Penumbra: Overture Goes Open Source 74
As promised when the Humble Indie Bundle hit $1 million in donations the other day, indie developer Frictional Games has released Penumbra: Overture's source code. "The code for Penumbra: Overture is a continuation of the one used for the tech demo + some addition for the not so long lived Robo Hatch project. It also contains some code from Unbirth, giving it quite some history." The release also includes the HPL1 engine. "This is engine that has powered all of the Penumbra games and it even includes the stuff used to create the 2D platformer Energetic. The engine code was started in December 2004 and was actively developed until early 2008." The repositories are available at github.
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Wouldn't that be YOU are open source since you're compiled from your parents?
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Not if he's BSD
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FREE software shouldn't be like that. FREE sfotware is about giving back your changes to the community, to the centralized repository. Git is dangerous for free software.
Where is it defined that free software is about giving back your changes?
If you want truly free software, then you have to take the both worlds and accept that people aren't required to contribute back. Even less so if they just keep those modifications private and to themself, which even GPL allows. It isn't really any better than proprietary software if you also want to make restrictions and demands on how you can use free and/or open source software.
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Oh you...
Re:git (Score:5, Insightful)
Where Freedom Is. (Score:3, Insightful)
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"That person will always be free to receive distributed updates to their software as long as interest and activity for it exists."
That is no more true for GPL'ed software than for software of any other license. As long as interest exists, it exists.
"That software is free to use anywhere without guaranteeing the end-user receive free updates."
No different than the GPL. Nowhere in the GPL is there any assurance of future GPL releases of anything.
"A consequence of the software itself having the Freedom is th
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The GPL squarely puts the Freedom with the end-user.
Well, and perhaps more poignantly, the GPL makes no distinction between the "end user" and the "developer." That is, the so-called end user might just as easily be a developer as well. In the Free Software world, there is no "priesthood" that develops software and no flock of users-as-supplicants. Everybody is just a person using a computer, and everyone has equal right to do with the software as they see fit -- just so long as they agree not to deny that right to anybody else.
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People are egotistic, as always. You ask them if they're qualified to pick a president and they respond with what they're entitled to.
I guess it's a natural consequence of allowing everyone to think they're special.
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Whats wrong with that? Even Richard Stallman's license allows this. Plus, no one is forcing you to use git for your code. If you have a problem with it, use a different vcs.
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This is complete and utter bullshit. Centralised VCS also encourages people to keep their modifications private, because most of them won't have commit privileges anyway.
Re:git (Score:4, Insightful)
People are gaga over git. You shouldn't be. Git is a decentralized vcs... Use bzr or mercury if you like FREE software.
Let me translate: "Don't use git. Git is bad because it's a decentralized VCS. Use one of these other decentralized VCSs instead."
Troll.
-1 self-contradictory. (Score:2)
Git is a decentralized vcs, which means it's easy for someone to download the source, make modifications, but keep those modifications private.... Use bzr or mercury if you like FREE software.
What's mercury? (Maybe you meant mercurial?) And both bzr and mercurial are both just as decentralized.
I know Linus Torvaldes is your hero, but let's be honest. Before git, his rcs of choice was the non-FREE BitKeeper.
And before that, his rcs of choice was none at all, because that's how much of a difference a dvcs makes over non-distributed.
FREE sfotware is about giving back your changes to the community, to the centralized repository.
Free "sfotware" doesn't exist. Free software is about giving your changes back to the community however you want, including not at all if you so desire. If I want to fork and develop on my own, in private, it's going to be very hard to merge that stuff back if I use svn. If I use Gi
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Penumbra Wiki [wikipedia.org] Quote from wikipedia:
The game's main focus is on exploration and classic adventure game object interaction: examining and collecting objects and using them to solve puzzles.
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IOW it's an engine for character-driven 3D games.
Re:Useless summary (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never heard of this game and neither the summary nor TFA actually told me anything about it. According to Wikipedia, it's a first-person adventure game with a focus on Newtonian physics, improvised weapons, and no firearms. Is it really too much effort for the person writing the summary to bother saying that?
The story isn't really about what kind of game Penumbra is... It's about the fact that the source code was opened up. With the source code now available, the content of the original game is somewhat irrelevant as people will (hopefully) use the code to develop their own games.
Additionally, this is not the first mention of Penumbra or the Indie Bundle here on Slashdot. One of the previous stories is mentioned (and linked-to) right in the summary.
I mean... Sure, they could have included a description of the game... And they could have provided a description of the Indie Bundle as well... And defined what Open Source means... And what github is... And maybe some of that stuff might have been useful... But at some point it just seems kind of excessive.
The story is about the code, and they provided a description of the code.
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That's true, but people do get curious, and like the GP mentioned adding the info is such a trivial thing. I mean to make an analogy, lets say (god forbid) Linus Torvalds died. I don't think anyone would say we shouldn't talk about his life anymore because as a corpse he's no longer relevant to the living.
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To be fair the game has been on /. a few times before, but it is annoying when summaries do not give general details about what they are talking about.
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review counterpoint (mild spoilers) (Score:4, Interesting)
As a counterpoint, I'd just like to weigh in with my opinion that the second and third in the series are rather disappointing. I kept playing because the plot was, indeed, engrossing. There is no question there: they've absolutely nailed the video game "port" of a good Lovecraft story. There is no doubt that they are worth the price; however, I felt a bit cheated with the sequels. The plot begs you to continue, but the gameplay becomes a tedious challenge instead of a nerve-tingling joy. Overall, the series succeeds on the strength of its plot, despite gameplay; whereas the first entry masterfully combined them both.
Part two, Black Plague, replaces a menacing enemy with an outright frustrating one, and its puzzles begin to wear thin. The horror in the first part, Overture, comes from a series of uncannily well-executed escalations: at the moment you are finally exasperated from running from an enemy, circumstances turn in your favor. As you acclimate to this, another enemy is introduced requiring more adaptation. This staging was nothing less than a stroke of genius.
In contrast, for the entirety of Black Plague you are completely defenseless. This would be OK were it not for the scripting/AI of your sole enemy. Occasionally you may even need to engage and run away from an enemy since they are blocking a goal. Repeated ad nauseam, this is not scary; it's just annoying. These frustrations are also present in Overture, but as an exception. In Black Plague they have become the rule.
Likewise the stealth-orienteering of Overture has been mostly replaced by puzzles which are either insulting straightforward or require rather silly, contrived solutions in the spirit of Sierra games (although simpler). Certain sections require the use of a (filth-encrusted) gas mask which serves, gameplay-wise, only to make life more difficult by obscuring your vision. Again, this is neither challenging nor scary; it's just annoying. To add insult to injury, your character has in his inventory a bottle of alcohol and a rag which cannot be used to clean the damned thing; you see, they are for use in a puzzle later on. Further, as in most physics-puzzle games, the promise of "multiple solutions" reminds one of the hillbilly bar in Blues Brothers which played both kinds of music, country and western. Indeed, one may cross an obstacle using either a stack of crates or a stack of barrels.
With the final entry of the series, the developers seem to have finally accepted defeat in the combat/stealth genre; it's a pure first-person puzzle-platformer which, to put it mildly, deviates somewhat radically from the spirit of the first two and borrows quite a bit from the spirit of Portal (to which there is a bit of an homage in the second level), as a somewhat deranged alien intelligence guides the character through a sequence of tests. At least it's passable gameplay, but the gameplay and the plot have at long last become totally orthogonal.
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Great points, all. Thank you for your insight, as I've not yet had a chance to play the third one yet. From what you have said, I haven't really missed much :/
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Yes, it just reiterates the plot of the first two with some variation. Although of course the series cleverly uses deja vu as a motif, so repetition is not only excusable but fundamental to the story. I'll have to remember that trick if I ever write a game. ;-)
I played it mostly because I hoped it would get better; and, hey, it was at least a semi-decent linux game. Save it for a rainy day.
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Not the whole game (Score:1)
First of all it's great that they have done this, any contribution to open source is a nice thing to have.
With that said I question their motives it seems to me like they're using this release as an excuse to not have to provide support for their old games. Also it's not even the whole game code that is open source..
That seems to me like a big chunk
Re:Not the whole game (Score:5, Informative)
Nice job selectively quoting to be misleading. Here is the entirety of that quote:
In other words, this is the entirety of the source code for Penumbra: Oveture. AI, GUI, etc are all present. What it isn't is the sourcecode for the next two games in the series, Black Plague and Requiem.
*Note that the art resources have not been open sourced. You should still purchase the game if you want to play it, but now you can build your own binary. This is basically what iD has done in the past with their old Quake engines.
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I didn't selectively quote. It states three facts.
It won't run on their later games and the AI for infected plus GUI elements are missing.
You're failing to see the full stop at the end of the sentence.
Either way I checked the source code..
GameEnemy_Worm.h
GameEnemy_Spider.h
GameEnemy_Dog.h
No AI for the human infected.
Thinking about it the author could mean that Human AI and GUI elements that are attached to mesh objects aren't included because they were specific to the later games, but then I can't really rem
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Penumbra:Overture had no human infected. It only had dogs, spiders and worms. Humans come in during Black Plague.
Re:Not the whole game (Score:4, Insightful)
It won't run on their later games because the AI for infected plus GUI elements are missing.
there, fixed.
It lacks GUI elements added in later games. It also adds AI for creatures found in later games - all three enemies found in Overture are included. (one of the humans in the Overture is never seen, the other is strictly scripted, no AI)
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Note: you only have to pay 1 cent for a bundleof games including Overture.
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AI, GUI, etc are all present.
What part of
AI for the infected, GUI elements, etc are all missing,
don’t you understand?
It being possible to implement them, does not mean they are present. The interface that the AI needs to control the infected, plus the inner functions that the UI triggers, are there. But the whole UI layer itself and the actual AI scripts that use the interfaces are missing.
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From the article, as a paragraph all to itself:
These two sentences comprise the entire paragraph. Thus, logically, hey are related. If you were not previously familar with the games, then you should understand that there are 3 separate games, Overture
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First of all it's great that they have done this, any contribution to open source is a nice thing to have.
With that said I question their motives it seems to me like they're using this release as an excuse to not have to provide support for their old games. Also it's not even the whole game code that is open source..
That seems to me like a big chunk of the game is missing, no AI, no GUI.. pretty much most of the "game" part.
That is grossly unfair to say. They released the engine, which would constitute a great deal of the game logic. I'd say that's pretty significant. Especially given how unique their games are.
Given an example, if let's say Windows kernel was opened without the Windowing system, GUI elements, etc. Would you consider that without most of the "OS" part?
Other examples: Unreal engine, Quake engine, FreeCiv, ScummVM
And it's not just one, but for 4 games, with possibly more planned. http://www.wolfire.com/humb
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I never criticized them for releasing the game as open source. In fact I did the opposite. I praised them.
Re:Not the whole game (Score:4, Insightful)
With that said I question their motives it seems to me like they're using this release as an excuse to not have to provide support for their old games.
sounds like a fair trade to me. They get to stop supporting it, we get the source. Everyone wins. Who cares if we don't get game assets, or the engine to the new games? Maybe if those games run their course, we'll get the new code, and the best parts of it can be merged in, or the best mods can be merged to the new tree.
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With that said I question their motives it seems to me like they're using this release as an excuse to not have to provide support for their old games.
I think their motive is to increase their businesses revenues (which is just fine of course, they are a business after all, and that's what businesses are supposed to do). Cheap (not free, because open sourcing requires a bit of extra work, which isn't free) PR is probably the main motive.
Only the engine was released (Score:2)
These games from the Humble Indy Bundle have not been released under a free license, nor does it appear they will be. All that is being released are their engines. There are already dozens of free software game engines available with no free software games which use them.
While this is a nice gesture, and does raise some awareness for software freedom, its important to point out that the games themselves are still very much proprietary.
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I think you'll find that their expectations are generally met.
Re:Only the engine was released (Score:5, Insightful)
These games from the Humble Indy Bundle have not been released under a free license, nor does it appear they will be. All that is being released are their engines.
Following the ID tradition.
There are already dozens of free software game engines available with no free software games which use them.
And because of Engine only releases Open Source developers have been able to produce a host of new games. From the Quake engines alone we have Tremulous, Warsow, Alien Arena just to name a few. [associatedcontent.com]
Having a proven Engine under your Project allows developers to focus on Assets and Level Design and tweaking the gameplay to a much larger degree than is possible if developing the engine as well.
There is another benefit to the original developers and users in that their games survive onto the next era of computing and gaming devices.(iPhones, Androids and insert your favorite tablet device here)
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Exactly! I would also like to point out that like the iD engines the Penumbra engine is already multi-platform and runs on osx/linux/win.
I don't know how anyone can see this release as anything other than a good thing. /shrug
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iD set the standard for this and it's worked very well for us all. They released the code base for doom minus the lousy proprietary sound system and I can now play doom or freedoom with several engines. They're release the quake series of engines as open source and there are several very good games made with them.
Depth-of-field method? (Score:1)
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Check this [youtube.com] vid, it's explained here:
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Humble Indy Bundle (Score:1)