UFO:AI vs Apricot vs Glest vs... crikey

Quite a lot to cover, simply because there's a lot of small items that have backed up in my little "FG updates" list which I've been waiting to pool together.

Firstly, the "big" news in that UFO:AI 2.2 got released. There's plenty to write home about, tons of new features, and it's an awesome game. I'm not a great fan of some of the micro-management although it's part of the original X-COM games so understandably part of UFO:AI - I would like to see some automation aids (auto-assign ammo etc) - but that aside this is a really, really good game. If it was released as a commercial game it'd be respected, and because it's Free Software it's only going to get better. Here's a video:

So, the Apricot project is gaining pace. They have still to decide on what type of game they are making. I hope they make, out of their choices, a platform game. I must say, I really disagree with some of their assertions. If a platform game is "heavy on the engine" then I feel sorry for the engine - platform games have very little landscape on-screen at any one time and a good 3D engine should be able to isolate displayed content from off-screen content in order to retain speed. "Lots of work" to create levels? Out of all genres platform games really lend themselves to tile-based layouts with lots of reusable content, so with a half-assed level editor map creation should be pretty easy even if level design is a fine art (but isn't it with any genre).

Spring 1944

Glest: Domineonic

How cool does that look!?

Spring 1944 is a world war II mod for TA:Spring and it looks F<censored/> ACE! With Spring and Spring mod installation getting easier in recent releases and some mods really coming along with their content, there's a lot to be excited about. :-)

Talking of open source RTS games, Glest and it's mods are moving along nicely too. There's the 2nd SST:LD release (think I covered it a while ago, but no harm repeating it), a Norseman mod (beta), and an upcoming Domineonic mod (alpha). The Domineonic mod especially looks very, very promising.

Too much to go into detail with really... ;-)

Last but not least, Privateer Universe made a release and quickly followed it with developments meaning they no longer are a "mod of a mod", breaking away from the old Privateer Remake and updating to use the latest version of Vega Strike. That's all still in SVN (compilation instructions) but they are making good progress.

Privateer Universe aims to expand upon the original Privateer universe in contrast to the strict canon remake that is Privateer Gemini Gold.

TOOMANYCOOLTHINGSHEADABOUTTOEXPLO..........

(Think of a dead dial tone)