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Latest Humble Bundle Supports Open Source GameDev Tools

Posted by timothy on from the good-to-see dept.

lars_doucet (2853771) writes "The latest Humble Weekly Bundle is titled 'Celebrating Open Source,' and features eight indie games, with charity going to the open source tools used to develop them. The open-source programming language Haxe is strongly represented: three of the charities include the Haxe Foundation, itself OpenFL (recently featured on Slashdot), and FlashDevelop, the most popular open-source Haxe/ActionScript IDE. The fourth is Ren'Py, the Python-based visual novel engine used in award-winning games like Long Live the Queen and Analogue: A Hate Story.

The games themselves are Magical Diary, NEO Scavenger, Offspring Fling!, Planet Stronghold, and for those who pay $6 or more, Anodyne, Defender's Quest, Evoland, and Incredipede, as well as 6 soundtracks. 7 of the 8 games are cross-platform across Mac/Win/Linux, and all are DRM-free."

29 comments

  1. Hurray! by uCallHimDrJ0NES · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I bought this bundle even though I already had half the games, because the platforms deserve the help. You're able to gift the Steam versions individually, so the redundancy isn't a waste if you have friends on Steam.

    --
    Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
    1. Re:Hurray! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Two of low-price games look mildly interesting, but I am willing to hear arguments to try to sell me on all parts of the bundle.

      Also, while I hope the old big-donors are still doing good charity with their wealth, I am happy to see an honest distribution of statistics without the skew of 3 Linux-linked donators putting in half the total pot.
      Looks like at the moment, most Windows buyers just want the basic pack, a majority of the Mac buyers want the extra content, and nearly all the Linux buyers want the whole deal with only a few outliers tossing $50-$100 to skew the statistics.

    2. Re:Hurray! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Any idea if they're fixed Offspring fling or Incredipede to allow them to at least be played through AIR on Linux rather than relying on embedded swfs in an html doc(in a specific proprietary browser in the case of incredipede, though the dev has been very nice about the situation and given away the linux version for free)? Open source IDEs that exclusively target flash/AIR are a horrible idea.

    3. Re:Hurray! by lars_doucet · · Score: 1

      FlashDevelop is the most popular IDE for Haxe development, it does not "exclusively target flash/AIR."

    4. Re:Hurray! by dcfedor · · Score: 4, Informative

      Any idea if they're fixed Offspring fling or Incredipede to allow them to at least be played through AIR on Linux rather than relying on embedded swfs in an html doc(in a specific proprietary browser in the case of incredipede, though the dev has been very nice about the situation and given away the linux version for free)? Open source IDEs that exclusively target flash/AIR are a horrible idea.

      I can't speak to the Offspring Fling question (though I share the dev's pain!), but I wanted to clarify the bit about "open source IDEs that exclusively target flash/AIR are a horrible idea." Indeed, that would be a bad idea, were it the case. Fortunately, it also supports Haxe, the open source language which can compile into other languages, like C++ and HTML5, to deploy to a staggering array of platforms.

      Just wanted it to be clear that we're not trying to keep Flash on life support, here. This is about the future of non-proprietary, multi-platform development!

    5. Re:Hurray! by antdude · · Score: 1

      Can I be you friend? [grin]

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    6. Re:Hurray! by Khyber · · Score: 1

      NEO Scavenger is actually pretty decent.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    7. Re:Hurray! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for the clarification! I had assumed that all of the games on offer were produced using the open source projects being funded, and two of them being stuck in a situation where they're dependent upon adobe seemed a bit crap if that were the case.

    8. Re:Hurray! by dcfedor · · Score: 1

      Ah, I can see why that might be confusing. I think many of those cases are folks who used FlashDevelop as an IDE for ActionScript (Flash), as was the case for me. However, FlashDevelop is also a top-notch IDE for Haxe, so there's a nice past/present/future thing going on here :)

    9. Re:Hurray! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok, so can it potentially be used to port an existing flash game to Haxe, offering flash developers with legacy games a way out would be really nice.

  2. Awesome! by TarwinStroh-Spijer · · Score: 1

    Great way to get some cash flowing into these projects FOR GREAT JUSTICE!

  3. Lets Clarify....... by danknight48 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'Celebrating Open Source,' Pay what you want. Support vital open source projects.

    None of these projects are open source.
    The engines used, are open source.

    The default percentage cut is (which can be customized):
    - 65% Dev
    - 20% Engine
    - 15% Humble website

    So in effect, they are using the "open source engine" as a pull to make money.
    I'am all for it with the custom split option. But, lets make sure we use the term "open source projects (ENGINE)" correctly.

    1. Re:Lets Clarify....... by lars_doucet · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Actually, several of the developers are major contributors to open source projects: Here's open-source libraries that are DIRECTLY the result of Defender's Quest development:
      http://github.com/HaxeFlixel/f...
      http://github.com/HaxeFlixel/f...
      http://github.com/larsiusprime...
      And here's my open-source report card:
      http://osrc.dfm.io/larsiusprim... Nicolas Canasse, developer of Evoland, *created* the Haxe programming language. It's totally open source. Here's his open-source report card:
      http://osrc.dfm.io/ncannasse Here's Sean Hogan (Anodyne/Even The Ocean)'s contributions:
      http://osrc.dfm.io/seanhogan That's just off the top of my head.

    2. Re:Lets Clarify....... by danknight48 · · Score: 2

      A game developer Improving/contributing to an engine for their own projects gain, is nothing new. I've done it myself.

      Regardless, this doesnt make their projects open source, the ENGINE is open source :)
      Lets make sure thats clear.

    3. Re:Lets Clarify....... by Tom+Rothamel · · Score: 5, Informative

      Disclaimer: I'm the lead developer of Ren'Py, one of the projects that will benefit from this sale.

      I think this is basically right.

      Humble's model is that it runs pay-what-you want sales, with the proceeds being split between themselves, developers, and charities. In the current ebook bundle, the charities are SFWA and Openreader. In the weekly sale, the charities are open source projects - FlashDevelop, OpenFL, Haxe, and Ren'Py. So when you buy through this sale, you support open source projects in the same way that if you buy the book bundle, you support SFWA and Openreader.

    4. Re:Lets Clarify....... by astro · · Score: 1

      I was only introduced to Ren'Py by this /. post and I am thinking of giving it a go. I've been wanting a rapid way to tell lightly interactive stories, and this looks to fit the bill quite well. I'm intimidated by the amount of time it might take me to source / create images, but that is of course not a failure of what you have created here. I read the quick start, downloaded a couple of games (and a couple of straight novels) and looked through their scripts... I'm intrigued. I'm medium-advanced with Python, and nothing I have in mind should require too much craziness. So... yeah, intrigued.

    5. Re:Lets Clarify....... by MtHuurne · · Score: 1

      A Ren'Py story does need graphics to shine. A possible alternative if you want to create a text-based interactive story is Twine. The editor (1.4 series) is written in wxPython, stories are created using wiki syntax and optionally CSS and JavaScript. It packages stories as HTML files for playing.

    6. Re:Lets Clarify....... by the_arrow · · Score: 1

      Never heard of Ren'Py before. Its scripting language kind of reminds me of Inform 7.

      --
      / The Arrow
      "How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
    7. Re:Lets Clarify....... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't see your issue here - nowhere does it say or imply that the games themselves are open source. It says 'support vital open source projects' and the engines are the projects being supported. The site specifically lists them below the games as the projects being supported.

      Were you surprised when the charities being supported in previous humble bundles were not the games themselves? It's the same deal.

  4. Re:Flash? Really? by ProzacPatient · · Score: 1

    FlashDevelop can be used as part of the pipeline for OpenFL which exposes the Flash API and aids in compiling to Haxe (or something like that), so it's not really Flash itself. See related article.

  5. Re:Flash? Really? by dcfedor · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nope! Not Flash! Really!

    The naming convention can be a bit misleading. OpenFL is not an open source version of Flash. It is a library for Haxe with an API that mirrors Flash's. The output of a compiled Haxe+OpenFL project can be native Windows, Mac, or Linux apps, iOS, Blackberry, or Android apps, HTML5, Flash, and more. The output does not require a VM, a plugin (unless Flash is the target), nor is it wrapped in a VM or projector.

    Sorry if this is overkill, but it's a common misconception that I'm hoping to clear up!

  6. Nice to see Defender's Quest by guises · · Score: 3

    It's nice to see Defender's Quest there, even if it's in a weekly sale and not the main bundle. They've been snubbed by the Humble Bundle for quite a while, but it's really a great game with a heck of a lot to it.

    1. Re:Nice to see Defender's Quest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's one of the better Tower Defense games out there; this is coming from a TD junkie! Still, it's hard to beat WarCraft 3 TFT as a fantastic TD platform.

  7. Re:Flash? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I totally understand that OpenFL is not Flash, but I still have questions about it. I'm not a Flash developer, but can Flash projects be quickly converted to OpenFL should someone decide to go that route?

  8. Re:Flash? Really? by dcfedor · · Score: 1

    There isn't an automated way (that I know of), but it's not hard. Most of the syntax is pretty much the same, and part of the point of OpenFL is that the library calls are all the same.

    The one time I tried porting a complex AS3 class over to Haxe/OpenFL, I started by copy+pasting the AS3 source. Then, I spent most of my time changing things like Flash Vectors/Arrays to typed arrays, minor changes to for loop syntax, different type names (e.g. Boolean->Bool), and other differences.

    Actually, I think there's a really good summary out there...here we go:
    http://haxe.org/doc/start/flas...

    You can see quite a lot is the same. And I heard there are some even trying to create auto-converters. But it wasn't too hard to convert in my experience. More tedious than difficult.

  9. Re:Flash? Really? by dkman · · Score: 1

    More tedious than difficult.

    That's exactly where automated tools come in most handy.

    --
    I refuse to sign
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