Conquest Public Beta (indie student game project)

[Dveman115]

If I'm not mistaken, I believe the GPL actually allows you to charge for your product. Red-hat is a perfect example of this. So I really don't understand what you mean when you say you're "limiting" yourselves by open-sourcing.

[Iris]

Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?

Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.htm ... AllowMoney

[SephiRok]

If anyone is interested, the game received a major overhawl with the recent 0.14.0 version.

Top-down 2D became orthogonal 3D. Models became 3D and other similar shiny stuff. There's still a lot of things missing, but we wanted to release early in order to get feedback on performance, stability and compatibility. Alas, a 64-bit Linux version is now also available. For more info, the change log is a nice read.

Here's a screen shot and a link to the website.

We also started a small AI challenge which might give some incentive to new players.

Have fun!

P.S. All feedback is appreciated.

[Kalajel]

Looks interesting, sadly there doesn't seem to be a version for Mac…

Also, any reason why you changed from hex grid to square grid?

[SephiRok]

I'd be happy to make a Mac version, but we don't own a Mac at the moment and I don't know of any cross-compiling or virtualization solution.

I think void went with squares instead of hexagons mainly because it was easier to do and didn't require annoying puzzling of meshes together. Or at least that is what he says. We're not sure hexagons are better gameplay-wise anyway. If necessary we could still change.

[Kalajel]

I'd be happy to make a Mac version, but we don't own a Mac at the moment and I don't know of any cross-compiling or virtualization solution.

Well, I'm no programmer, I just know that the .exe extension don't work on mac… I don't know what sort of extention is required to make programs work on Macs though…

I think void went with squares instead of hexagons mainly because it was easier to do and didn't require annoying puzzling of meshes together. Or at least that is what he says. We're not sure hexagons are better gameplay-wise anyway. If necessary we could still change.

Fair enough. I just think hex grids are better at representing overworld maps than square grids; I always cringe a bit when I see square~ish coasts, mountain ranges, or lakes… As for gamplay, it's not necessarily better, but it does offer some interesting tactical possibilities…

[huntermeca31]

Excuse me for my bad english it is not my first language.

I have play with your game and I love this game

Simple but full strategic: fantastic!

I have only two suggestion:

More language

An otpion for see all the "world" without satellite fro people don't like the "surprise factor"

[SephiRok]

Well, I'm no programmer, I just know that the .exe extension don't work on mac… I don't know what sort of extention is required to make programs work on Macs though…

Yeah, it doesn't. The easiest way to make it work on mac is to buy one and compile the game on it.

Fair enough. I just think hex grids are better at representing overworld maps than square grids; I always cringe a bit when I see square~ish coasts, mountain ranges, or lakes… As for gamplay, it's not necessarily better, but it does offer some interesting tactical possibilities…

Gameplay-wise for us it comes down to one thing: moving in 6 possible directions (hexagons) or 4/8 (squares).

I have play with your game and I love this game

Simple but full strategic: fantastic!

Hehe, I'm glad you like it!

More language

Do you mean more different languages? If so, you're free to make your own translation and share it with the rest of the community (check http://www.conquest-game.com/board/modi ... files-t84/). We already have a German translation and also had Finnish and Spanish at some point (now outdated).

[appleide]

There's got to be someone with a mac in the university!
This looks good so I'll wait for a mac binary.

[Kalajel]

Fair enough. I just think hex grids are better at representing overworld maps than square grids; I always cringe a bit when I see square~ish coasts, mountain ranges, or lakes… As for gamplay, it's not necessarily better, but it does offer some interesting tactical possibilities…

Gameplay-wise for us it comes down to one thing: moving in 6 possible directions (hexagons) or 4/8 (squares).

Hmm, well, I took a shot in the dark here; since I can't play the game on my Mac, I don't know how you handled diagonals, so I assumed you used the popular methods of "Etch-a sketch-stair-like-zig-zagging-diagonals"…

[SephiRok]

A shot showing graphics progress of Conquest throughout development so far:

We went to closed beta a while back since we weren't getting much playtime outside of a small community and received the feedback we needed, but I'll be getting a Macbook Pro when Apple decides to update them (fasteeeeeeeeeeeeer), so that's that.

Now I'm eagerly waiting on IGF (http://www.igf.com) main and student competition results (we entered) while being busy with Uni.

[Jetrel]

A shot showing graphics progress of Conquest throughout development so far:

That latest version actually looks really impressive.

We went to closed beta a while back since we weren't getting much playtime outside of a small community and received the feedback we needed, but I'll be getting a Macbook Pro when Apple decides to update them (fasteeeeeeeeeeeeer), so that's that.

/me tips his hat towards the implicit mac version. It's appreciated.

From one dev to another: PPC support is nice, but the installed base is rapidly shrinking, and will be negligible in a year or two. Likewise, the same is true of system versions; virtually everyone (except the PPC guys) will be on 10.6 in a year or so.

Targeting any of these is trivially changed inside XCode (and can also be done in a much more complicated way via GCC and special compiler options, if you're not using XCode to compile. I don't know how to do the latter, I just know it's possible). The big caveats of course are making the code architecture-agnostic.

Anyways, it's all probably not worth wasting time on - if you target 10.6 (and thus, just intel), your game is probably going to playable on virtually all macs out there by the time you're done. As a bonus, those who haven't upgraded have a statistical correlation with not paying for software, since they're usually quite short on cash. I'm not sure if you were intending to go commercial with it, I'm just saying.

Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?

Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.htm ... AllowMoney

In fact, people might care to know that I'd decided quite some time ago that I'm going to use a "open source code, closed-source assets" model for any of my future projects; instead of doing the traditional 'purely closed+commercial' model that I'd previously expected to use when I was younger. Mostly because 1] I'm not John Carmack, and my code isn't a state secret, 2] I want people to have the help of other source to look at that I never had when I was a teenager, and 3] the virality of the GPL is a good thing; the more stuff people have to build off of, the richer the community gets. I'd rather not be a big fish in a small pond.

Others might not feel comfortable doing the same with their projects, but if that's the case, then they can't use my (or many other people's) code. Can't have double standards.

[Zarel]

Yeah, cheating isn't really the reason. I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote that.

We use the model described by zookeeper. The Conquest server is a standalone application separated from the client which sends clients only the information they need. This way, even with OS, we can prevent cheating 99.99% (someone could still sniff packets) on the official servers.

You can eliminate the other 0.01% with public-key cryptography. Imagine Conquest-over-SSL!

In such a game (turn-based), spectators are a much bigger cheating issue.

One suggestion was to have an option to only allow spectators to see what all players can see. This works for two-player or two-team games rather well, since most of the action is where both players can see, anyway.

The real reason for not wanting to go OS is because it limits us. Even if we decide to not charge money for Conquest (which is the main reason for no OS), we might use this engine to make another game. If it were to go open-source now and others make changes to it, we would be unable to go commercial with the next game without redoing things. Right now we love doing everything ourselves, it's like our little baby, so we really don't mind. Plus, it's a really nice learning experience. But even with all that said, we are keeping the OS possibility on our list. Perhaps we get tired of it, or see it as a good choice when we reach 1.0.0.

Remember, you are not bound by the license of anything you own the copyright of. In other words, even if you release Conquest under the GPL, while others have to open-source anything they make using its engine, you can go commercial for your next game with the same engine.

(Note that this only works if you make sure that all contributors assign copyright of their patches to you, which you should probably make very clear, if you accept outside contributions.)

(By the way, can you use the abbreviation "OSS" - "open-source software"? "OS" already means "operating system", so we don't use "OS" to refer to open-source, or it gets confusing.)

If I'm not mistaken, I believe the GPL actually allows you to charge for your product. Red-hat is a perfect example of this. So I really don't understand what you mean when you say you're "limiting" yourselves by open-sourcing.

However, the GPL also allows others not to charge for your product. So if you were planning on earning money from selling the game directly, the GPL is a bad idea.

Gameplay-wise for us it comes down to one thing: moving in 6 possible directions (hexagons) or 4/8 (squares).

I would recommend hexagons in nearly all cases. It makes movement much more realistic. The best way is to take a look at the area a unit can move, on a map with even terrain. With a square grid, the area is square (regardless of if it's 4 or 8 directions). On a hex grid, the area is hexagonal, which is much closer to a circle.

Plus, it makes terrain look better. Square rivers, etc just look "wrong". Hexagons look a bit more natural.

[LemonTea]

Is it still available for download? I couldn't find a link on the website.

[SephiRok]

That latest version actually looks really impressive.

Thanks. It's actually still evolving a lot. We're experimenting with randomly placed units (so they look more natural) and making units placed on the actual ground, which also makes them go up and down slopes if the terrain beneath them is elevated -- so far we cheated with the z-buffer and just drew the units in front of other objects, even if they were on the same height.

/me tips his hat towards the implicit mac version. It's appreciated.

I'm a bit sad because I couldn't find a way to cross-compile for mac, though on the other hand one should have a machine to properly test it on anyway. I have pretty much zero previous experience with Macs and OS X, so I hope I'm not disappointed.

From one dev to another: PPC support is nice, but the installed base is rapidly shrinking, and will be negligible in a year or two. Likewise, the same is true of system versions; virtually everyone (except the PPC guys) will be on 10.6 in a year or so.

Thanks for the insight, I can imagine that the first version will be for 10.6 and then depending on the difficulty, need and time also on eariler OS X versions and PPC. It sounds pretty annoying to have to take OS versions into account so much. I see games needing versions like 10.5.4 or above, is that because of driver (OpenGL) versions or some other changes to the OS? I have to say it would be pretty exciting to see it run on another architecture as well though, but then again I'd need a PPC mac, or can you use Rosetta to run the PPC executable built on 10.6? Hehe.

In fact, people might care to know that I'd decided quite some time ago that I'm going to use a "open source code, closed-source assets" model for any of my future projects;

We're big fans of OSS, hell, without OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL, boost etc. we wouldn't have a game, but we don't feel like this is the right opportunity for us to give back to the community, at least right now.

You can eliminate the other 0.01% with public-key cryptography. Imagine Conquest-over-SSL!

Actually I think that would be insanely easy to do thanks to boost::asio supporting SSL. <3

One suggestion was to have an option to only allow spectators to see what all players can see. This works for two-player or two-team games rather well, since most of the action is where both players can see, anyway.

I'm afraid that wouldn't work too well, what's exciting to witness as a spectator is exactly the things that are the biggest spoils. For example two people dropping pods close to each other or in the case when one is in mountains and other in plains the spec would only see the one in plains (because you can't see into mountains from outside).

(By the way, can you use the abbreviation "OSS" - "open-source software"? "OS" already means "operating system", so we don't use "OS" to refer to open-source, or it gets confusing.)

I apologize.

I would recommend hexagons in nearly all cases. It makes movement much more realistic. The best way is to take a look at the area a unit can move, on a map with even terrain. With a square grid, the area is square (regardless of if it's 4 or 8 directions). On a hex grid, the area is hexagonal, which is much closer to a circle.

That's a good point, distance-wise it's closer to a circle, but otherwise having more directions to go means going more towards a circle's flexibility. The reason we don't have hexagons is because the code would be a pain in the ass compared to now, at least that's what I hear (I'm not personally working on the graphics). It can be changed later on, but it's quite some difference.

Plus, it makes terrain look better. Square rivers, etc just look "wrong". Hexagons look a bit more natural.

True, though we now anyway smoothen and round lakes which looks better than a full hexagon as well.

Is it still available for download? I couldn't find a link on the website.

No, it's not, I'm sorry. I hate saying no, but we decided we'd give game development a more serious try and as it was Conquest wasn't really going anywhere in terms of players. People were slowly flowing in and it never reached the critical mass a multiplayer game needs so they just dropped it because there was no one to play against. So we thought it would be wiser to close it (having already gotten the feedback we needed) and try to get that critical mass with the release of 1.0.