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Show HN: OpenRA – RTS project that recreates Command and Conquer games

131 points by ZakWheaton 12y ago

dublinben 12y ago
It's so great to see the RTS genre getting love from the free software community. It's really been abandoned by commercial game development studios, much like point-and-click adventurers. I can't wait to have some cross-platform Command and Conquer style games with my friends.
- dweinus 12y ago
  ...thankfully, not totally abandoned: http://www.uberent.com/pa/ http://www.uberent.com/pa/
  - DavidNielsen 12y ago
    I am a backer but it is pretty much just a multiplayer game and what I loved about RTS games was the single player campaign experience
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    And it's an indie game.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > It's really been abandoned by commercial game development studios Not really. Starcraft 2 comes to mind. And not too long ago Supreme Commander. Wargame: European Escalation... and so on.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - chongli 12y ago
    Not to mention the Total War series, though they are significantly different in some respects. I think the problem with traditional RTSes is that they are just too damn hard to play effectively for most people. As a former follower of StarCraft II, I remember vividly the discussions about ladder anxiety and even experienced it myself when playing. It's such an incredibly high-pressure game, I'm really not surprised people avoid playing it.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      Total war is real time tactical plus turn based strategy,not really RTS.
      - chongli 12y ago
        Yeah, I'm aware of the difference. Personally, I think it's splitting hairs in an already extremely small genre (by number of titles, not players).
        dragonwriter 12y ago
        Just because the RTS genre is small doesn't mean that it makes sense to consider things that are very different part of the genre -- having construction/replenishment, strategic movement, etc., outside of the realtime game and part of the turn-based game makes Total War very different structurally from an RTS, and very different in its appeal.
        chongli 12y ago
        Who gets to decide which structural features are allowed and which aren't allowed in the genre? I'm sorry but I've had this sort of argument with tons of other people regarding other genres. Personally, I don't think you can define strict rules for what should/shouldn't be in a game for it to be classified into a genre. Otherwise a genre would be nothing more than a list of games that never changes.
      - Retric 12y ago
        There are plenty of browser based RTS games in they don't have turns. However, total war is much closer to starcraft etc than any of these: http://www.mmobomb.com/browsergames/strategy http://www.mmobomb.com/browsergames/strategy
  - cstrat 12y ago
    Planetary Annihilation did some amazing numbers on Kickstarter.
- cushychicken 12y ago
  I miss Tiberian Sun. That and Goldeneye were what got me stoked about gaming in the first place.
  - untog 12y ago
    Interesting- for me, Tiberian Sun was a huge disappointment. Maybe I was alone in this.
    - hackertux 12y ago
      My favourite C&C game was Tiberian Sun, so I'm really interested in seeing an official mod from OpenRA. However, It's not clear to me if it uses the proprietary Freeware game content (terrain, units, structures) of the original game. Can anyone please explain if that's covered by the GPLv3 as well? Thanks.
      - Milanium 12y ago
        No, the original assets are definitely not covered by any open content or free software license. https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/FAQ#is-that-legal https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/FAQ#is-that-legal
    - wingerlang 12y ago
      Probably not, I didn't like it too much. At least compared to Red Alert 1, which is my all time favourite. And on that topic maybe I should plug redalert1.com, a still active community for the game, and others too.
- nbaksalyar 12y ago
  One more good example is NetStorm 2 [0] that is a Unity3D-based remake of little-known, but still good classic RTS game NetStorm [1]. [0] http://netstorm2hq.com/page.php?7 http://netstorm2hq.com/page.php?7 [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetStorm:_Islands_At_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetStorm:_Islands_At_War
  - minikomi 12y ago
    Wow! I used to love the original.. Nice balance of strategy, puzzle and sweaty palmed action
i80and 12y ago
Speaking as somebody who contributed a pathfinding fast-failing optimization, the development team is really helpful and the codebase is quite nice to jump into! If you want to get a feel for RTS design, OpenRA is great stuff. Plus, it's really fun, so there's that too.
voltagex_ 12y ago
The codebase is in C# if anyone wants to jump in. Also: https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/36085-openra https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/36085-openra - yes, that's $1600 in bounties.
akusete 12y ago
Love the project. Crashes on my mac though :(
- sebcat 12y ago
  Have you reported the problem? Found a way to replicate it consistently? I'm asking because a lot of people forget about the participation part of F/OSS. You don't have to be a killer dev to make a piece of software better. Sometimes you only need to donate a few minutes/an hour of your time.
- jauer 12y ago
  On the off chance that it was a beach ball instead of a outright crash, apparently there's some cache generation that happens on first run on OSX 10.9+. It started working after ~5 minutes of beachball on my 2011 MBA.
  - Milanium 12y ago
    This has been fixed in https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/5244 https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/5244 and will be shipped in the next version.
akurilin 12y ago
Anything that helps people relive these amazing PC classics has my support. Same thing with OpenTTD!
shaggyfrog 12y ago
Another similar project is ORTS, which has been around for a decade: https://skatgame.net/mburo/orts/orts.html https://skatgame.net/mburo/orts/orts.html
- ricree 12y ago
  The most polished I'm aware of off the top of my head is Spring (http://springrts.com/ http://springrts.com/), which started off as a Total Annihilation clone, but grew into a pretty solid engine in its own right.
yincrash 12y ago
def fun and an easy game to play with your friends quickly. Plays really differently than the real RA, but doesn't mean it's bad.
RobotCaleb 12y ago
I host this and have been involved off and on for the last few years. If you want to contribute the dev team is very approachable (often a problem) and willing to help out where needed. The codebase is rather pleasant as well.
navs 12y ago
Awesome! Just awesome. My late father was a huge C&C fan but his fondness for the series ended around the time of C&C Generals. I remember with Red Alert 2, they introduced killer dolphins and Giant Squids. The RA series just became more and more comical over time. The first RA and its expansion packs remain my absolute favorite.
darylteo 12y ago
Wasn't there a version of C&C running completely in WebGL or JS/Canvas in some way?
- ygra 12y ago
  http://www.adityaravishankar.com/projects/games/command-and-conquer/ http://www.adityaravishankar.com/projects/games/command-and-...
egeozcan 12y ago
There is also 0 A.D.[0], which is inspired by Age of Empires. [0]: http://play0ad.com/ http://play0ad.com/
- jckt 12y ago
  Glest/MegaGlest[0] is also another FOSS RTS project. When I last played it it felt a bit like Warcraft 3, but definitely not a clone (no heroes as far as I remember). [0]: http://megaglest.org/ http://megaglest.org/
- GotAnyMegadeth 12y ago
  They should probably post some more news so that the 1st of April jokes isn't the first thing you see...
spingsprong 12y ago
I remember trying this out a few years ago, and was amazed that it ran at 0.5fps on my modernish PC, when the original game from 1996 ran fine on a 66MHz PC with 16MB of RAM.
jqm 12y ago
These are the only kind of computer games that entertain me for some reason(except card games). First person shooter games bore the heck out of me and I don't play them. There is one in particular called "Cossacks" that is hands down the best game ever IMHOP. I have been playing it for over 12 years and keep an XP machine (last windows machine in the house for a long time now) specifically to play Cossacks. I play it regularly too... at least a couple of hours a week usually. And I really really wish someone would do a project like this with Cossacks. It is so much richer and more complex than the Command and Conquer series (although those were good as well... not complaining and this is a neat project). I think it actually takes years to get the nuances of Cossacks down. Best game EVER! (I realize this is not normal. I don't know if I should seek counseling or if I'm just a game monogamist.)
sonofsam 12y ago
Surprised no one mentioned: http://zero-k.info/ http://zero-k.info/ This is an extremely polished open source game (spiritually based on Total Annihilation). Everyone should check it out.
- lunixbochs 12y ago
  Spring was mentioned, which is a superset of Zero-K

131 points by ZakWheaton 12y ago

It's so great to see the RTS genre getting love from the free software community. It's really been abandoned by commercial game development studios, much like point-and-click adventurers. I can't wait to have some cross-platform Command and Conquer style games with my friends.

dweinus 12y ago
...thankfully, not totally abandoned: http://www.uberent.com/pa/ http://www.uberent.com/pa/
- DavidNielsen 12y ago
  I am a backer but it is pretty much just a multiplayer game and what I loved about RTS games was the single player campaign experience
- ekianjo 12y ago
  And it's an indie game.
ekianjo 12y ago
> It's really been abandoned by commercial game development studios Not really. Starcraft 2 comes to mind. And not too long ago Supreme Commander. Wargame: European Escalation... and so on.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- chongli 12y ago
  Not to mention the Total War series, though they are significantly different in some respects. I think the problem with traditional RTSes is that they are just too damn hard to play effectively for most people. As a former follower of StarCraft II, I remember vividly the discussions about ladder anxiety and even experienced it myself when playing. It's such an incredibly high-pressure game, I'm really not surprised people avoid playing it.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    Total war is real time tactical plus turn based strategy,not really RTS.
    - chongli 12y ago
      Yeah, I'm aware of the difference. Personally, I think it's splitting hairs in an already extremely small genre (by number of titles, not players).
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        Just because the RTS genre is small doesn't mean that it makes sense to consider things that are very different part of the genre -- having construction/replenishment, strategic movement, etc., outside of the realtime game and part of the turn-based game makes Total War very different structurally from an RTS, and very different in its appeal.
        chongli 12y ago
        Who gets to decide which structural features are allowed and which aren't allowed in the genre? I'm sorry but I've had this sort of argument with tons of other people regarding other genres. Personally, I don't think you can define strict rules for what should/shouldn't be in a game for it to be classified into a genre. Otherwise a genre would be nothing more than a list of games that never changes.
    - Retric 12y ago
      There are plenty of browser based RTS games in they don't have turns. However, total war is much closer to starcraft etc than any of these: http://www.mmobomb.com/browsergames/strategy http://www.mmobomb.com/browsergames/strategy
- cstrat 12y ago
  Planetary Annihilation did some amazing numbers on Kickstarter.
cushychicken 12y ago
I miss Tiberian Sun. That and Goldeneye were what got me stoked about gaming in the first place.
- untog 12y ago
  Interesting- for me, Tiberian Sun was a huge disappointment. Maybe I was alone in this.
  - hackertux 12y ago
    My favourite C&C game was Tiberian Sun, so I'm really interested in seeing an official mod from OpenRA. However, It's not clear to me if it uses the proprietary Freeware game content (terrain, units, structures) of the original game. Can anyone please explain if that's covered by the GPLv3 as well? Thanks.
    - Milanium 12y ago
      No, the original assets are definitely not covered by any open content or free software license. https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/FAQ#is-that-legal https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/FAQ#is-that-legal
  - wingerlang 12y ago
    Probably not, I didn't like it too much. At least compared to Red Alert 1, which is my all time favourite. And on that topic maybe I should plug redalert1.com, a still active community for the game, and others too.
nbaksalyar 12y ago
One more good example is NetStorm 2 [0] that is a Unity3D-based remake of little-known, but still good classic RTS game NetStorm [1]. [0] http://netstorm2hq.com/page.php?7 http://netstorm2hq.com/page.php?7 [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetStorm:_Islands_At_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetStorm:_Islands_At_War
- minikomi 12y ago
  Wow! I used to love the original.. Nice balance of strategy, puzzle and sweaty palmed action

i80and 12y ago

Speaking as somebody who contributed a pathfinding fast-failing optimization, the development team is really helpful and the codebase is quite nice to jump into! If you want to get a feel for RTS design, OpenRA is great stuff. Plus, it's really fun, so there's that too.

voltagex_ 12y ago

The codebase is in C# if anyone wants to jump in. Also: https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/36085-openra https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/36085-openra - yes, that's $1600 in bounties.

akusete 12y ago

Love the project. Crashes on my mac though :(

sebcat 12y ago
Have you reported the problem? Found a way to replicate it consistently? I'm asking because a lot of people forget about the participation part of F/OSS. You don't have to be a killer dev to make a piece of software better. Sometimes you only need to donate a few minutes/an hour of your time.
jauer 12y ago
On the off chance that it was a beach ball instead of a outright crash, apparently there's some cache generation that happens on first run on OSX 10.9+. It started working after ~5 minutes of beachball on my 2011 MBA.
- Milanium 12y ago
  This has been fixed in https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/5244 https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/5244 and will be shipped in the next version.

akurilin 12y ago

Anything that helps people relive these amazing PC classics has my support. Same thing with OpenTTD!

shaggyfrog 12y ago

Another similar project is ORTS, which has been around for a decade: https://skatgame.net/mburo/orts/orts.html https://skatgame.net/mburo/orts/orts.html

ricree 12y ago
The most polished I'm aware of off the top of my head is Spring (http://springrts.com/ http://springrts.com/), which started off as a Total Annihilation clone, but grew into a pretty solid engine in its own right.

yincrash 12y ago

def fun and an easy game to play with your friends quickly. Plays really differently than the real RA, but doesn't mean it's bad.

RobotCaleb 12y ago

I host this and have been involved off and on for the last few years. If you want to contribute the dev team is very approachable (often a problem) and willing to help out where needed. The codebase is rather pleasant as well.

navs 12y ago

Awesome! Just awesome. My late father was a huge C&C fan but his fondness for the series ended around the time of C&C Generals. I remember with Red Alert 2, they introduced killer dolphins and Giant Squids. The RA series just became more and more comical over time. The first RA and its expansion packs remain my absolute favorite.

darylteo 12y ago

Wasn't there a version of C&C running completely in WebGL or JS/Canvas in some way?

ygra 12y ago
http://www.adityaravishankar.com/projects/games/command-and-conquer/ http://www.adityaravishankar.com/projects/games/command-and-...

egeozcan 12y ago

There is also 0 A.D.[0], which is inspired by Age of Empires. [0]: http://play0ad.com/ http://play0ad.com/

jckt 12y ago
Glest/MegaGlest[0] is also another FOSS RTS project. When I last played it it felt a bit like Warcraft 3, but definitely not a clone (no heroes as far as I remember). [0]: http://megaglest.org/ http://megaglest.org/
GotAnyMegadeth 12y ago
They should probably post some more news so that the 1st of April jokes isn't the first thing you see...

spingsprong 12y ago

I remember trying this out a few years ago, and was amazed that it ran at 0.5fps on my modernish PC, when the original game from 1996 ran fine on a 66MHz PC with 16MB of RAM.

jqm 12y ago

These are the only kind of computer games that entertain me for some reason(except card games). First person shooter games bore the heck out of me and I don't play them. There is one in particular called "Cossacks" that is hands down the best game ever IMHOP. I have been playing it for over 12 years and keep an XP machine (last windows machine in the house for a long time now) specifically to play Cossacks. I play it regularly too... at least a couple of hours a week usually. And I really really wish someone would do a project like this with Cossacks. It is so much richer and more complex than the Command and Conquer series (although those were good as well... not complaining and this is a neat project). I think it actually takes years to get the nuances of Cossacks down. Best game EVER! (I realize this is not normal. I don't know if I should seek counseling or if I'm just a game monogamist.)

sonofsam 12y ago

Surprised no one mentioned: http://zero-k.info/ http://zero-k.info/ This is an extremely polished open source game (spiritually based on Total Annihilation). Everyone should check it out.

lunixbochs 12y ago
Spring was mentioned, which is a superset of Zero-K