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Remix This Game — a Free Software Experiment
An anonymous reader writes "REMIX THIS GAME is an experimental game design contest where participants can re-mix and re-cycle my free-software self-published PC game, XONG. XONG is available under permissive licenses allowing remixes and derivative works of the code, graphics, sound effects, and music—even for commercial use. The source code license is the GNU GPL Version 3, and the media is covered by the Creative Commons BY-SA license. No special software or programming experience are needed—XONG has been packaged up so that you can just download the game and edit the graphics/code/music/sounds in place, and re-start the game to see your changes. Plus, it is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux, so you can remix it on whichever OS you use, using whatever programs you like."
So to actually change something besides the media (wich is something you can do on a lot of games already), you need to know LISP and get to know your custom .pak format. I don't think this will take off.
Typically, the term "permissive" implies a BSD-like license, i.e. no copyleft. I'm just saying.
$ make available
I dare anybody to watch the game in action" without visiting the website and come to any conclusion about how the game works, or what it is you're controlling, what you have to achieve, how you score or how you die
I did watch the you tube video and I still have no idea how the game is played. I couldn't figure out which one of the 20 moving things on the screen represented the player until he died and then he said "I died" out loud, and then I rewinded it twice.
I'm thinking PacMan + DigDug + BoulderDash + Worms + Too Much Caffeine for the Developer + Graphics that make my old C64 look good.
Really looks like another lame attempt to get hits for a personal web site.
usually on the mod scene you do not have access to the whole game engine. Heck, when tho id software open source their game engines, they still retain copyright on the models and graphics.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I don't understand why this guy should get some attention for what is basically an invitation to do and old fashiond "total conversion" of a game... you know... games that are more advanced that glorified ASCII games or 16 color X11 graphics?
I don't want to see something you consider needing work in Lisp. This game has to be the most confusing thing I've seen in a long time. Extremely poor design. Now I realize that doesn't mean the language behind it is bad, but it is not a good way to showcase things. "Oh look how extensible Lisp is! You can edit a poorly done extremely complex game!"
I mean I could counter with "Look how extensible C++ is! Go purchase Civ 4 and marvel at the amount of flexibility it has, without ever touching the source code (most of the game is in XML and Python)."
When you want to showcase something, you want a good looking, easy to use demo. You want a polished final product.
So if the videos seem inscrutable, try reading the instructions. I make no claim to the engine or game being the greatest ever, but I hope the contest will be fun and get people possibly involved with creative commons licensed art, or free software, or lisp game dev
Oh, don't mind us, we just love to shit all over someone's hard work, you know? Call it a hobby, if you will. Never mind the fact that 90% of us here couldn't construct a game to save our miserable lives, let alone make one you can remix.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Yup, and that's the problem with Slashdot. It and its readers are increasingly evaluating stories and comments as this were primarily an open-source advocacy site, as opposed to a nerd/news site with a special focus on the open source movement. So what really has to be describe as an advertisement for an obscure (google "Xong review" if you think that's not fair) self-published game gets stuck on the front page by including a few buzzwords (GPL, Creative Commons), and the editing decision gets endorsed--even though there are far more famous open source games out there, plus very active mod projects on proprietary work. Someone who read the story and actually thought this was a good place to start would likely have been misled.
It's not that harmful in this case. But people who think they are actually getting meaningful knowledge about reality when they read stories and highly modded comments on copyright law, Microsoft products, or public IP policy.
Absolutely nothing against David O'Toole, who seems to have written the game and submitted the story. Haven't played the game, doesn't look like my style, but maybe it's great for it's intended audience. The complaint is about the explicit decision that anything that hits favored buzzwords "news" based on its imagined effect ("help open source") rather than information content.