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I was surprised and happy to see this also being open sourced. As a developer of OpenLieroX (http://www.openlierox.net/ http://www.openlierox.net/), we also too

I was surprised and happy to see this also being open sourced. As a developer of OpenLieroX (http://www.openlierox.net/ http://www.openlierox.net/), we also took inspiration of Soldat. The main difference is mainly the way you control the game, i.e. with mouse aim cursor in Soldat, and purely with keyboard in Liero. And also the ninja rope. Once we added mouse aim support to OpenLieroX as well, but the Liero community didn't liked it, and basically it became another game. Network play between both versions would be unfair. It would really need a different name. Teeworlds (https://www.teeworlds.com/ https://www.teeworlds.com/) is also a more recent very similar game, also with mouse aim, and ninja rope. Interesting also that Soldat is implemented in Free Pascal / Lazarus.

gspr 6y ago
Ooh! What happened to OpenLieroX? I used to love it, but I see there hasn't been a release in ages. Is development still ongoing? Is it still tied to that quirky abandoned networking library that I can't remember the name of? How did it stand up to the original Liero being opened up? (Rereading the above I sound super critical. That was not my intention!)
- albertzeyer 6y ago
  I really would love to continue working on OpenLieroX (OLX), but my priorities have shifted, and I just don't find the time anymore, although I still really would like to. I guess it's the same for the other developers. We used to be three main developers. When I started working on it, I was in school, and then started studying at a university, and continued working on it during most of my studies (and I think my studies somewhat suffered from it, as I spent way more time on coding on OLX than on studying...). But then I started a PhD, got full-time job, now got kids, etc... Also, this is kind of an infinite project. You can always improve things, implement nice new ideas, etc. For reference, repo is here: https://github.com/albertz/openlierox https://github.com/albertz/openlierox The code you find there is already more modern than all the published builds. It is based on SDL2 now, and has lots of cleanups. The merge of the Gusanos engine and OLX engine is much more completed and cleaned up. Although this could still further improved. I would like to use Lua as the pure scripting engine (from Gusanos engine), and port over all the OLX game logic to that as well, so that the core engine becomes much simpler. The graphics effects and drawing should be optimized further. On the transition to SDL2 and due to code cleanup, graphics has become slower. And it was already somewhat slow before. This is maybe not much a problem on a modern machine, but this game really should not require a modern machine to run nicely. One reason is that this is all purely software pixel based, including all graphics effects. We definitely should move to OpenGL, Vulkan or so, but some of the graphics effects are a bit tricky to re-implement, and probably need some shader logic. But we also want to have it cross platform, really running anywhere. I think you refer to HawkNL, which is used for the low level networking (UDP/TCP sockets, DNS)? Yea, we definitely could replace that. Although we anyway provide our own fork within OLX, and it's not so special. One of the many things you probably could replace by sth more modern. The (higher level) network engine is probably a more important item which needs a reimplementation to support more players, be more stable, etc. OpenLiero (https://www.liero.be/ https://www.liero.be/) is a reimplementation as well. We planned to provide this (the game physics / logic / weapons) as another mod inside OLX. It already has some mods which are similar, but not exactly the same. And many more things...
  - gspr 6y ago
    Thanks for the writeup! I really hope you didn't take my comment as criticism. I can definitely understand!
    - albertzeyer 6y ago
      No, not at all. I'm just feeling a bit sad about it myself. But I'm also doing very interesting things recently (research on deep learning), so it's okay.
someperson 6y ago
Soldat 2 is available in early-access, which might have provided the motivation to open-source the original.
GordonS 6y ago
I haven't used Pascal for around 15 years, when I used to build Windows desktop apps using Delphi - nice to see some Pascal code for the first time in a while! BTW, I found the screenshots at soldat.pl, but it would be nice to include a couple in the GitHub readme too.
- shoozza 6y ago
  Yeah good point, probably better to include the screenshot than an icon. Will do.
ulrikrasmussen 6y ago
We have replaced our daily table soccer break with a round of teeworlds at work. It's a great game for that purpose. Like table soccer, the game mechanics are simple enough that anyone can join and have fun instantly, but there is a lot of opportunity to gain skills by learning to use the rope efficiently, combined with "classic" FPS stunts such as rocket jumps. Highly recommended. I also recall playing Soldat a lot back in high school. I think there wasn't a Linux version available, which I guess is why I stopped. Perhaps one will appear now that it is open source?
- ulrikrasmussen 6y ago
  Forgot to say: I have also played Liero a lot with shared keyboard, and didn't know about OpenLieroX! I'll definitely try that out, as it sounds like it's right up my alley :)
- fho 6y ago
  It actually ran quite well in Wine even back than.
- app4soft 6y ago
  > I think there wasn't a Linux version available, which I guess is why I stopped. I just came in comments to see is there a Linux build. Now I know.

gspr 6y ago

Ooh! What happened to OpenLieroX? I used to love it, but I see there hasn't been a release in ages. Is development still ongoing? Is it still tied to that quirky abandoned networking library that I can't remember the name of? How did it stand up to the original Liero being opened up? (Rereading the above I sound super critical. That was not my intention!)

albertzeyer 6y ago
I really would love to continue working on OpenLieroX (OLX), but my priorities have shifted, and I just don't find the time anymore, although I still really would like to. I guess it's the same for the other developers. We used to be three main developers. When I started working on it, I was in school, and then started studying at a university, and continued working on it during most of my studies (and I think my studies somewhat suffered from it, as I spent way more time on coding on OLX than on studying...). But then I started a PhD, got full-time job, now got kids, etc... Also, this is kind of an infinite project. You can always improve things, implement nice new ideas, etc. For reference, repo is here: https://github.com/albertz/openlierox https://github.com/albertz/openlierox The code you find there is already more modern than all the published builds. It is based on SDL2 now, and has lots of cleanups. The merge of the Gusanos engine and OLX engine is much more completed and cleaned up. Although this could still further improved. I would like to use Lua as the pure scripting engine (from Gusanos engine), and port over all the OLX game logic to that as well, so that the core engine becomes much simpler. The graphics effects and drawing should be optimized further. On the transition to SDL2 and due to code cleanup, graphics has become slower. And it was already somewhat slow before. This is maybe not much a problem on a modern machine, but this game really should not require a modern machine to run nicely. One reason is that this is all purely software pixel based, including all graphics effects. We definitely should move to OpenGL, Vulkan or so, but some of the graphics effects are a bit tricky to re-implement, and probably need some shader logic. But we also want to have it cross platform, really running anywhere. I think you refer to HawkNL, which is used for the low level networking (UDP/TCP sockets, DNS)? Yea, we definitely could replace that. Although we anyway provide our own fork within OLX, and it's not so special. One of the many things you probably could replace by sth more modern. The (higher level) network engine is probably a more important item which needs a reimplementation to support more players, be more stable, etc. OpenLiero (https://www.liero.be/ https://www.liero.be/) is a reimplementation as well. We planned to provide this (the game physics / logic / weapons) as another mod inside OLX. It already has some mods which are similar, but not exactly the same. And many more things...
- gspr 6y ago
  Thanks for the writeup! I really hope you didn't take my comment as criticism. I can definitely understand!
  - albertzeyer 6y ago
    No, not at all. I'm just feeling a bit sad about it myself. But I'm also doing very interesting things recently (research on deep learning), so it's okay.

someperson 6y ago

Soldat 2 is available in early-access, which might have provided the motivation to open-source the original.

GordonS 6y ago

I haven't used Pascal for around 15 years, when I used to build Windows desktop apps using Delphi - nice to see some Pascal code for the first time in a while! BTW, I found the screenshots at soldat.pl, but it would be nice to include a couple in the GitHub readme too.

shoozza 6y ago
Yeah good point, probably better to include the screenshot than an icon. Will do.

ulrikrasmussen 6y ago

We have replaced our daily table soccer break with a round of teeworlds at work. It's a great game for that purpose. Like table soccer, the game mechanics are simple enough that anyone can join and have fun instantly, but there is a lot of opportunity to gain skills by learning to use the rope efficiently, combined with "classic" FPS stunts such as rocket jumps. Highly recommended. I also recall playing Soldat a lot back in high school. I think there wasn't a Linux version available, which I guess is why I stopped. Perhaps one will appear now that it is open source?

ulrikrasmussen 6y ago
Forgot to say: I have also played Liero a lot with shared keyboard, and didn't know about OpenLieroX! I'll definitely try that out, as it sounds like it's right up my alley :)
fho 6y ago
It actually ran quite well in Wine even back than.
app4soft 6y ago
> I think there wasn't a Linux version available, which I guess is why I stopped. I just came in comments to see is there a Linux build. Now I know.