Ahoy all,

I’m thinking about a semi-regular set of articles on games that’d be interesting to clone, or would be good inspiration for Free (Libre) Software Games.

I’m calling it “Games and Clones”, for now..

So, for the first (test) installment…

Space Hulk : Vengeance of the Blood Angels
PSX – 1996 – Electronic Arts (Licensed by Games Workshop)

Inspired by the classic boardgame, this is a rather… tactical First Person Shooter. A bit clunky, but, fairly decent.
You play as a Blood Angels Space Marine in Tactical Dreadnaught Armour (aka “Terminator Armour”) You have control over the entire squad, but you’ll only be directly controlling one Marine at a time.

The setting is a dark-future/gothic-future setting. The game is played within a “Space Hulk” (A derelict star ship, drifting in space). The atmosphere is dark, and claustrophobic, the corridors are somewhat narrow (and there are few open spaces, there are some however.), and the Terminator armour is slow and ponderous. You’re not fast, lets put it that way.

You’re up against vicious, monsterous aliens, fast, and deadly. You do have an “auspex” (a sort of radar-scanner that picks up nearby aliens), but the auspex is only enough to show a vague idea of where they are. Surprises do happen.

Its tactical, but, I don’t personally think its tactical side is really worth keeping in a game inspired by it, I’d think the game could have much more impact if the player was the only member of the squad.

A mission-based system could be nice, but, randomly generated areas might be better, possibly. (it could be generated from room-tiles/corridor tiles, etc, maybe?)

But, the best way to keep it interesting, is to have the right atmosphere, it should be dark, creepy, and claustrophobic.

It’d be nice to somehow be able to choose equipment before the levels, as well as maybe pick some extra stuff up, along the way.

Anyways.. that’s my ramble, for now.

What do people think of this test article, and, the ideas therein?

(I’d be interested in working on a game like I just mentioned, if anyone else is interested on working on it, too?)

Just yesterday, I found a project on [ GNA! ], for an rpg based on [ Wesnoth ]. If I remember correctly, the name was “Dungeons of Wesnoth”.

I’ve not tried it, yet, so, no ideas on gameplay, hell, I don’t even know if it compiles.

But, it gave me a little spark of interest. I think the wesnoth graphics could, indeed, work for an rpg. They certainly seem suitable, to me. Add in the fact that [ Silver Tree ] uses Wesnoth sprites too… (yes, I know the core team from Wesnoth are working on Silver Tree)

It seems that its quite possible to use those graphics for things like this. I’d really like to experiment a bit, with this, soon, actually, I miss messing about with sprites, to be honest. (My early forays into computer-art were sprite-edits, and making new sprites. )

Looking through the index of Free (libre) art at the [ FreeArtSearch Project ] (still in heavy development) it seems like wesnoth has quite the collection of art. I’d imagine [ Hero of Allacrost ] would also have a nice collection of content for such projects, and, the combination of both, could, indeed, be quite impressive.

Just a bit of a ramble from me, but, hey, maybe something interesting could come of it. Hell, what about something non-rpg? Like perhaps a god-game? A sim?

The limit, my friends, is your imagination.

Go out there, and create!

So, I’ve been a bit quiet lately, sorry about that.

But, lets get back into things again.

I’m still planning things for the survivor game, and I’m getting help from Ghoulsblade of [ StressFreeZone ] so, don’t worry too much about that one..

Here’s a new idea.

Some of you may’ve heard of “X-Com: UFO Defence”, or, for that matter, “UFO: Alien Invasion”. These are tactical games, combat is turn-based, and you control basically a single squad. Research, and base-building is present, as well.

Well, I’ve been working on some ideas for a similar game, with a rather different setting to those two.

A Dark-future/Gothic-future setting.

For an example of a building in the setting, see [ Gothic Skyscraper ]. ( Note: The setting is still in heavy design, so, it may not remain like this. )

Anyways, just a short little post, letting you all know what I’m up to. (Hah! As if anyone actually reads this blog. )