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."

Comments

Cool

[krzysz00]

This is great and will most likely show off the extensibility of Lisp to people who don't normally care. Also, why did the author use cells instead of standard CLOS, unlike I'm doing in my common lisp roguelke

Re:Cool

[HadouKen24]

From what I've seen so far:

You control the box. You are trying (among other things?) to kill the things moving around. This seems to be largely done by forcing them into striking bombs (the empty squares). You can use a "puck"--the round circle that bounces back toward the box--to tunnel through the walls, and you can drop "chevrons" that force the enemies to move in the indicated direction. This is especially useful for forcing them to hit a bomb or get trapped in a tunnel.

It's not /that/ arcane. You just have to watch it for a couple minutes.

Re:Can anyone tell me

[ksandom]

I haven't read enough to answer that. However looking at the bigger picture, I do think this sort of stunt would be good for getting more people working on open source software. Inspire them with something that is immediately fun and rewarding, and trigger the curiousities to try something deeper later on. I wouldn't be at all surprised to talk to someone 5-10 years from now and hear that something like this was their first project.

Re:Suggestions for XONG remixers

[Scrameustache]

This game at first glance appears to be a take on an early roguetype; however in truth it's less adventureish, gear-based or as rich with chance taking. It's quirky though:

You control a vulnerable white square attempting to infiltrate a semi-randomly generated abstract color field environment infested with robots. You are armed with a paint-absorbent hockey puck that can pick up color and transfer it to other objects. If you lose your puck, you have to find another; these are scattered through the environment and look like the letter P. There are no hit points; any hit kills you, and completely ends your game. You cannot shoot enemies; instead you drop direction-changing arrows called "chevrons" to guide them to their doom in one of XONG's many black holes. But your puck will also follow the arrows, so be careful where you fire; otherwise you'll lose it down a black hole.

Oh, so THAT's what's going on... I went to see their "Gameplay video with commentary, at youtube" and I had no clue as to what the hell I was looking at. This is some very, very nerdy stuff, and that's coming from a fairly nerdy guy. ASCII characters as game sprites... party like it's 1989!

Re:Some comments from XONG's author

[SquarePixel]

Hello folks, I have addressed the originality (or alleged lack thereof) of the remix contest in another message here.

I chose XONG because it's a small and relatively simple game, so it would be easier to get started remixing. There is a review of Xong here: http://playthisthing.com/xong

And, folks, the game includes a thorough HELP screen on the F1 key, and an interactive in-game tutorial. 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. Who knows?

While I do really appreciate your effort and ideas, theres a few things you should look at first.

1) The game looks like from the 80's. It doesn't make a good impression and is hard to get people involved. Hell, some of the games I coded at 12-13 year old had a lot better graphics and ideas (no offense to you, just good old critical comment if you want it!)

2) Are there any tools to help change the game? There is and have been already immersive modding community out there. You have to provide similar tools, just being "open source" doesn't really do much.

As a person working in the games industry, and who has coded since 8 years old and working in freeware/shareware, indie, and commercial industry, I really think you need more to accomplish your goals.

Re:If this is supposed to show off Lisp

[dyingtolive]

To be fair, my first thought was: "Eew gross, Lisp." My second thought was, "Wait, you can even DO stuff like this in Lisp?"