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Aquaria Goes Open Source
A post on the Wolfire blog yesterday announced that the source code for Aquaria has now been released. Aquaria, an action-adventure, underwater sidescroller from Bit Blot, was part of the Humble Indie Bundle, which was so successful that the developers of four games pledged to release them as open source. This marks the final release, following Lugaru, Gish, and Penumbra: Overture. The source code is available from a Mercurial repository.
Very reminiscent of Ecco the Dolphin. I found it a bit weird that the environments were so awesome looking while the main character looked like it was drawn by a ten year old, but other than that it was a great game. Be sure to check it out.
Living With a Nerd
Yesh
which is totally what she said
I was completely blow away by this game when I bought it in the package. It's very well done and ends with you wanting more. Hopefully with this release the community can create some new stuff and drum up interest in a sequel. Don't have it? Buy it!
Quake, Quake 2, et al., are the same way.
Better known as 318230.
This opinion has come up in every story about these games. It's simply wrong. There is plenty that can be done with the code, even while the data remains proprietary.
It would be extremely nice, in fact, if it became common practice for commercial games to have open-source code and proprietary data. That way the creators could still have an obvious way to make money, while the community could take care of making the game run on different platforms etc. (I guess it wouldn't work for multiplayer due to the rampant cheating that would ensue ...)
Or you could port the game and use the resources from the installer.
Basically you could not be more wrong.
Why a non-story? I have the data already, since I bought the game. The source code was what I was missing to be able to make some improvements I've been thinking of.
This is exactly what I wanted, and I didn't expect anything more than that.
If you're the same guy who keeps posting about this on the wolfire blog, just do a favour and stop complaining. If you don't see this as an opportunity for some improvements, then perhaps you're not really able to do any, and what you really want is free of charge game, but that was never promised in the first place.
On my part, all I wanted is the source, I got it, so I'm happy.
The outcome of the humble bundle couldn't have been better IMO, and I'll gladly contribute to any future initiatives of the sort.
(I guess it wouldn't work for multiplayer due to the rampant cheating that would ensue ...)
This isn't necessarily true. Adding or changing features in the game client may be easier with open-source, but current game cheats / hacks / mods frequently just operate by modifying the binary (static or runtime), netting the same effect. Any well-designed multiplayer game will have sanity checks built into either the central server (if there is one) or by client consensus that will reject (and ban / blacklist) a client that attempts to perform an impossible action.
Merely being open source doesn't really increase the potential for cheating or the capabilities of those cheats; it just makes it easier to figure out how to create them.
If open sourcing the engine (and the level editor) is not a story, how are the people interested in making games with it going to find out about the new tools available?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This game is amazing. Seriously, if I had known how good it was, I would've thrown in at least another $10 when I bought the Humble Bundle.
I bought the Humble Indie Bundle but haven't downloaded/played this game yet. Should I Slashdot?
The quake sources had at least a few comments though. Aquaria's sources are sprawling and comment-free.
(I guess it wouldn't work for multiplayer due to the rampant cheating that would ensue ...)
Quakeworld was an object lesson in this. Very shortly after the Quake source went GPL, you saw speed hacks. There were those in the Quake (specifically Team Fortress) community who believed that this was Carmack's poison pill to finally kill off the game. However, newer server code soon followed that detected speed hacks (among other things). And, for the most part, a game that had already survived numerous cheats before it was Open Source, continued to survive afterwards.
It should be noted that one of Carmack's discussions around that time was the problem of balancing out latency without trusting the client too much (said trust being the issue that lead to speed hacks).
so can someone make a version of the game that loads up all the files from a single zip file instead of 4788 tiny files! id software does it, but they just rename the zip to pak.
That's patently false. It means you can graft on extensions in places to make the engine do things that you couldn't previously do. Sure, current, cheats / hacks / mods are probably going to work the same, however, this does open things up for new ones that use different servers. But more than that it allows us to choose what systems to port it to.
Hey, I wonder: What's the smallest unit of a software bundle you could open source and still get a front page story on Slashdot?
sure, this is great - having the source will provide benefits for the whole industry, even if only in small part.
what would have been mighty cool if they had released data as well... these games would go into default distribution repositories, thus increasing interest in their future versions and linux gaming in general. oh well, maybe later :)
Rich
Later is exactly it.
I'm not saying that the developer ever will, but if they were to release it as a free download then it's not going to be now, while the game is still generating a few sales.
There's no saying they won't make it free years down the line. In the meantime, bite the bullet and reward them for their hard work with a little hard cash.
Lol the furry http://daleglass.net/images/dale_small.png plans to make improvements... Does that mean you'll be adding erect penises to all the characters in the WolfFire game?
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