OilRush for Ubuntu GNU/Linux

Canonical (for obvious reasons) continues to celebrate proprietary games made available to Ubuntu users through their Software Centre. I’m not entirely against proprietary games for GNU/Linux, though I won’t install/buy this title given its licensing structure. OilRush is based on the proprietary Unigine.

I think a better balance with free software would be to license the game’s engine freely and distribute/sell the data sets under non-free licenses. Though that would irk Free Culture supporters, they’re irked either way. A free software engine can be an incredibly useful contribution to computer science and other software that puts the engine to use.

Exceedingly restrictive licensing for GNU/Linux games however, appears to be an inevitable trend in the short-run. An optimistic view sees software companies planning their long-run under the assumption that freer software licensing will offer a competitive edge and maintain profitable opportunities. If this were to happen, it may prove the OilRush model isn’t sustainable.

engine and art

Roger Ebert:

I was a fool for mentioning video games in the first place. I would never express an opinion on a movie I hadn’t seen. Yet I declared as an axiom that video games can never be Art. I still believe this, but I should never have said so. Some opinions are best kept to yourself.

The software engine behind any computer game would not be considered art by most people. However, in addition to the algorithms are graphics that are most definitely art. For example, while the physics of Neverball is considered by most people not to be art (though perhaps, it’s mathematically beautiful in the programmer’s eyes) the skins and backgrounds surely are.

On an related note, supporters of Free software often (but not necessarily) support Free culture as well. However, because Free software is basically mathematics, the licensing concerns are very different as compared to the artistic parts of software.

not perfect, but humble enough

The H reports that most of the Humble Indie Bundle games are now either Free software or going to be Free software. I was torn on whether or not I should contribute to this project given that “World of Goo” and the newly added “Samorost 2″ are holding out as free beer only. I’m not interested in supporting non-free software so my first inclination was to ignore the whole offer. Though I’m a bit irked to know that money contributed to the developers supports the distribution of proprietary software, I thought it too harsh to write off the whole deal so I reconsidered. Overall, I was very pleased to hear that most of the games’ source will be free.

I saw no way on the site to voice my concern about the proprietary offerings I steered clear from. So for now, I’ll use this post to publicly state two facts:

1) My contribution was smaller than it would have been if either all of the games were being released as Free software or the Goo was removed from the promotion altogether

2) Since I won’t be downloading and playing the non-free games, I won’t experience them and therefore won’t be promoting them to others

neverball

I just wanted to take a moment to brag about finishing all of the levels in Neverball. It’s among my favorite Free software eye-hand coordination games. On Mehdi’s level 25 I found a short-cut that involves using the triple vertical loop as a ramp (rather than entering it) to launch the ball sky-high toward the finish – thus avoiding having to navigate the last third of the level. Hey, whatever works.

Since Free 3D graphics drivers are not yet top-notch (though they’re much improved in recent years and getting better rapidly), to make the game playable I had to set some graphical features to “low” and turn others off. While I’m not getting the most aesthetic experience, it’s very smooth and more than playable on my system. Just sudo apt-get install neverball on gNewSense or Ubuntu. It comes with Neverputt as well – an enjoyable miniature golf game using the same physics.

mAntcala

My spouse and I enjoy playing mancala variants. Thing is, we play them in addictive spurts. Once exhausted, we often store our boards for many months before the inevitable fall from the wagon. An undisturbed wooden one of ours once received guests.

gPlanarity

Though I’m not great at them, I enjoy playing logic/puzzle games. While browsing the “Games and Amusement (universe)” repositories I recently discovered gPlanarity, a free software game licensed under the GNU GPL. Like any logic game of quality, it requires patience and some critical thought – in this case, visual spatialization. Nodes are connected to each other in a tangled mess and your task is to “simply” untangle that mess. I’m getting the hang of it but my wife amazes me. She’s chugging along – currently working on level 54…

A quick sudo apt-get install gplanarity on Debian/Debian-based systems (e.g. gNewSense, Ubuntu) will provide your brain with hours of pain fun.