Allacrost Update, Simutrans Source

Two major pieces of open source game news today. :-D

Hero of Allacrost 0.2.0 is now available, with easy installation on Windows, Linux (Ubunto/Debian packages), MacOSX, and FreeBSD. Additional platform support seems planned too, an impressive effort to get the game readily available for people to play. This version celebrates the 3rd anniversary of the inception of the project and it is great to see the vision of the original developer(s) being realised. The highlights of their second major release are:

• Free-range movement replacing tile-based movement


• Two excellent new maps to explore


• No more random encounters


• You can now buy and sell wares from shop keepers


• A newly added stamina bar in the battle interface


• The ability to gain experience levels and make your character grow stronger


• Plenty of additional music to enjoy

After what seems like a millenia as a freeware game, the source code for Simutrans is now available for download. :-)

The source is licensed under the artistic license, whatever that is. Anyway, it is included in the source download (available for the latest release 0.99.12) so read it if you are interested. I don't think they have opened up the development process completely (i.e. their tools such as their subversion server) but it's a start and there are now support forums for compiling and submitting patches, which should turn Simutrans into more of a community project.

The game has come on a lot in the last few years, and this move should IMHO only improve the development situation. Already a few good patches have been submitted to fix some crashes. Many eyes and all.

Hi, my name's Charlie, and I'm addicted to Desktop Tower Defense. Well, not completely, but it does eat up time quickly if you are not careful. Anyway, compare your scores to mine if you think you are good enough. ;-)