting revolutionary work here, but at least make something that stands on it's own. dont' let anyone say "well, it's really like q3 and counterstrike put together" make them say "well.. uh.. well, it's really just like it is, hard to compare it to anything". I think that's important, because if they are forced to say that, THEN you know you've given them something they can't get anywhere else.
These are just what I can think of at the moment, but that's briefly what I find when I look at the games I really really played a lot, and truly liked. I'm actually quite excited to see what they can come up with, should be very interesting!
Most people probably don't know who Steve Baker is. He's been in the Linux 3D community for AGES. He started out as a big-time contributor to FlightGear, the open-source and relatively good flight simulator. However, he was working for a big commercial outfit that eventually decided his participation in the project was a conflict of interest, and he had to drop out.
He began developing a 3D library for "toy games," but this was just an elaborate ruse. In fact, the 3D library was quite useful for (you guessed it) the FlightGear project.
Since then, his publically-stated stance of developing this 3D library for games got some notice from game developers that took him seriously, and in the vein of "self-fulfilling prophecies" his libraries became quite good at their officially-stated purpose.
Steve Baker is one of the little heroes in my own personal list of little heroes, which would include a whole lot of names no-one knows despite the fact that they're extremely important in the open source world.
(sigh) Thanks, Steve et al.
fifth sigma, inc.