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Latest Humble Bundle Comes With Uplink Source Code
SharkLaser writes "The latest Humble Bundle comes with four great indie games from Introversion. Included in the pack are Uplink, Darwinia, DEFCON and Multiwinia. Bonus games include Aquaria, Crayon Physics Deluxe and the recently added Dungeons of Dredmor. Introversion also showcases some of their prototypes, like Subversion City Generator which demonstrates procedural generation of complex city environments, and Voxel Tech Demo for showing destroyable environments using voxel technology. Hackers and open source programmers around the world should also celebrate — Introversion will release source code for their games Darwinia, Multiwinia, DEFCON, and most importantly, Uplink, the legendary hacking simulation that is one of a kind."
While it's definitely cool that the Bundle now comes with the code for these game, make sure you read the license for publication of any finished product; while it's understandable that Introversion would want people to pay for the software, the license requires that a developer contact Introversion if they make a port, and they don't allow porting to a multitude of consumer devices (anything nintendo, sony, or microsoft makes) even if the end-user is required to buy the media required to play the game (such that they would need to purchase the full PC version.) So keep this in mind before making a PSP version (like someone did with the Aquaria source released in the first Humble Bundle.) As a modding platform and possibly as a learning tool, providing the source is very nice of Introversion. So, for the most part, kudos to them.
Roguelike Dungeons of Dredmor, if you haven't played it yet, is worth the price of admission. Play it on hardcore mode for a very old-school Nethack experience. (You die, you die. Start over.)
It's a bit biased in favor of wizards, but it has an overall very interesting class generation system and challenging gameplay.
Plus, it's funny. Actually funny. But with good core mechanics beneath it all.
Is this news, or is this just an advert for the Humble Bundle?
Well obviously it is an advert. It is not particularly newsworthy, because - let's face it - how many of us here are going to do anything with the source code for a game that most of us had not heard of until this bundle. That is not to say that it is a bad thing to advertise the bundle, as it is for charity after all.
That said, I'm afraid I am getting a bit bundled out. This is the seventh Humble Bundle since May last year. Add to that the similar bundles that have sprung up (eg. Indie Royale which isn't for charity and does a different bundle every few weeks) and it seems less like an event and more like a perpetual sale.
The biggest problem is that I find myself second guessing my purchases of indie software via the normal distribution methods because I wonder whether I will be seeing the title in a bundle in the near future. Should I pre-order Trine 2, or wait for the inevitable virtual giveaway one of these bundles?
Will the excess of bundles mean that developers lose more profitable sales? Or do these bundles help by getting indie titles into the hands of people who would normally buy mainstream games, and so not really diminish their usual audience?
This.
Business models based on data theft and/or vandalism for hire, chained anonymizing proxies with various levels of logging capabilities (or compromise :), SWATting opponents by (by faking records to send law enforcement after them), anonymizing bank transfers through the use of expendable proxy accounts, and you did all your hacking by renting a hardware platform of RAM/CPU/disk that existed (and was configured) through the cloud. And shadowy organizations whose agendas only become apparent when it's probably too late to change the color of your hat.
The game - written in 2001 - was set in 2010, which turned out to be just one year away from commercial botnets, Anonymous, Wikileaks, the Lulzsec-vs-Sony-howling-thru-the-wires world tour, and the rise of EC3 and other cloud virtualization/hosting services.
And the soundtrack, which someone else mentioned. They completely nailed the look-and-feel of all those goofy hacker movies of the 90s, while being not only fun, but downright prescient.
No it's not an advert. Well, I'm not directly benefiting from it anyway (except if I get to play some good mods people will make because they saw it!). And after getting called shill thousands of (I can remember at least Microsoft, Steam, [surprisingly] Red Hat, Spotify, Logitech..), this kind of thinking on slashdot gets really old. There's always someone pointing out how this person must be a shill (or that the story is an advert) because he said he likes something.
Oh come on! Having to use a cd-key has NOTHING to do with DRM! It is a quite valid method to verify you actually bought the game so you can use their matchmaking servers. It would be unfair for such a small studio to be forced with the burden of increased costs due to extra traffic by non-paying users. Plus, both games are multiplayer oriented, which explains the reason behind the keys.
Go on and read CmdrPony's post (#38212004). I think it's valid for you too.