4 ms·

Given its popularity, tech minded players and complete failure of Maxis as a steward of the game, I'm incredibly surprised a popular and well maintained Open So

by bane 8y ago

Given its popularity, tech minded players and complete failure of Maxis as a steward of the game, I'm incredibly surprised a popular and well maintained Open Source city sim hasn't appeared[1] 1 - I'm aware of Lincity, OpenCity and OpenSC2k, but none of them are popular and/or are recreations, not full-up new city makers.

soup10 8y ago
successful open source game dev is pretty rare. i don't know why, but i'd guess mostly that polishing a game to modern standards is a heck of a grind.(not to mention artists aren't really keen on working for free either) There's plenty of half-baked open source games...
- zanny 8y ago
  The problem is more that game creation requires radically differentiated skills. Even something "simple" like a Sim City clone would need a sprite artist, someone capable of implementing a 2d renderer, someone to write the AI logic, someone who can do UI, someone to do sound design, you probably want music, etc. Most open source projects, at the worst, might involve UI design. And honestly you can see how bad that can get already when programmers start making their own interfaces without being "good" at it in most Xorg GUI apps. That isn't to say there aren't communities around libre music, sound effects, game textures, models, etc - there are large vibrant communities around all of these. The problem with games in particular is that you need to reach across the aisle and involve people from all these niche libre communities to build something, and most of the time without the fundamentals fulfilled you won't be able to pitch or demonstrate a project enticing enough to attract participation. Its a chicken and egg problem - you can't really get good artists if your game art is placeholder polygons, and you can't get someone working on the renderer until something is already rendering to the screen.
hacym 8y ago
I know it's not open source, but Cities Skyline is a fantastic game that carries the torch for SimCity type games.

by bane 8y ago

soup10 8y ago

successful open source game dev is pretty rare. i don't know why, but i'd guess mostly that polishing a game to modern standards is a heck of a grind.(not to mention artists aren't really keen on working for free either) There's plenty of half-baked open source games...

zanny 8y ago
The problem is more that game creation requires radically differentiated skills. Even something "simple" like a Sim City clone would need a sprite artist, someone capable of implementing a 2d renderer, someone to write the AI logic, someone who can do UI, someone to do sound design, you probably want music, etc. Most open source projects, at the worst, might involve UI design. And honestly you can see how bad that can get already when programmers start making their own interfaces without being "good" at it in most Xorg GUI apps. That isn't to say there aren't communities around libre music, sound effects, game textures, models, etc - there are large vibrant communities around all of these. The problem with games in particular is that you need to reach across the aisle and involve people from all these niche libre communities to build something, and most of the time without the fundamentals fulfilled you won't be able to pitch or demonstrate a project enticing enough to attract participation. Its a chicken and egg problem - you can't really get good artists if your game art is placeholder polygons, and you can't get someone working on the renderer until something is already rendering to the screen.

hacym 8y ago

I know it's not open source, but Cities Skyline is a fantastic game that carries the torch for SimCity type games.