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Thursday, July 17, 2014 - 16:45

Man, I have not suggested that attempts failed. So many of them are still being made. You keep missing the point, but somehow reiterated what I have said, only in, what seems to you, less "condescending" tone.

Thursday, July 17, 2014 - 16:22

@pennomi, true about AAA.

But having played e.g. "Machinarium" or "Unepic" I personally do not  think game has to be made by Blizzard to deserve your time. The amount of love and effort put into those two is rarely found.

Thursday, July 17, 2014 - 15:43

@Redshrike, you are absolutely right, and m.b. I should have made more clear what I mean when say game (although it is not hard to see from my posts that it is not what you may call a game, not point in arguing here).

See, shirish posed a question: where is FOSS in the context of history of video games industry. My answer was "it simply does no  belong there". Why? Because (in my view, remind you, and in the context of video game industry) game is an experience. Balanced, polished, well-designed (sometimes not so well), complete, finished, consumed by many as an act of entertainment.

Implementation of game mechanics with art WIP is NOT a game. It is an attempt in making a game. No shame in doing that.

Making abacus is sort of working in "computing hardware" field, but not totally.

Thursday, July 17, 2014 - 14:58

@Redshrike, I did not mean to be offensive. If I was -- my apologies. I admit that defining what constitutes a game is not an easy task and making everyone agree on one particular is impossible. The work done by people in FOSS projects deserve praise, no doubt.

Having said that, here is where I usually find those holes that make the whole experience not engaging: no unified art (2D, 3D, sound and music), character design/voiceover, campaign/tutorial, UI, story (if any), level or map, AI, event scripting. When they are on the same level, tied to each other, they make a nice combination with game mechanics and the whole thing feels well-done.

And when all those resources are FOSS, that would be a really good game in my understanding. That is why my first post ends with "My opinion, though". You may have a different one, and you do.

At the same time what I see from most of players, they want their time well-spent. So they pay money for non-free, what I would call "solid" games. And I suspect their definition "does match up with anyone's usage", to paraphrase you.

Thursday, July 17, 2014 - 14:05

@Julius, I chose UT2004 not as a benchmark, but as smth I played and enjoyed. The game gives an idea of what

1) good level design is

2) weapon variety

3)bot AI level is

4) sound

5) music (yes, music IS a part of a game, smth many tend to forget). 

I remember trying Warsow, OpenArena, but that was long ago. I will give those games a run, thanks.

Thursday, July 17, 2014 - 13:17

@Julius, :)

Many years ago, when I became PC user my starting environment was Mandrake Linux (v8, if I am not mistaken). I got access to Win-based computer rather lately. And all those years, and still, I was and am a PC game fan. When I bought PC that ran windows, my game world has been expanded like the universe during the fisrt 3.5 minutes. My mind was blown away. Every attempt to compare FOSS games that I loved to commercial ones made me feel miserable. I do not to compare anymore.

Once I got involved in game creation I realized why there is such a huge gap, which, to my understanding, will never close. Except m.b. in some niche multiplayer frag'em "games". Can you recommend anything comparable to UT2004?

Thursday, July 17, 2014 - 12:52

@Redshrike, true. Lots of garbage out there in all eras. Simply because the number of actually playable games, crappy or not, stunningly outweighs all FOSS game-like project. And the number of masterpieces still outweighs all FOSS "games". I admit you can find occasionally something like Super Hedge Wars (which I did play, btw), wich has everything but one or another thing missing. These "holes" present in all (even best) FOSS projects is what turns me off. No doubt, say Naev is much better than all crap commercial games, but this is still not a game in full sense of the word.

Having participated in game-creation for fun and money and having learned a bit about game design/production, I came to the definition of "game" which almost none of the FOSS projects satisfy (however many crappy commercial games do).

This is not to diminish the efforts of those who participate in FOSS projects, game-like or otherwise. But what they are doing just can not be full-fledged games.

Thursday, July 17, 2014 - 09:41

The reason you do not agree is that by "game" you mean something different. Your definition is a little bit broader so that you are even willing to put Flare into it.

It is customary to give Wesnoth as an example when talking about more or less complete game-like projects. I have played it, and played other games of the same genre and tend to view Wesnoth as nice, but not a solid experience. This "solidness" of experience is absent from each and every FOSS "game" I checked (inlcuding Freeciv, TuxRacer, Tremolous, OpenTTD, Freedroid, Wesnoth and almost every other runnable game). M.b. my expectations are too high, but they are formed by the commercial games. Those are, mostly, so well done that a game from '80 will surpass any FOSS game-like project made today. Sad but true.

Thursday, July 17, 2014 - 09:17

There are no FOSS games. There are attempts to play around with game design/graphics etc. To make a complete, playable, well-tested, interesting game you need a focused team of professionals from various fields. Not happening in FOSS. Never seen one worth playing. So we are not even in the 80's, we are out of the game altogether. My opinion, though. 

Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - 09:38

I enjoyed playing it, rqe. Nice game!

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