Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Is it on slashdot because it is news, or is it news because it's on slashdot?
This discussion is now about philosophy.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
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.
I can imagine any number of possibilities for this game so here are my suggestions...
You could attach a consistently looping 8-bit track, and perhaps add a purple 'M' character that changes said track between a selection of five inbetween your fight for survival. XONG: SONG Edition.
You could append a boss enemy with a brown capital 'K' - this will spawn periodically in the game to increase the challenge difficulty. However you can destroy him by luring him to the red 'M' which insta-deaths the K. XONG: KONG Edition.
You could attach an RPG element with a short text preamble which says you're a stoner who's attempting to work his way up the hockey league and must find a bong in under 200 move intervals to survive - upon 10,000 moves (progressive difficulty) and then you win hockey stardom...it could be called XONG: BONG Hockey Master Edition.
Hitler also had a philosophy.
Check and mate.
While i like the idea, I worry that this won't amount to much more than graphics being changed to penises or copyrighted stuff like Mario or halo or something.
How hard is it to rewrite the code and wouldn't this just be the equivalent of passing on the brunt of the game development to someone else?
how is this project different from the usual mod scene for your typical run-of-the-mill game?
The mod-scene doesn't generally do attention whoring on /.
Hitler also had a philosophy.
Check and mate.
Well, this match is over. God wins!
If this is advertising or genuine news?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
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
No claim to uniqueness of license was made, in fact the page links to the stock gplv3 and cc-by-sa 3.0 usa.
In slashdot where everything is free this might not seem like news, but in the Indie Game Development world source is often closed and assets are very rarely licensed to allow derivative works, let alone commercial use. As an INDIE contest I actually consider this relatively unique.
"Edit in place" works here because we ship the SBCL compiler in the binary----so remixers changes to the .lisp files are recompiled to machine code. We do not have to ship any special dev tools.
To sum up, indie game remixes may not be a new idea, but people don't seem to be licensing their indie games remixably in the first place.
Perhaps this story can raise awareness about that??
It is different because the mod scene generally works on games that are good and that people care about.
Hi, before I started the contest, I did some searching and could not find any "remix this game" type contests in the indie world, because it's a very proprietary culture. I think this is news because 1. it's a game that some indie people are aware of, given that it got some reviews and downloads, and 2. it could help raise awareness of more open licensing for games.
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?
Hitler also had a philosophy.
Check and mate.
Once again, introducing Heidegger makes the discussion incomprehensible.
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?
Slashdot doesn't comment on the mod scene much because it is mostly limited to commercial software since it is mostly limited to good games. You take a game that has a solid engine, with lots of good looking assets, and then add to that the ability to customize it easily through XML or included editors or what not and you find that people often flock to modifying it. They start from a strong base, making it much easier to create a useful, fun, mod. You don't have to redo everything, the game is already good. You just, well, modify.
However, as I said, that tends to exist only in the commercial arena since that is where you find this stuff. Few, if any, OSS games are very good. That doesn't interest Slashdot so much. They don't want to hear about a Windows game that is really great and has lots of community created content as it doesn't push what they want.
So this is of interest to Slashdot because it is about OSS. Doesn't matter that the game blows, it is OSS so Slashdot likes it. So there you go, front page news for a game that is confusing as hell all because you can "remix" it and it happens to have open source.
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.
Why is this insightful. This anonymous coward has no insight at all. Quake3 is actually very hard and time consuming to modify. Try adding a new character, a new skin, a new model, a new object, a new weapon.
All of these things require a lot of assets and often actual coding. It is very difficult to do much with quake3 and the fact that it is 3D knocks out anyone who is doesn't under linear algebra.
A 2D roguelike is very simple.
List sucks.
Are you sure it's the language and not your own personal problem?
Here is a youtube video i made a while back, showing gameplay with explanatory text. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9mi08KQDWw I'm used to people being put off by XONG initially because of the weird graphics, so I will try to explain it in a nutshell. You have to kill the enemies but have no weapons. The only way to kill an enemy is to direct it into a "black hole", each of which can only be used once. Basically, you lay down arrows (up, down, left , or right) on the game board, which the enemies follow, and hopefully you direct them into the holes. You have to dig tunnels to many of the holes, or to escape a bad situation, or whatever. There are 4 or 5 different types of enemies, though you have to progress in the game to see more than 2 or 3. One hit kills you and totally ends your game (start back at level 1). XONG requires quick reactions to avoid death, but requires pre-planning to kill the enemies, who behave in generally predictable ways. The predictability tells you where to place the arrows and which holes to un-dig.
Greatest rootkit delivery system EVER!
OMFG, in the last 18 years or so, something has been itching at the back of my head after hearing RMS speak. I've been following the whole GPL, BSD, etc. BS for awhile. Something kept nagging at me and I couldn't find the words for it.
You're post, screaming for a true implementation of a sarcasm tag, just wrapped up the whole thing for me. You have provided my new sig line.
To be honest, it's a weak argument against the FSF's version of freedom.
There are other licenses outside of the GPL that the FSF considers fully free, in that they force users of the code to extend the same freedom they were given unto others.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
...apart from the need to learn LISP.
Yeah, that'll be a useful skill for game programmers later on in life.
No sig today...
Well, this match is over. God wins!
"God is dead."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882
"Nietzsche is dead."
- God, 1900
God always wins.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Is that a clever pun on Godwins' law, or is it just a very fortunate coincidence?
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
I'll reserve judgement until the DSi version comes out.
Then you'll probably be reserving judgment indefinitely. The DSi firmware is cryptographically secured against the use of free software.
...apart from the need to learn LISP.
Yeah, that'll be a useful skill for game programmers later on in life.
I can't tell if that was sarcasm or not. Jak and Daxter was written in Lisp.
The only winning move is not to play.
Yes.
There are other licenses outside of the GPL that the FSF considers fully free, in that they force users of the code to extend the same freedom they were given unto others.
Again freedom only what the FSF defines as freedom.
Your point? The FSF considers BSD licenses free as well, but their preference is for the GPL and its ilk.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.