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."

Re:Suggestions for XONG remixers

[Robotron23]

Yeah I used to play Nethack a lot some time ago; learning a roguelike game gives one enough insight to spot any other game of the sort easily. Infact any young nerd who creates a game like XONG is very, very likely to have experience with a rogue-type game dating to the 1980s.

Nethack is common among nerds - and if you tire of the ASCII stuff you can commit a mild act of sacrilige and play a version more conventional in appearance one of which is included with the standard Nethack package that one can download at www.nethack.org . There have even been versions that are three dimensional in view perspective, but those haven't gotten too popular.

Re:How is this different from the mod scene?

[dto1138]

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.

Some comments from XONG's author

[dto1138]

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 [playthisthing.com] 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?

Author explains XONG gameplay

[dto1138]

Here is a youtube video i made a while back, showing gameplay with explanatory text. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9mi08KQDWw [youtube.com] 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.

Re:Because this game sucks, and is open source

[krzysz00]

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.

Such a game (which is open source) already exists. It's called Wesnoth [wesnoth.org]

P.S. Was this flame/troll?

Re:"Permissive" license

[Neil_Brown]

maintain the updates and the original code for x amount of years

I'm not aware that either licence requires you to do either of these things - under GNU GPL v3, the licence for the code, you have a number of options if you wish to distribute the covered code in binary form (article 6, GNU GPL 3.0) on a commercial basis, including:

• distribute the binary on a physical medium, accompanied by the source code on a fixed medium; and
• distribute the binary online, and offering equivalent access to the source code (i.e. just hosting both the source and the binary)

In neither case are you required to host / distribute the source code at any point after you cease to distribute the binary.

Similarly, in terms of "maintenance", your code can be as buggy as you wish - there is no obligation maintain, release new versions, merge patch submissions etc., unless you wish to do so.

(IAAL, doing quite a lot of open source work, but this is not legal advice :))

Re:"Permissive" license

[LingNoi]

I hate being told that if I make a modification to the code, I have to not only contribute it back

You don't, only if you republish the code in binary form.

maintain the updates and the original code for x amount of years.

Complete lie.

I'll maintain it (and provide access myself) for as long as I wish.

Good on you, that's exactly what you can do with both GPL and BSD.

Jak and Daxter

[tepples]

...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 [c2.com].

Re:"Permissive" license

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you can combine his BSD code with your GPL code and release it as GPL. That's what the term GPL-compatible means.

Re:"Permissive" license

[Neil_Brown]

Yes, those are examples of copyright infringement claims brought against those who fail to comply with licence requirements. However, those links do not support your position that GNU GPL 3.0 includes an obligation to maintain code, as your original post comments, but rather reflect that the code is licensed, rather than freely usable works in the public domain, and that, to use the code, one must comply with the licence requirements.

Cisco could have complied with the licensing terms, using either of the options above, without a need to provide access to source code after distribution of the binary / embedded product. However, if Cisco chose to make use of the "written offer" (s6(b) GNU GPL 3.0, s3(b) GNU GPL 2.0) route, and did not accompany distribution with source, then, yes, it has an obligation to make it available after the point of distribution. But, since this mechanism is optional, it is not a requirement - maintenance of code is only a requirement if one chooses to release binaries in this particular manner.

(There are obligations other than just source distribution, but, not the point of the discussion here - referenced just for completeness)