Linux Game Awards: PotM March 2014 VOTE NOW!

It's time for another installment of the somewhat bi-monthly Linux Game Awards:

The list of nominees is again quite interesting, so choose your favorite.

This months winner was 0 A.D. by the way... I guess we need to increase the promotion efforts a bit in case you weren't aware...

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BugBox- visual programming experiment.

Here's an initial interactive diversion that I've created as part of my exploration into the use of the games canvas to enhance communication and sharing of ideas.

Click on the image below to PLAY and interact.

I created the interactive BugBox for 'Curiovan: Explorium of Natural Wonderment​' in response to their challenge to depict "beauty, brutality and complexity of nature" any medium they wanted, any approach as long as it fitted within the confines of a matchbox.

Curiovan is a mobile gallery and museum showcasing the natural world and art inspired by it. 
A world in miniature, a magical natural history collection, funded by Arts Council England, 
Curiovan is curated around an imagined Victorian explorer's library packed with cabinets of 
collected curiosities.

This is just the beginning of my study and I intend to play with the possibilities and see where they lead. I have begun my research by exploring childhood memories. As a child I loved collecting bugs, tadpoles, wild flowers etc. I created an App as part of an exploration of what can be achieved with visual programming. It’s called the 'Bugbox' 

This filmed example in the following link was part of my presentation
at Edge Hill University CAKE Conference, July 2014:
Click to watch video.

Memory Box

How can we use the contained space of the games canvas to support the notion of preserving the past to enhance the future? 

This project seeks to acknowledge ideas and objects which may otherwise be lost and forgotten. To aid exploration and reflection of chosen themes through expressive and playful interactive experiences and to capture and interpret moments in time as they evolve. Through practical experimentation this could lead to ways of initiating and developing communal projects or research activities by encouraging discussion and reflection and even offer a new approach to therapy.

I have begun by exploring childhood memories.

This filmed example was part of my presentation at Edge Hill University CAKE festival:  

Click to Watch Video.  

 

Read More

BugBox- visual programming experiment.

Here's an initial interactive diversion that I've created as part of my exploration into the use of the games canvas to enhance communication and sharing of ideas.

Click on the image below to PLAY and interact.

I created the interactive BugBox for 'Curiovan: Explorium of Natural Wonderment​' in response to their challenge to depict "beauty, brutality and complexity of nature" any medium they wanted, any approach as long as it fitted within the confines of a matchbox.

Curiovan is a mobile gallery and museum showcasing the natural world and art inspired by it. 
A world in miniature, a magical natural history collection, funded by Arts Council England, 
Curiovan is curated around an imagined Victorian explorer's library packed with cabinets of 
collected curiosities.

This is just the beginning of my study and I intend to play with the possibilities and see where they lead. I have begun my research by exploring childhood memories. As a child I loved collecting bugs, tadpoles, wild flowers etc. I created an App as part of an exploration of what can be achieved with visual programming. It’s called the 'Bugbox' 

This filmed example in the following link was part of my presentation
at Edge Hill University CAKE Conference, July 2014:
Click to watch video.

Memory Box

How can we use the contained space of the games canvas to support the notion of preserving the past to enhance the future? 

This project seeks to acknowledge ideas and objects which may otherwise be lost and forgotten. To aid exploration and reflection of chosen themes through expressive and playful interactive experiences and to capture and interpret moments in time as they evolve. Through practical experimentation this could lead to ways of initiating and developing communal projects or research activities by encouraging discussion and reflection and even offer a new approach to therapy.

I have begun by exploring childhood memories.

This filmed example was part of my presentation at Edge Hill University CAKE festival:  

Click to Watch Video.  

Click on the image below to PLAY and interact.

 

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Preparing for a crowd-funding: Torque3D MIT Multi-platform

I mentioned the nice developments on the Torque3D OpenGL and Linux ports a few weeks back, and now it seems like it is getting even more serious:

Planned platforms of Torque3D

Now don't spill your beer just yet, as this is just the proposal the developer makes for a crowd-funding building up on his great previous Linux/OpenGL work.

One of the first (hopefully soon to be) FOSS games that could benefit from this, is the currently also looking for crowd-funding RoTC abstract FPS. Only 9 days left, but they made another good increase in the last couple of days, so it is still possible to reach their goal of $1500. In fact the older (mostly closed source) version was also recently updated and you can try it on some new servers.

The (more or less friendly) fork GREED tech MIT that aims to make a full FPS development kit out of Torque3D also seems to make some interesting progress, so it looks quite bright development wise for now :)

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The Sky of Verdun 3D - dogfight in HTML5

Came across this seemingly fun little game over here, too bad I don't have a Occulus Rift (yet):



Check their page for the Win32 and browser server/client download.

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Code Combat: Open Source Javascript Tutorial Gamification (In A Good Way)

youtube.com/watch?v=dCOHjERswGw

Code Combat is a javascript programming learning IDE wrapped in a delicious cute RPG/2D RTS packaging that runs in the browser without any plugins. They recently announced their open source/free art release.

The current set of Code Combat tutorials starts with directional movement and activation of pre-programmed behavior, continues with coordinate movement and targeting and conditional behavior and continues towards prediction calculations.

Editor GUI

youtube.com/watch?v=H5u5ga5dHm8

There is an editor, officially described as "broken". I can confirm that the text editor was slow when I tried using it. :)

All in all, a very exciting project. I have noticed a few possible drawbacks so far:

• It's not yet clear which parts will not remain proprietary. It looks like the excellent humor (writing) unfortunately will do so (legal page).
• The music tends to be too exciting to code to.
• There's a CLA requirement for contributing.

What do you think? Persuaded to work on a HTML5 game yourself perhaps, seeing that this performs okay? :)

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Plinky Plonk Xmas App is live.

Plinky-Plonk Xmas 
This app is primarily aimed at kids but everyone can have fun with it!
Plinky Plonk teaches you how to play beginner carols on a piano and read music.
Choose a carol & the frog will jump when the correct notes are played.
Icebergs depict the music notes.

Two of our games design students, Hannah Spikings, Steph McStea
and I have been working with Jane Cull of FoCul Ltd. on this iPad app
for the past nine months or so, which has just gone live for Christmas 2013!

Click the image below for the free download from the Apple store

The original version of the game has been out for some time, 

but will soon get a brand new update.

Click image below for more

If you have an iPad,  

you can download the Christmas version for free here!

 

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Happy new year & Congrats to the LGA January 2014 winner!

Hello 2014 and happy new year to everyone!

One of the new things for this year will be the regular Linux Game Awards done by various Linux and FOSS gaming site (and which has been spearheaded by the great LGDB).

And the first winner is:



The votes have been quite clear, but our friends from SuperTuxKart got a very respectable 2nd place:

You can expect some further promotional news coming up this month for 0 A.D. so stay tuned :)

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