Why are there no good (original) open-source games?

Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 12:02 am

Anyone who knows me knows that I love open-source. If I could eat open-source software I probably would. If I could marry it then our children would be very odd. You get the idea.

There is something that open-source software seems to suck at and that is making good games. I play almost every OSS game I can get my hands on and the prettiest are graphically inferior to games from the average games of a couple of years ago, the audio is terribly mastered, the games are usually unbalanced and the stories are usually either ridiculously awful or involve Tux in some way.

Interestingly the freeware/mod scene on Windows seems to produce far better quality games than the open-source scene. I think this is because you where software fulfils a need for the user a game is a more creative act and needs a clear leader and a very undemocratic approach to aspects such as storyline and artwork. Games also tend to need to be “done” before they are released as no-one wants to play a story-driven game that just stops abrubtly.

I’m sure people are going to come onto this blog and complain that I’ve forgotten about all these great open-source games but I don’t really care. I’ve tried playing too many to find myself spending hours wishing I was playing even a poor paid-for game.

The only real exceptions I’ve found to the above rules are games which have been retroactively open-sourced such as Quake 3, Transport Tycoon, Tyrian and Star Control 2. These were all good games on release and open-sourcing them means they can be made more portable and keep being played for a long time. I highly recommend you check them out.

Posted in Random

16 Comments »

…Nethack?
At least you can’t complain about the audio, and there’s no Tux as far as I know.

Comment by Hans — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 12:25 am

I tried to play Nethack and it was about as fun as stabbing myself in the eye with a fork. Maybe I’m just not forgiving enough of ASCII graphics…

Comment by Mike Arthur — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 12:33 am

wesnoth? It uses a well-used strategy theme, but the game is complete, original, and has good music. Also, it has a growing online userbase as well.

Comment by vlad — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 12:50 am

The major problem with games on Linux is not the ridiculous storylines (most Windows games suffer from that problem too) or Tux being there for no good reason…no, the biggest problem is that most game developers seem to think that we all need yet another FPS game…I’m sure Quake 3, Nexuis, and World of Padman are fun for the intended audience but I’d much rather play the “Find the missing dependency package” game…while that certainly isn’t fun it beats any stupid FPS game any time.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the mod-scene can produce some good games. The windows gamers can afford to be more well, demanding really. That’s probably why those games are not released until they’re ready.

Comment by Jonas — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 1:09 am

Here’s some for that list

- tremulous (quake 3 based I guess….)
- teewars (worms in real time online)
- frozen bubble (I mean how did you not mention that one)
- pingus (lemmings clone)
- glest (an rts)

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Games

I think games are really more entertainment then code which is why foss dosn’t work as well…. there are some good ones out there though

Comment by Killerkiwi — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 1:38 am

Over at PyWeek (http://www.pyweek.org/) I am trying to foster Open Source game development in Python. I believe I’ve had some good success too, with many games entering the broader community. All games written during the challenge are submitted under Open Source licenses.

There’s also a new community-driven effort called the “Pyggy Awards” (possibly a working title, I’m not sure) which intends to encourage people to continue to work on and polish games written during the week-long challenge. Games may be re-submitted for these additional awards after three months have passed. I’m hopeful that we’ll see a bunch of good, open-source games come out of that extra effort.

Comment by Richard Jones — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 1:56 am

Well, what about KDEGames(4)? I do dare say we have quite a few ‘original’ titles. Now they may not be ‘full-scale-RPG’, ‘lets-save-the-world-again-TM’ sort of thing, but rater that that we have a lot to offer to both casual, and hard core games. And you really can’t complain about graphics as we now have a team or real artists and designers to take care of that part. However, I do understand where you’re comming from and would really like to hear your opinion on KDEGames(4).

Comment by it-s — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 4:34 am

scorched3D, freeciv, jumpnbump, some bomberman games (but no one as good as atomic bomberman with wine …)

Comment by allo — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 5:16 am

I’m not going to come up with any good games here, simply because there aren’t any like you say. And I think there’s a very simple reason for it: games are around 90% content-driven these days, and since most of all FOSS projects are done voluntarily there’s simply not any money in the mix to be able to compete with commercial games. Especially bad are the cases where the developer(s) ignore the fact that they have no artistic sense and release the game anyways.

Good non-budget movies are extremely rare, and the same applies for games.

Comment by metellius — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 9:54 am

Last time I tried Wesnoth the documentation was poor, the interface a bit rubbish and the graphics were about 10 years old. I could be convinced to try it again though.

Tremulous was alright but I perhaps should have clarified and said good SINGLEPLAYER games. It still isn’t as balanced or fun as most other multiplayer games (even old ones) and that is ignoring the graphics.

Frozen Bubble is an arcade/casual game so it doesn’t really appeal.

PyWeek sounds like a good idea but the way you are limiting it to Python and also that that is part of the title means you are going to attract mostly OSS programmers and not people who are actually striving for the gaming industry. I know some people who are seeking to work or are working in the games industry and they all got their through mods for Windows games, even although a good few used Linux.

I don’t have KDE4 installed yet so I haven’t played with the games but KDEGames games seemed reasonable fun and the KDE4 versions look a lot more attractive. I however don’t think you really have anything to offer “hard-core” gamers. Find me one of the games that has the depth of Civ 4, the graphics of Crysis, the multiplayer action of TF2 or the story of Deus Ex.

Allo, your games are just clones of original titles and inferior ones at that. The only advantage they have is they run on Linux and are free.

This might sound harsh but I believe so many OSS games are viewed as good because if you insist on only running OSS software you are only going to play either shallow or just plain bad games.

Comment by Mike Arthur — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 12:25 pm

@Mike,

Regarding your comments about Wesnoth…yes, the documentation is not the best. The interface is somewhat clumsy, and the graphics ain’t nothing spectactular. Thing is, the same could be said about the Ur-Quan masters game you praise. It certainly is nothing to write home about on looks alone. Great game otherwise to be sure but the same thing can, if you like that kind of game, be said of Wesnoth. I guess what I am trying to say is: don’t judge the book by its cover, or the game by its graphics.

Oh, and if you want to try something sort-of in the vein of Wesnoth you may want to take a look at Widelands.

Or if you want to scratch that gaming itch but isn’t bothered by the fact that the game is commercial: http://www.basiliskgames.com/book1.htm
Somewhat old-fashioned RPG (on purpose though!) but fun if you’re into that kind of game.

Comment by Jonas — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 1:44 pm

Try Spring with an original mod:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_(computer_game)

Original? I can hardly find anything original these days in hte commercial industry. Anyway, non-original doesn’t mean “Not Good”.

Comment by Bruno — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 2:57 pm

Well, I do understand why you’re ‘upset’ and I do agree with you to some extend. I just want to point out that KDEGames, even though are clones, are in no way ‘inferior ones’. You have probably not seen the latest update for KDE4 yet. Please check them whenever you’ve got time/interest. Currently KDEGames are on pair if not better then the most of the same games available for windows. Check our web site: games.kde.org, but keep in mind that the screenshots there are somewhat out of date.
And please accept my sincerest apologies for not being able to offer you anything of interest to you. And I promise that by KDE 4.2 that will surely change…

Comment by it-s — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 3:37 pm

I think one of the main problems for linux gaming is the diversity of toolkits for sound and graphics and their respective performance or ease of setup.

In windows you’ve got DirectX, which is very well documented and comes with loads of sample code. For linux there’s SDL as a possible counterpart, but as far as I’ve investigated so far, it’s quite inferior to DirectX.

Then you should not confuse the mod scene with genuine game development, as modders usually don’t code much, but rather use a framework provided by the game they mod. so the better the tools (mapeditor, modeller, texturemapper, etc.) of a game are, the easier it is for modders to get a hand on this and to start some creative work.
So far I cannot think of many good tools for linux game development.

Comment by jamasi — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 10:24 pm

@Jonas: UQM can be forgiven by the fact it has a huge amount of very professional content, an elaborate story and has great documentation and a good interface. I play plenty of commerical games, just the ones recommended by my peers and magazines as I’ve spent far too much time wasting on games I want to be fun but, despite their best efforts, just aren’t.

@Bruno: I’ve played Spring. The Linux version is a completely nightmare to get playing and it is just Total Annihilation with a new engine. It is a direct remake of another game. If you can’t find anything original in the commercial industry you aren’t looking hard enough if at all. Non-original doesn’t mean “not good” but it does tend to mean “boring” or “repetitive”.

@It-s: Sorry if I seem upset, I didn’t mean it that way. You guys do a great job, I just see them more as casual than real games I would spend hours and hours playing. The KDE Games package is really good and easily equal to some of the paid-for casual Windows games. My point is I tend to like more expansive games with immersive stories and A/V.

@Jamasi: SDL seems good enough for both iD and Epic’s engines. You seem to have no basis whatsover for performance or ease of setup, UT2004 performed far better on Linux than Windows for me and SDL is just an “apt-get install” away. The mod scene are still making games as much as anyone who licenses the engine of someone like iD or Epic is. I guess by mods I think more of total conversions rather than simply map or model changes. You have a good point on the lack of tools though, however we do have fairly advanced engines and 2D/3D tools.

Comment by Mike Arthur — Monday 14th April, 2008 @ 10:49 pm

But that’s exactly my point. As long as the basic idea of a game appeals to you, other shortcomings can be forgiven. I’m not saying Wesnoth (for example) is perfect or would appeal to you, but how would you know it’s not a gem in disguise if you don’t give it a chance?

In general though, I agree that there’s a real lack of really good Linux games. Then again, I like to immerse myself in games every now and then but I’m no hardcore gamer. If I was, I would probably have bought a console or would be dual-booting.

As far as the toolkits go, I would prefer if more games would use SDL. Maybe just me but I’ve had horrible experiences trying to get decent sound out of games that require asound. I always manage to end up getting static or crackling sound, a flaw I have yet to experience when using SDL based games.

Oh, and when you get KDE4 installed…stay away from knetwalk. It’s far too addictive for my own good…

Comment by Jonas — Tuesday 15th April, 2008 @ 1:48 pm