FreeGameDev Planet - Games

The bulk of this update consists of technical changes required to make Zero-K compatible with the latest engine version. We aim to update the engine version shortly, if everything goes to plan.

The benchmarking from last week successfully found an effect and we'd like everyone (around 100 people) who submitted a benchmark. The one-click benchmark has been changed to compare the old and new engine versions.

Balance and Behaviour

• Lobster now adjusts its trajectory against particularly high or low targets for more consistent lobbing.
• Commander heatray no longer fails to gain damage with range modules.
• Bandit unit AI now skirmishes against more targets.
• Artemis missiles now cost 80 metal each (up from being free).
• Widow no longer fires at radar dots by default.

Fixes

• Fixed small hovercraft sometimes failing to leave their factory automatically.
• Blocked gunship direct control exploit.
• Fixed dive bomber performance impact when diving many shields.
• Fixed Mearth.
• Fixed occasional random reordering of matchmaker queues.

EasyRPG is a role playing game creation tool. It is inspired by the similar software RPG Maker and EasyRPG is also compatible with RPG Maker 2000/2003 games. The player seems further along than the editor, but the latest release certainly seems massive and there a loads of supported platforms, so you can get this to run on most devices if you feel like playing a few classic RPG:s.

A test-game loaded into the EasyRPG player.

Nearly one year after the 0.9.3 release we are getting ready for the next release. And as many might know, we have actually been very busy working on the network implementation to allow online races. As expected, this has taken a lot of time, but we have finally reached a stage that we need more testing. For now we call this an alpha test, since there are still some known bugs and some polishing is required as well, but nothing that should affect the actual network race at this stage. De facto, we have been doing alpha tests with visitors on our IRC channel for some weeks now, so we actually do not expect any major bugs anymore.

In networked races the name of the player is shown on top of the karts

We are looking for people who can compile SuperTuxKart following our instructions themselves. You don't need to be able to program in C++ or anything. The main reason for asking you to compile yourself is that if a bug should occur, we can work with you to help us finding the bug. We are at the same time busy on working on a beta release (or even release candidate??), for which we will obviously provide binaries/installers for all common platforms. We actually don't expect this to be too far away ... fingers crossed.

SuperTuxKart Game Servers

We have over 20 servers running by volunteers (in Hongkong, Chicago, Netherlands, and some other locations) for the various game modes that we support, which includes normal race, time trial, battle mode, soccer and the new capture-the-flag and free-for-all modes.

Server Selection Screen

So, if you are able and willing to compile SuperTuxKart from git, follow the instructions but switch to the stable branch 'network' first. Also make sure to compile in release mode, debug mode is often too slow for the networking. Create an online account in STK, head for the online section and search for a server with a reasonable distance to you. If you connect to the server, the ping to that server will be shown - we would recommend to stay with servers that have a ping of under 100 ms. You can try servers with higher latency, and it should still work, but you might notice more often that karts stutter or are 'teleported' around.

 

Server Creation

Or create your own server and ask some friend to join, or head to our IRC channel #supertuxkart on the FreeNode network to ask for some people to join.

Server Setup Screen

We are also interested in getting some people to run some additional servers around the world, to offer a better ping for users. An STK server can even run on a Raspberry Pi 3. You can find instructions on network configuration in the file NETWORK.md (latest version here), but feel free to contact us if you have questions.

 

Testing

We would appreciate your feedback - especially how responsive and satisfying the race was, and what ping you had to the server you were using. Please provide feedback either in our forum, on our IRC channel, and file bug reports in our issue tracker.

Network Lobby

While this is happening, we will work on the important outstanding issues, and prepare a beta release which will of course include pre-compiled binaries and installer. Our main focus will be the interface, some physics issues, and other bug fixes. We are also interested to support playing with higher latency - but realistically there is only so much you can do if you will only know that a kart turned 600 ms after it happened (if both you and the other person have to wait 300 ms for a message to or from the server). In 600 ms a kart at high speed will have traveled over 13 meters. But we still have a few things to try out and improve on.

C-Dogs SDL 0.6.9 released! This release adds bullet trails to hitscan guns, as well as Superhot mode…

Hitscan trails

Hitscan guns were added several releases ago, but one notable thing was missing… bullet trails! Well this release belatedly adds them and take a look:

Superhot(tm) mode

Just for fun, we’ve added a new gameplay option. Just like its namesake, when enabled, time stops unless you are pressing a button.

Find it in the Game options menu!

Fixes and improvements

As usual, there are bug fixes and neat improvements in addition to the new features, that are worth upgrading for. Check it out in the release notes, and as always happy gaming! 💥🔫💥

Downloads and release notes: https://github.com/cxong/cdogs-sdl/releases/tag/0.6.9

With the latest release, there were some pretty significant visual updates (and audio). Additionally a couple of new units have been added. Here are some before and after shots of some of the models.

Overseer Before

Overseer After

Metal Extractor Before

Metal Extractor After

Immolator Before

Immolator After

Hover Factory Before

Hover Factory After

As you can see, the models now have full normal maps and have added reflectivity. Up close it looks nice, but when you are more zoomed out the effect is very apparent and makes all of the units look much nicer in general.

New Units!

Technically there is only one new unit. The other just got a new model. The newest addition to the game is the Aegis Anti-Air Defense System. Essentially it’s a long range ground to air laser battery. At its maximum range, it is not terribly accurate, but it gets more accurate the closer a target gets. This is due to the way that the laser itself works. It’s a bit hard to explain… It’s more of a visual thing that you will be able to immediately notice in-game. Without further ado, here it is!

And last, be definitely not least, is the new model for the Protector Anti-Nuke Laser Defense System. Instead of just a boring image of the model, I decided to go with an action shot…

There you have it! Go in-game and check this stuff out! As far as visual updates go, it’s a hell of an upgrade, but it needs to be seen in action to convey the full effect.

 

The post The most boring article about Visual Updates you’ll ever read appeared first on Evolution RTS.

More than a year ago since I last mentioned the classic multiplayer shooter C-Dogs! There has been several releases with lots of new stuff. Two new spooky campaigns (though I saw this a bit late for Halloween!), several HUD-improvements, semi-transparency effects, a separate key for throwing grenades (trust me, that is useful) and more. To get a full overview of all new stuff, have a look at the projects news section!

C-Dogs showing off the new grenade-button.

The extremely polished recreation of the classic Command & Conquer-games (as well as Dune 2000), OpenRA, keeps the banner high with regular releases. The latest is called 20180923 and includes several months worth of work. There is a new player account system bringing together more aspects of the games online community, several UI improvements, AppImage packages, performance improvements and many other fixes, balancing and tweaks. The Mod SDK has received large improvements too, and many interesting mods seem to be in the work. Personally I love the fact that one of them attempts to recreate another classic RTS: KKND.

New mouse-overs displays hints in OpenRA.