Making sure all games are in comps
by Hans de Goede
Hi All,
To make sure all games we've worked so hard to package are in comps and thus
easy to find by the end user, I've written a small script which checks if every
package which has an rpm-group of Amusements/Games is in comps, I've attached
the resultiing script.
I've put a blacklist in the script to avoid what I believe are false positives.
Mainly things like level editors and servers, which do not belong in the comps
games group IMHO, maybe we need a game-utilities group?
Anyways FYI here is the current blacklist:
*-editor)
;;
*-server)
;;
*-selinux)
;;
*-logwatch)
;;
fgfs-Atlas|xblast-x11|kanatest|rott-registered|fortune-firefly)
;;
cowsay|ifm|shippy-allegro|wesnoth-tools|armacycles-ad-dedicated)
;;
frotz|tetrinetx)
;;
This excercise has resulted in me adding the following 2 comps:
raidem-music
asylum
angrydd
manaworld-music
quarry
uqm-content-voice
uqm-content-3domusic
torcs-data-tracks-dirt
torcs-data-tracks-oval
torcs-data-cars-nascar
freedoom-freedm
MegaMek
gnome-games-extra-data
atanks
sirius
pychess
glob2
And now I'm left with the following list of which I'm not sure what todo, input
much appreciated:
poker2d-kde (can't this be merged into the main package?)
torcs-robots
Regards,
Hans
16 years, 1 month
Re: Patent concerns
by Sam Arthur Allen
Hey Callum, something just hit me like a brick:
You asked:
Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:56:55 -0600, Callum Lerwick wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 14:46 -0500, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
> > A game where "targets" move across the screen to a predetermined
> > point or line, where the player hits a button/key/mouse click as
> > the target(s) crosses that point or line, and gets points.
>
> You've got to be shitting me.
>
> ... So, how about if the "targets" stay still and the cursor moves? I
> think there's assloads of prior art on that...
And replied to one of my replies with:
Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:56:55 -0600, Callum Lerwick wrote:
> On Sat, 2008-01-19 at 20:42 +1000, Sam Arthur Allen wrote:
> > What a crock of @#$%, I've seen this been done a few times.
> > "Parappa the Rapper" on PS1 from 1995 comes to mind, it does
> > *exactly* what the above paragraph states.
>
> The Parappa "targets" did not move. They were static, and used a
> moving cursor:
>
> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1592483888067882190
>
> So no this particular patent doesn't apply, so it isn't prior art.
Great, Parappa has a different "timeline" than Guitar Hero's - I'm happy
with that.
Now, what games were under this patent concern?
--Sam
16 years, 2 months
Patent concerns
by Tom Callaway
Hi folks,
I hate for my first post to this mailing list to be a depressing one,
but I need to pass along some bad news.
Due to patent concerns, we won't be able to include any games in Fedora
which meet the following criteria:
A game where "targets" move across the screen to a predetermined point
or line, where the player hits a button/key/mouse click as the target(s)
crosses that point or line, and gets points.
This means:
No "Guitar Hero" clones.
No "Dance Dance Revolution" clones.
I need your help to make sure that we don't have any other games that
meet this criteria, either on the wish list or in Fedora.
If you're not sure, ask me.
Thanks in advance,
~spot
16 years, 2 months
Re: Patent concerns
by Sam Arthur Allen
On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:09:58 -0500, Tom "spot" Callaway" wrote:
> No, the patent is pretty darned specific. Its "targets moving in a
> straight line" to a "predetermined point or line", and the player
> having to hit a button at that precise point or line to get points.
> If you're shooting the target, doesn't apply. If there is cursor
> motion involved, doesn't apply.
What a crock of @#$%, I've seen this been done a few times.
"Parappa the Rapper" on PS1 from 1995 comes to mind, it does *exactly*
what the above paragraph states.
Also, the Amiga was flooded with
synth-based games due to its audio processing power for its time.
On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:33:19 -0500, Tom "spot" Callaway" wrote:
> The primary patent of concern is US 6347998, held by Konami.
Just read that patent at:
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6347998.html
and said in its header:
> Game system and computer-readable recording medium
> US Patent Issued on February 19, 2002
If that patent really does applies from 2002 onwards _only_, is
"Parappa the Rapper" from circa 1995 enough prior art?
--Sam
16 years, 2 months
Re: Patent concerns
by Johannes Dahl
> On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 21:50 +0100, Hans de Goede wrote:
> > Matthew Miller wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jan 16, 2008 at 02:46:02PM -0500, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
> > >> Due to patent concerns, we won't be able to include any games in Fedora
> > >> which meet the following criteria:
> > >> A game where "targets" move across the screen to a predetermined point
> > >> or line, where the player hits a button/key/mouse click as the target(s)
> > >> crosses that point or line, and gets points.
> > >
> > > Seriously? I wrote an AppleBasic game in fourth grade (1984) that did that.
> > >
> >
> > I hear you, some smartass behind DDR though so game mechanics can't be
> > copyrighted, lets patent them.
> >
> > Cheesh.
> >
> > Maybe its an idea to petition pubpat: http://www.pubpat.org/ to fight this? I
> > know they have much bigger (and much more important) fish to catch, but this
> > seems trivially easy to overthrow.
>
> If you're motivated to find the prior art, feel free.
>From the top of my head, Moon Buggy. If you haven't seen it, here's a
quick description: You can see the left side of a (moon) buggy on the
right side of the screen and a (moon) surface underneath with pits in
it that moves from left to right. You control the buggy and have to
jump over the holes (you can't move left or right, you can just jump).
So: you have "targets" (pits) that move across the screen and you have
a predetermined point (buggy) where you have to press a button, so a
fine piece of prior art if you ask me. It's not very old (Version 1 was
released in 2004), but it has some ancestry: it's based on a 1982 game
"Moon Patrol" which, based on screenshots, seems to be quite similar.
Johannes
16 years, 2 months
Openarena and ioquake3 problem
by Michał Bentkowski
Hi!
Following Hans's suggestion in bug [1], I decided to make openarena
work using quake3 engine available in repo. Everything seemed to work
good, I even built the package in rawhide (but it's been already
untagged) when it turned out that multiplayer is unplayable
.
First of all, quake3's openarena doesn't look for servers on
dpmaster.deathmask.net master server (which is the right one for it)
but the default one *even* if I explictly set sv_master1 parameter.
But it's not a big problem at all. The much worse thing is that
quake3's openarena just quits when I type known IP address of a
server. It leaves following messages:
----- FS_Startup -----
Current search path:
/home/ecik/.openarena/baseq3
/usr/share/quake3/baseq3
/usr/bin/baseq3
----------------------
3573 files in pk3 files
pak0.pk3 is missing. Please copy it
from your legitimate Q3 CDROM.
Point Release files are missing. Please
re-install the 1.32 point release.
Also check that your Q3 executable is in
the correct place and that every file
in the baseq3 directory is present and readable.
----- CL_Shutdown -----
RE_Shutdown( 1 )
-----------------------
Sys_Error:
*** you need to install Quake III Arena in order to play ***
Shutdown tty console
It was a bit surprising it behaves so since just after running it
looks for files in proper directories (i.e. $HOME/.openarena/baseoa).
Adding "+set fs_basegame baseoa +set fs_basepath $HOME/.openarena"
seemed to be able to fix the problems but it didn't. Quake3's
openarena now looks for files in proper directories, finds them but
despite of:
/home/ecik/.openarena/baseoa/pak0.pk3 (926 files)
it still says:
pak0.pk3 is missing. Please copy it
from your legitimate Q3 CDROM.
I found a file [2] in ioquake3's svn and it probably clarifies things
a little. It seems that ioquake3 just checks checksum of pk3 files and
when they don't match, the game just crashes. Also, ioquake3 is
written just to work with default baseq3 or demoq3, not with another
files. Would be nice, thought, if somebody with better understanding
of English has a look at [2].
So what we know now? The single player mode works without any problem,
just as with openarena's binary. Multiplayer does not. I consider it
odd, maybe there is somebody who knows more about ioquake3's command
line parameters and there is a way to make it working.
I'm afraid that changes made by openarena team to ioquake3 source are
made to make multiplayer playable. However, I hope they're not.
I'm writing this post because I count that somebody may help with
fixing the package. Share your thoughts, if you need any more
information, feel free to ask. Look at [3] to see spec file. Hope
we'll find a way to fix it :)
[1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=356591
[2]: http://svn.icculus.org/*checkout*/quake3/trunk/code/qcommon/files.c
[3]: http://cvs.fedora.redhat.com/viewcvs/*checkout*/devel/openarena/openarena...
--
Michał Bentkowski
mr.ecik(a)gmail.com
16 years, 2 months
Introduction + Start
by Free Gamer
Hi,
My name is Charles Goodwin and I'm the author of Free Gamer (see sig
for URL) which is a blog / list on Free Software games. It means I
have a ridiculous amount of open sources games to be found in the
depths of my grey cells so hopefully I have some good suggestions for
you.
Here's a few to start:
Lost Labyrinth: http://www.lostlabyrinth.com/
(An awesome little GPL game)
Hex-a-hop: http://libregamewiki.org/Hex-a-hop
(Fun arcade game although homepage is offline)
Simutrans: http://www.simutrans.com
(Simutrans eventually became GPL licensed last year)
Many more suggestions to come!
- C
--
Free Gamer - free & open source games list & commentary
http://freegamer.blogspot.com/
16 years, 2 months