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Linux Business Entertainment Games

LGP Announces Game Development Team 218

Posted by michael from the male-bonding dept.
Ronald Hymer writes "Linuxlookup.com is reporting Linux Game Publishing has announced the Linux Game Development Project team. The eight winners of LGP's game development company initiative were announced last evening and Linuxlookup's very own resident programmer Matt Wilson was granted one of the eight positions on the team. Along with project information, they link submitted code samples along with the team member URL's." See our previous story about this. Hey team: no penguins in your game, okay?
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LGP Announces Game Development Team More

LGP Announces Game Development Team

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  • Adventure games?

    • Re:Cool... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Randolpho ( 628485 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:34PM (#5538124) Homepage Journal
      Yes! I second this wholeheartedly!!!!1!11!!!!!!

      I miss old-skool graphic adventures. Sure, go 3D if ya gotta, but stick to the gameplay similar to, say, the old Sierra *Quest series.

      And remember... Story, Graphics, Story, Gameplay, Story!
      • i think the adventure game market could be huge now...if they market it correctly. I mean come on, the last few FinalFantasy's played like a washed up wanna-be King's Quest with a bad combat system....and Resident Evil is just Alone in the Dark with a gun.

      • Re:Cool... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by thx2001r ( 635969 )
        Yep,

        And, hey, if they MUST use first person, why not a first person multi-player game WITH a story... imagine king's quest first person where you walk around a 3d environment... what if you took your friends along with you for the quest? That way you can chat with them and you can all cooperatively solve problems / puzzles / decide on things?
        • Like EverCrack with puzzles? What are you trying to do to the world?!
        • -----QUOTE-----
          And, hey, if they MUST use first person, why not a first person multi-player game WITH a story... imagine king's quest first person where you walk around a 3d environment... what if you took your friends along with you for the quest? That way you can chat with them and you can all cooperatively solve problems / puzzles / decide on things?
          -----ENDQUOTE-----

          Isn't that exactly what A Tale in The Desert [atitd.com] offers? And with a Linux-Native Client too!
          • I checked out A Tale in The Desert and it is very interesting. However it didn't really seem much like a game to me. The puzzles seemed like pedantic rituals. I felt like I was going through the levels in the Masonic lodge. Player interaction was confined to being helpful to each other so it could have been called "Mr. Roger Visits Ancient Egypt." I don't want to sound completely negative though. I haven't seen any other MMORPGs for Linux so I have nothing to compare it against. As an creative experiment it

      • Re:Cool... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by FortKnox ( 169099 )
        I agree that the old *Quest games rule (personal fav is Heros Quest, or "Quest for Glory" as it used to be called), however, it was found that adventure games simply don't sell anymore. There was a sharp decline in adventure game sales as soon as FPS became popular.
      • Sierra (when they were still named Online Systems) published a game called Softporn Adventures.

        Here's an image of the box [wise-ebusiness.com].
        Here it is emulated [ifiction.org]. 100% text! Softporn indeed. ;)
    • Homer: How about a prequel to something. Everybody loves a prequel.
  • From the article, they don't appear to have any game ideas yet... I only hope they come up with something good.

    • Re:No game ideas yet! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dreamchaser ( 49529 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:31PM (#5538106) Homepage Journal
      Maybe we should help! Perhaps an approach similar to how we pick interview questions: take the top ten moderated ideas and send them the link!

      Of course, they may have some vague ideas already. Personally, I'd like to see something combining the storyline of a good RPG with the action of a good FPS. Open ended would be nice, something like Privateer or Freelancer but in a fantasy or military setting rather than as a space sim.

      • Personally, I'd like to see something combining the storyline of a good RPG with the action of a good FPS. Open ended would be nice, something like Privateer or Freelancer but in a fantasy or military setting rather than as a space sim.

        Not that I'd mind any of those things, but when you can refer to the genre of your game in shorthand ("FPS") and you want to re-make existing games in a different setting, that's hardly breaking new ground. Do we want the open community to produce nothing but less-polished

      • People are wondering about business models, etc. But lets look at what is happening here. Yes they are probably creating closed source products. But the fact of the matter is that they have an open development process. This is a totally new twist to building software.

        I truly find this interesting, especially with your twist of suggestions from the slashdot community...

  • Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:29PM (#5538083) Homepage Journal
    Good luck competing in todays PC gaming market (hope you have the cash to buy a good game engine instead of taking the time to make one from scratch).
    Remember, graphics and wizbangs are what makes the sale, but plot and fun is what makes a game outlast time.
    • Well, fortunately for the people in the project, many of the good game engines out there originated from the work of people like them (that started from scratch).

      And who knows, maybe they'll even develop some kind of new game genre that is better than recycling the game engines everyone else licenses or clones (ahem, FPS, can we come up with a new genre?).

      • Re:Good Luck (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Osty ( 16825 )

        And who knows, maybe they'll even develop some kind of new game genre that is better than recycling the game engines everyone else licenses or clones (ahem, FPS, can we come up with a new genre?).

        A game engine is just that -- an engine. Quake, Unreal, etc don't have to be used in FPS games (witness Anachronox, Splinter Cell). I think it's unfair to think of these engines as FPS engines, because they're not -- they are 3D world engines, and can be used by developers to do whatever they can imagine (wi

    • Re:Good Luck (Score:5, Informative)

      by blitzoid ( 618964 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:34PM (#5538125) Homepage
      There are some good game engines out there that are cheap.

      For instance, Torque, the engine Tribes 2 is based on, is available for $100 dollars. And in addition to that, you can test it out a bit beforehand. It works with Windows, Mac, and Linux. Not every game engine costs several hundred thousand dollars.

      And last time I checked, Tribes 2 didn't look too amateurish or cheaply made.
      • you can test it out a bit beforehand

        By test it out, do you mean play with it, or can you play with the code?

        Honestly, I think the Torque engine is excellent for breaking into the industry, but if I had the financial backing, I'd go for the Havok engine.
        • ... if I had the financial backing, I'd go for the Havok engine.

          Unless something's changed recently, the Havok engine is solely for physics. (Not that this fact would preclude you from using it if you had financial backing ;)
      • Torque has got to have one of the more compelling liscensing plans I have heard of. That and the game can kick in some great fogging, lighting and textures (given the beefy hardware). I remember loading up Tribes 2 on the same machine I had Tribes1. I couldn't even run it in hardware (ok so Tribes2 didn't like my 3dfx card's API). It took a full system upgrade to play that game. Granted, that was an upgrade to a GF2 and a 7200RPM ata100 hard drive from an ATA66 5400rpm.

        I would like to see a Tribes engi

    • Re:Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:50PM (#5538279)
      but plot and fun is what makes a game outlast time.

      Wow, I still have my 21 year old Ms. Pacman machine. There's no plot. There's no graphics. Yet it somehow stands the test of time (also the fact that they recently re-released it in conjunction w/another arcade classic).

      • You misparsed the original post. (Score:4, Informative)

        by doublem ( 118724 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:59PM (#5539809) Homepage Journal
        but plot and fun...

        Remember, this is an English Language Query, NOT a boolean. Therefore the original poster did not mean you had to have plot AND fun in order for the game to have staying power, but that plot and fun were two members of the set of criteria that can result in staying power. Therefore, a game with plot alone can have staying power, a game with fun alone (Ms. Pacman for example) can have staying power, and a game with plot AND fun can have staying power.

        You responded rudely to a post that did NOT exclude your game from the possible set of games with staying power. Ms. Pacman is "fun" and therefore has the possibility to have stying power within the parameters of the original post.
    • No need to purchase an expensive 3D engine. The Tux Racer engine is GPL'd and kicks ass!
    • Good luck competing in todays PC gaming market (hope you have the cash to buy a good game engine instead of taking the time to make one from scratch).

      Check out neoengine [sourceforge.net] out. It's already a good engine, and getting better. The main author is a pro who makes his living doing character animation, so mesh animation isn't in the code base. But you can add it, and I suppose the author will take it, and if not, that's ok too.

  • Penguin turds (Score:3, Insightful)

    by shlong ( 121504 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:30PM (#5538091) Homepage
    Hey team: no penguins in your game, okay?
    Amen brother!

  • Hopefully not Linux versions of... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by L0stb0Y ( 108220 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:30PM (#5538093) Journal
    ...all those microsoft.com games that EVERY PERSON IN MY OFFICE SEEMS TO PLAY...

    Bespelled, Bejeweled....hell, I was starting to think BeOS was making a comeback in the online games industry...

    Actually, it would be great to see some Linux games that could still be enjoyable on slightly older machines...

    But I second the opinion, please, no Giant Robotic penguins battling for supreme server space....

    A nice Mech game would be good...

    LosT
    • A nice Mech game would be nice. However, since MS bought out FASA Interactive, the team might be seen to copy Battletech/Mechwarrior games. Probably not a good idea for a first go.
      • I was under the impression that Battletech as a concept was a direct descendant of the Robotech series.

        What made Battletech unique was the universe and gameplay, not the 'Mech concept.

        Anyone who thinks you have to be FASA to make a 'Mech game need only look as far as Earthseige. So long as you don't use the term "'Mech", and juggle the weapons and designs a bit, you should be fine on the copyright thing.
    • no penguins in your game, okay?
      A nice Mech game would be good...

      [in a voice similar to Mr. Burns, but with a touch more mad scientist]
      Yesss.... a nice Penguin mech game...

      --

      Was it the sheep climbing onto the altar, or the cattle lowing to be slain,
      or the Son of God hanging dead and bloodied on a cross that told me this was a world condemned, but loved and bought with blood.

  • Well, that's a good start... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by obli ( 650741 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:30PM (#5538096)
    Looks like they haven't got any game to develop yet tho. Perhaps they can hook up with some other game designers and make their games more linux-friendly?

  • Weird concept... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mschoolbus ( 627182 ) <{travisriley} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:31PM (#5538100)
    Try to make a Linux game that doesn't reek of amateurish game play and graphics for once...
  • LGP's current game, Ballistics, is looking pretty sweet. It's a 3D racing game with fighting and other neato things.

  • And since they don't seem to have any game ideas (Score:5, Funny)

    by L0stb0Y ( 108220 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:34PM (#5538126) Journal
    how about

    Duke Penguin
    Mortal Linuks
    Leisure Suit Linus
    Max Penguin
    Splinter Server: The M$ add-on

    Sorry.

    It's one of *those* days.

    LosT

  • What really happened (Score:5, Funny)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:36PM (#5538143) Homepage Journal
    Having received only seven applications in all for the post, linuxlookup.com made up the deficit by "granting" the remaining position to one of their own programmers :)

  • I'm on windows because (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mwolff ( 594593 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:37PM (#5538149)
    Yeah, the only flaw I can find with Linux is the lack of games.
    • Surely buggy GUIs outweigh a lack of games...

      </flamebait>
    • Well, you might be on Windows for a while then. There are quite a few games for Windows that run under WINE and WineX but, at least as of right now, they don't have the same level of stability (can't believe I'm saying this) as running them on native Windows. There are some very good games that run natively under Linux but, like you pointed out, the selection is quite limited. If you really want to ditch Windows then you should consider buying a console for gaming. Sadly, the popularity of DirectX combined

  • This is like the real world.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by xchino ( 591175 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:41PM (#5538200)
    This is the true story (true story) of eight unrelated programmers picked to work on a Linux project and have their code made open. This is what happens when programmers stop being nice, and start being real.

    Seriously, I could see this as being the next big reality TV series. I have no doubt that there will be some serious "static" between these people. What kind of leadership model is there going ot be? Are they just throwing them together and letting them work it out amongst themselves? I worked on a Linux game with my best friend, and we were at each others throats within a week and had to ditch the project before we killed each other.

    • Re:This is like the real world.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Soko ( 17987 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @03:09PM (#5538422) Homepage
      Seriously, I could see this as being the next big reality TV series.

      Please, please $DIETY, make sure there's no TV execs reading this thread. PLEASE!!!! I can see it now...

      (Fade in from the final commercial...)

      Coder1: OK, so, what happened this week? Who gets voted out of the group?
      Coder3: Coder7 totally hosed our CVS tree - he should go...
      Coder7: No I didn't! Hey, Linus hisself uses BitKeeper fercryinoutloud...
      Coder4: That wasn't as bad to our chances of success as what Coder 5 did. I mean, that robot that could strip any female character naked and then turn her to stone was *lame* in the extreme.
      Coder5: Not as bad as your trap door that looked like the gotasex guy.
      Coder6: I say Coder2 goes. He's done the unthinkable.
      All: ????
      Coder6: He ported the whole project to .Net in a day and a half.
      Coder1: GAH! Heresy! Coder2 it is!"

      Soko
  • Does anyone have a link to the Linux Game Project's homepage? I googled for it, but didn't find it. (?!)

    • Re:LGP link? (Score:2, Informative)

      by AndrewNelson ( 171986 )
      It's actually http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com - and the development company's site is http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/devcompany.php

      HTH

  • No penguins. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wan't a game with chicks, guns and blood.. NOT merchandise for the OS it runs best on...
  • freeMoo2 like freeCiv2 I would be happy enough. Of course I would be even happier with freeDoom3.

  • A suggestion for story (Score:5, Interesting)

    by michaelggreer ( 612022 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:50PM (#5538272)
    In the past ten years, people having been flocking to get MFAs in creative writing. There are tons of writers out there. However, it always seem like game developers think that it would be better if they wrote their own stories and scripts. Writing is not a trivial business. I mean, everyone can write, but everyone can sing too. Why not get a writer to write? I understand it becomes a matter of control, and that the developers want to put in their own birlliant anime-influenced ideas, but its like letting the programmers draw the graphics. I suggest getting a writer to write the story, and let them run the story.
    • that pro writer would have to understand things about gaming too.

      you can't make a 'free open ended game' by having totally restrictive one way going awful predictable plot. freelancer had just this.. awful plot for that type of game (cliches don't matter though), the writer maybe thought that 'open ended' in computer games means that you dont finish the story properly AT ALL.

      doom has awful plot, yet it was fantastic game, lots of very good arcade games have cliche plots but that's whats best for them.

      the

  • I just want to know (Score:5, Funny)

    by AndrewNelson ( 171986 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:50PM (#5538275) Journal
    ... how I got labelled an "International Man of Mystery".

  • I'm still hoping for "alternate reality"... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dmorin ( 25609 ) <dmorin@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:56PM (#5538336) Homepage Journal
    When the first story came out I suggested a "new type of game" that "follows me around". Another recent story on Slashdot informs me that those are called "Alternate Reality" games. You know, the kind that email you with clues or have AIs call you on your cell phone.

    Make one of those, please. The dependence on the 3D card of the user will be minimal. The influence of Linux will be huge. It'll be a new new thing, not a copy of the old new thing. It'll be a challenge.

    • Hm, I don't know much about the "Alternate Reality" games, but they seems to requiere a significant investment on the part of the company, during the entire game run, and once it's no longer "support" it, you can't really play the game... just doesn't seem like a good fit.

      Incidentally, "Alternate Reality" seems like a bit of a misnomer - isn't the whole point that the games are played, in part, in our reality (phone calls and faxes and all that)? It's traditional computer games where the action takes place

  • a MMORPG entitled:

    'Linux Warriors: The Battle of /.'
  • Not even Tuxamillion? The Penguin version of Maximillion?

    StarTux

  • Hey I've an idea (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zannox ( 173829 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @03:07PM (#5538407)
    Without sounding sarcastic, what to they expect to accomplish? Loki tried; they had excellent game engines and talented programmers. Tribes 2, Hero's of Might & Magic 3, Heavy Gear 2, Heretic 2, Railroad Tycoon, Myth 1 & 2. Not to mention the Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3 and the ton of Quake 2/3 based games. **IF** Loki's biggest problem was indeed mismanagement then lets hope LGP has better people in charge.

    I think they should start with Tribes 3 :) Hey LGP!!! Give Sierra a call. I'm sure they will hook you up like they did Loki. "You can co-develop along with windows, can't release it till 6 months after the windows client is released. PLUS we will charge you 100's of 1000's of bucks for engine licensing. Then, we will release the engine for 100 bucks AFTER you've folded" /sarcasm

  • This would have been great for Idremna. :) But hey, perhaps these linux games could be easily ported to such a console if the future does bring one to life?

  • Linuxlookup story plagiarised from happypenguin (Score:5, Informative)

    by bobz ( 1527 ) <bobzimbinskiNO@SPAMme.com> on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @03:14PM (#5538456)
    The entire writeup at linuxlookup.com was lifted verbatim from my announcement at happypenguin.org [happypenguin.org]. As far as I know, this team has not been announced *anywhere* yet besides happypenguin. Plagiarism sucks, guys.

  • One possible project (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kiwi ( 5214 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @03:15PM (#5538460) Homepage Journal
    One project these developers can do is finish up and polish xconq [redhat.com], which is a GPL multi-platform real-time strategy wargame which has been in a perpetual state of being incomplete for 17 years now. The game has only two part-time developers and one of them is becoming blind [redhat.com]; this game has a lot of promise and I would love to see it get the kind of professional polish that a team of eight programmers working on it for a year can give it.

    I much prefer an open-source game; it allows me to make tweaks and implement house rules [samiam.org]; something a proprietary game does not allow.

    - Sam

    • >GPL multi-platform real-time strategy

      Interesting site though a bit old.

      From the screen shots it looks like a turn based strategy game not a RTS.

      Which is fine with me.
    • I much prefer an open-source game; it allows me to make tweaks and implement house rules; something a proprietary game does not allow.

      Mods.

      Doom has allowed modification for a while, the Quakes had something too.

      Most of the early Half-Life mods were (bad) implementations of various house rules. Dumb things like letting you change the color of the laser weapons, but still interesting.

      Unreal Tournament (and Unreal itself?) have mutators that allow you to easily mutate one small aspect of gameplay, all

    • Seventeen years? Looks like Linux has Duke Nukem Forever beat hands down!

      Go linux developers go!
  • For those of you that don't know, Spaceward Ho! (that's not being a Ho!) was a space exploration/strategy game for the Mac. It was a lot of fun. sort of Civ'ish.

  • No game ideas yet...duh! (Score:3, Informative)

    by sbaker ( 47485 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @07:14PM (#5540351) Homepage
    The team were only informed that they'd been selected sometime late last night!

    It's a bit early to expect anything other than "getting to know each other" chat via email.
  • I think in the original contest document, they stated that they'd purchase the required devlopment tools, eg. the torque engine (I think they should have called it the Newton-Metre engine, har har). Torque is a pretty nice engine really, good enough anyway, games aren't built on graphics alone. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing a game with some Tribes-like aspects. I found Tribes fun mostly because of the challenge, and freedom. The challenge comes from the speed, and funny physics they employ (most people do

  • Cool! Steve Baker (Score:3, Informative)

    by philovivero ( 321158 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @07:41PM (#5540520) Homepage Journal
    Most people probably don't know who Steve Baker is. He's been in the Linux 3D community for AGES. He started out as a big-time contributor to FlightGear, the open-source and relatively good flight simulator. However, he was working for a big commercial outfit that eventually decided his participation in the project was a conflict of interest, and he had to drop out.

    He began developing a 3D library for "toy games," but this was just an elaborate ruse. In fact, the 3D library was quite useful for (you guessed it) the FlightGear project.

    Since then, his publically-stated stance of developing this 3D library for games got some notice from game developers that took him seriously, and in the vein of "self-fulfilling prophecies" his libraries became quite good at their officially-stated purpose.

    Steve Baker is one of the little heroes in my own personal list of little heroes, which would include a whole lot of names no-one knows despite the fact that they're extremely important in the open source world.

    (sigh) Thanks, Steve et al.
  • Games are more than code. This team seems unbalanced.

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