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Re: [kidsgames] Generic adventure game engine



Terry Hancock wrote:

> In fact, I would argue that if a generic graphic adventure game
> engine (especially one compatible with industry standard APIs)
> were to be developed, it would be good to release it under the
> LGPL or other license that allows the games written with it
> to be proprietary.  This might encourage adventure games to be
> written for Linux, since there would be an economic payback.
> 
> (And having a free (LGPL) engine might encourage development
> in the face of overwhelming Windows dominance in this area).

The game engine could be fully GPL'ed since the (commercial)
data is just that - data.

Just as you can write commercial software using the GPL'ed
Python interpreter, so you could write commercial adventures
using a GPL'ed adventure interpreter.

> I notice that Linux free software games tend to have a very
> different sort of nature -- they seem to have weak story or
> character, with a more complete and open game play. They are
> designed to be _games_ proper, rather than puzzle/stories like
> the commercial adventure games.

There has been much discussion along these lines on the Linux
Games Developers Group mailing list.

The general opinion is that the OpenSource movement has more
programming talent than it knows what to do with and almost
zero artistic talent.

The reasons for *that* are hotly debated - but the conclusions
are that getting a bunch of programmers together to write a
really *good* adventure engine would be possible - but in the
end, no good content creators would appear to make good use
of it.

That's the reason that OpenSource games are like they are.
They have to be designed to have a long playability life
with minimal artistic effort.

Contrast one of my games (that someone might play for let's say
50 hours) - with something like an animated story book.

Each page of that book probably takes as much ARTISTIC effort
as an entire 'level' of a 3D game.  But a true game probably
takes 10 to 20 times the amount of programming effort compared
to a simple 'adventure' or 'book' format.

A book needs perhaps 50 pages in order to keep a child occupied
for an hour.  One game level could easily keep someone engaged
for 5 hours.

The fact is that for a 'book' type of application to work, it
has to have loads of artistic effort and a large audience.
Completely the opposite of what's typical for the OpenSource
world.

Finally, a lot of the interest in developing games is that
the developer actually enjoys playing them afterwards.  That
can never happen with adventure and book formats since everything
is already known before you start if you are the developer.
 
> While I can admire this type of game for its own qualities,
> I always really liked the story-type adventure games, and I
> wish there were more available for Linux.  Indeed, if there
> are in fact ANY games like this for Linux I'd like to find
> them!  The problem would seem to be that the talented people
> needed to create the content for these games are not
> motivated to work on free software, and would much rather
> get a regular pay check (after all, they could always be
> working for Saturday morning TV).

Perhaps - there have been other suggestions too - but let's
not go that way.  Accept that opensource artists are RARE.

-- 
Steve Baker   HomeEmail: <sjbaker1@airmail.net>
              WorkEmail: <sjbaker@link.com>
              HomePage : http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
              Projects : http://plib.sourceforge.net
                         http://tuxaqfh.sourceforge.net
                         http://tuxkart.sourceforge.net
                         http://prettypoly.sourceforge.net


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