5 ms·

Croteam releases Serious Sam Classics engine under GPL

146 points by SXX 11y ago

tekni5 11y ago
That's great news, hopefully we will see projects/engines in the future using this, similar how Doom/Quake stuff is still being worked on. I'm not familiar with the engine, is it any good and how does it compare to others?
- SXX 11y ago
  It's slightly updated version of engine their early games used in 2001 so it's older than Doom's 3 engine id Tech 4. Should be still interesting for fans and study how old games work though.
  - chipsy 11y ago
    It's actually a good contrast to the biases of id tech 4 - bright, huge scale outdoor landscapes and arenas with hundreds of AI opponents vs. dark interiors with mood lighting and smaller engagements. It's an early example of heavy usage of "modular" model instances to add detail instead of relying on brush geometry to do everything. There are plenty of nifty features like split screen. From an overall technology standpoint, both engines should prove worthy of study given the radically different focus.
scrollaway 11y ago
CroTeam is one of the best game studios out there when it comes to dev-friendliness, up there with CCP and Riot. Huge props for this release. Well done.
awalton 11y ago
But not the Linux port, according to Ryan Gordon (icculus). Somewhat hoping it's an oversight and not some legal hangup.
- microcolonel 11y ago
  Could well be a legal hangup, if some middleware was used for the port, not that you would necessarily need it these days.
  - mackal 11y ago
    There most likely some legal issues (like he probably had to sign some sort of contract that protected the source or some shit), but luckily both parties involved seem to want to open the Linux port. So it should really be an issue. And I think he mostly ends up using SDL rather than middleware that would cause issues.
- dmm 11y ago
  Maybe it could be compiled with wine? In particular with WineLib: """ Winelib is a development toolkit which allows you to compile your Windows applications on Unix. Most of Winelib code consists of the Win32 API implementation. Fortunately this part is 100 percent shared with Wine. The remainder consists of Windows compatible headers and tools like the resource compiler (and even these are used when compiling Wine). Thanks to the above, Winelib supports most C and C++ source code, resource and message files, and can generate graphical or console applications as well as dynamic libraries. """ https://www.winehq.org/docs/winelib-guide/winelib-introduction https://www.winehq.org/docs/winelib-guide/winelib-introducti...
  - SXX 11y ago
    There is no need to do that since 15 years ago Icculus already made native Linux version for games on that engine. It's just question of time when he'll be allowed to release source code and manage to merge it into released codebase. Also Winelib isn't something that magically make Windows-only software compile on Linux. It's just helper library that may make it easier, but it's usually wrong way to do things since it's not going to be run better than normal Wine.
- roghummal 11y ago
  "Just dropped Croteam an email to ask if my Linux work can be published too. I'll report back" https://twitter.com/icculus/status/708326894597488642 https://twitter.com/icculus/status/708326894597488642 Here's to hoping!
seliopou 11y ago
Croteam makes awesome engines and awesome tools. Back in the Half Life/Quake 3 era when this game was originally released, it had by far the best tools for level editing, modeling, and scripting. Glad to see The engine reborn as an open source project!
- dietrichepp 11y ago
  Apparently, this trend continues. For Talos Principle, they programmed bots to solve the puzzles. These boys could learn how to solve puzzles by watching humans do it. They would then run the bots as an automated test suite to test if any of the puzzles were made impossible as a result of engine or level changes, and if there were any places where a bot could get stuck.
alexandrerond 11y ago
This engine is (or was) awesome. I remember playing Serious Sam back in the day, in my old computer, with maximum quality settings and the game ran smoothly, with amazing details and the characteristic bright colours and open landscapes of these series. I was amazed by this. Back in the day I found it superior to Source and ages ahead from any DirectX game.
- _nedR 11y ago
  The amazing part was how it could render huge landscapes, with literally 100s of monsters on crappy hardware without skipping a beat\frame.
edem 11y ago
Well played Croteam! Seriously!
Negative1 11y ago
Ah. the good old days, when your master server could be written in less than 200 lines of Python. :-) Amazing, Croteam. Thank you for this awesome gift!
bunkydoo 11y ago
Oh boy, I wish I could get Serious Sam on my Android phone. I've got a PSX emulator and that keeps me pretty happy, but this would complete everything!
- Yuioup 11y ago
  Yes, but would it be playable without a mouse and keyboard?
  - ionised 11y ago
    Sounds like it would be an exercise in frustration.

146 points by SXX 11y ago

That's great news, hopefully we will see projects/engines in the future using this, similar how Doom/Quake stuff is still being worked on. I'm not familiar with the engine, is it any good and how does it compare to others?

SXX 11y ago
It's slightly updated version of engine their early games used in 2001 so it's older than Doom's 3 engine id Tech 4. Should be still interesting for fans and study how old games work though.
- chipsy 11y ago
  It's actually a good contrast to the biases of id tech 4 - bright, huge scale outdoor landscapes and arenas with hundreds of AI opponents vs. dark interiors with mood lighting and smaller engagements. It's an early example of heavy usage of "modular" model instances to add detail instead of relying on brush geometry to do everything. There are plenty of nifty features like split screen. From an overall technology standpoint, both engines should prove worthy of study given the radically different focus.

scrollaway 11y ago

CroTeam is one of the best game studios out there when it comes to dev-friendliness, up there with CCP and Riot. Huge props for this release. Well done.

awalton 11y ago

But not the Linux port, according to Ryan Gordon (icculus). Somewhat hoping it's an oversight and not some legal hangup.

microcolonel 11y ago
Could well be a legal hangup, if some middleware was used for the port, not that you would necessarily need it these days.
- mackal 11y ago
  There most likely some legal issues (like he probably had to sign some sort of contract that protected the source or some shit), but luckily both parties involved seem to want to open the Linux port. So it should really be an issue. And I think he mostly ends up using SDL rather than middleware that would cause issues.
dmm 11y ago
Maybe it could be compiled with wine? In particular with WineLib: """ Winelib is a development toolkit which allows you to compile your Windows applications on Unix. Most of Winelib code consists of the Win32 API implementation. Fortunately this part is 100 percent shared with Wine. The remainder consists of Windows compatible headers and tools like the resource compiler (and even these are used when compiling Wine). Thanks to the above, Winelib supports most C and C++ source code, resource and message files, and can generate graphical or console applications as well as dynamic libraries. """ https://www.winehq.org/docs/winelib-guide/winelib-introduction https://www.winehq.org/docs/winelib-guide/winelib-introducti...
- SXX 11y ago
  There is no need to do that since 15 years ago Icculus already made native Linux version for games on that engine. It's just question of time when he'll be allowed to release source code and manage to merge it into released codebase. Also Winelib isn't something that magically make Windows-only software compile on Linux. It's just helper library that may make it easier, but it's usually wrong way to do things since it's not going to be run better than normal Wine.
roghummal 11y ago
"Just dropped Croteam an email to ask if my Linux work can be published too. I'll report back" https://twitter.com/icculus/status/708326894597488642 https://twitter.com/icculus/status/708326894597488642 Here's to hoping!

seliopou 11y ago

Croteam makes awesome engines and awesome tools. Back in the Half Life/Quake 3 era when this game was originally released, it had by far the best tools for level editing, modeling, and scripting. Glad to see The engine reborn as an open source project!

dietrichepp 11y ago
Apparently, this trend continues. For Talos Principle, they programmed bots to solve the puzzles. These boys could learn how to solve puzzles by watching humans do it. They would then run the bots as an automated test suite to test if any of the puzzles were made impossible as a result of engine or level changes, and if there were any places where a bot could get stuck.

alexandrerond 11y ago

This engine is (or was) awesome. I remember playing Serious Sam back in the day, in my old computer, with maximum quality settings and the game ran smoothly, with amazing details and the characteristic bright colours and open landscapes of these series. I was amazed by this. Back in the day I found it superior to Source and ages ahead from any DirectX game.

_nedR 11y ago
The amazing part was how it could render huge landscapes, with literally 100s of monsters on crappy hardware without skipping a beat\frame.

edem 11y ago

Well played Croteam! Seriously!

Negative1 11y ago

Ah. the good old days, when your master server could be written in less than 200 lines of Python. :-) Amazing, Croteam. Thank you for this awesome gift!

bunkydoo 11y ago

Oh boy, I wish I could get Serious Sam on my Android phone. I've got a PSX emulator and that keeps me pretty happy, but this would complete everything!

Yuioup 11y ago
Yes, but would it be playable without a mouse and keyboard?
- ionised 11y ago
  Sounds like it would be an exercise in frustration.