Game Beavers Try Collective Approach To Development

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the Game Beavers independent game site, which bills itself as "a non profit corporation owned and managed by its licensed members." This ambitious project explains that those who can participate must "...have contributed at least three game assets and have signed the legal agreement allowing the other members the rights to use their submitted assets", which "includes code, 3D models, maps, game levels, textures, music, sound, and everything needed to build a game except the engine." This game engine currently needs to be the $100-per-programmer Torque Engine from GarageGames, who also mention the launch on their site. The Game Beavers site include a sample Windows game built using shared assets, Beaver Patrol, and the site FAQ has more information on the overall concept.

kinda laggy

[xilmaril]

(I just tried it out. this isn't an informed opinion, just mine)

as gameplay goes, they have a long way to go. it's laggy as hell, respawns you exactly where you died, that sort of thing, but like the description said, it's just a demo.

grahpics, on the other hand, look decent. not excellent, but not too shabby. now, if only they'd release all this gpl, we'd have a 2nd half-decent OS FPS.

What other open source FPS?

[Peter Cooper]

Just interested, but what are you considering to be the first (and therefore 'only', by what you say) 'half-decent' open source FPS? Quake? If it's not Quake, I'd like to check it out, whatever it is.

Re:What other open source FPS?

[Zork the Almighty]

I'm not sure about the game, but the Cube [fov120.com] engine looks good. There's also the Crystal Space [sourceforge.net] engine.

Re:kinda laggy

[tigeba]

Check out Garage Games site for demos of actual games made with Torque (Think Tanks, etc) for a demonstration of the engine's ability. I think you will be impressed with its quality. Most aspects of the engine are scriptable and you can do that for free. The Torque SDK, while not open-source, is insanely cheap when you consider what you get, and the community of developers is quite large.

It is also worth mentioning that Torque runs on Win32, Linux, and MacOS X.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

This ambitious project explains that "individuals who have contributed at least three game assets and have signed the legal agreement allowing the other members the rights to use their submitted assets", which "includes code, 3D models, maps, game levels, textures, music, sound, and everything needed to build a game except the engine", which currently needs to be the $100-per-programmer Torque Engine from GarageGames, who also mention the launch on their site

Good god. It's gotten so bad that Slashdot can't even be bothered with complete sentences. Now an incomprehensible, endless string of prepositional phrases qualifies as an article.

Re:WTF?

[Cyphertube]

Shall we diagram this?

I won't. However, I will explain that "project" is the subject (word 3) and "explains" is the verb (word 4), and the object begins with "that" (word 5).

Yes, the structure of the sentence violates a lot of the principles of good writing, however it is merely a run-on sentence, not a string of prepositional phrases. Most of what you're referring to are dependent clauses. (Read more [commnet.edu].)

The Restrictedly Open Public Licence

[leoaugust]

It is an interesting "business model" and so here are a few of my observations. There was a discussion recently on Business Models at /. [slashdot.org]

The "business" proposition is:

You should see this as an opportunity for some well marketed free advertsising (sic) to get your name known amongst the independent developers. You will also be listed in the credits of the game so you will be recognized by an even larger audience of game players and mod developers.

Fair enough.

You should think of game beavers as your own independent game devlopment (sic) company providing you with the tallent (sic), team and assets needed to make your game.

Sounds like a public library but with the twist ... but not as twisted as Lexis or Dialog. A friendly librarian is ready to help you with all the data and information that you need. It is upto you to convert that to knowledge, which hopefully will result in some action.

But the membership to the library is a little restricted.

*** The game developers who have contributed 3 items and signed the license agreement become full game Beaver Licensed members and have all the rights to use the all the assets. ***

I know it is meant to "twist arms" of developers to get to contribute, but what immediately comes to mind is the "Creative Commons" model, which does not require only "contributors" to drink from the pond. So it is quite similar to Creative Commons except that instead of an Open Licence it is a licence to a restricted group. But, it is still not a closed licence. But how is all this going to be policed ?

None of the rights will be passed to anyone using game beaver's assets with out the written consent of a game beaver licensed member. We will maintain a list of individuals and parties who have been sublicensed by the licensed game beaver members. Although it is not required to submit a sublicense to Game Beavers, it does help us keep track of these things and helps to avoid any embarassment.

Interesting how a definite None so quickly becomes indefinite - although it is not required to submit. They might have to resolve a few policy and implementation issues in the Policing Department, and something soon will crop up to test their system if it becomes big enough.

Licensed members can sell derivative works, and they can sell the asset by bundling it with anything they add to it like skins etc. But they must include the standard license agreement and give credit to the original author. Any member that's (sic) wants to trade assets with another party should tell them to add it to the repository, they get what they need and we all get the new contribution.

I also find it interesting as to how they like to maintain the history of "asset." Compare it to the situation of cash in the economy, and analogy would be a system where your paycheck is given to you in cash, and then the cash is marked for you - where you can use it or not. It is not that weird if you just replace "cash" with "credit" (and it happens all the time) but the point was that the "asset" is now becoming something that has long history which must be maintained - it could become a baggage, a weapon in the wrong person's hand, or an attribute that helps the market stabilize. It is still too early to call.

It is time for the little guys to work together and make their dreams come true.

Only the little ones are welcome, but the littler ones will be kept out. And the big ones will of coruse stay out most of the time. Oh, it sounds like new-speak for class war, albeit in a hippy fashion to me.

Down with corporate politics and beuacracy (sic) that leads to dull games, and up with the indie and fresh new vital creativity!

Peace, Love and Hugs ...

Beaver Patrol is okay...

[Anonymous Coward]

Beaver patrol is okay... i just can't wait until Muff Diver comes out.

Beaver Patrol?

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

Sounds like a strange game, whichever kind of beaver they mean...