OpenTTD is succesful not just because of the game itself good but it’s a truly free clone of the original. You don’t need the original game files, there are are replacements for the graphics, sound, and music.
imo that’s the “problem” with most of the open source game clones. They are just the barebones engine where you need the original files. Which of course doesn’t sound like a big ask
especially if it’s an older game but still additional extra
steps that makes the users job harder. And also makes the official distribution of the game impossible. See how OpenTTD is available in one package on Steam [0]
That's because it's a very mature clone. In the early versions, you of course needed original game files. And let's be honest, TTD with user gfx would still be TTD but something like Morrowind with user scenarios would be a different game.
> TTD with user gfx would still be TTD but something like Morrowind with user scenarios would be a different game.
Isn't that an apples-to-oranges comparison?
Both games have graphics; you could substitute user graphics with the same semiotics, for the same objects into Morrowind, while retaining the same game feel, just like they did in OpenTTD.
Morrowind does additionally have scripted scenario dialogue and descriptive text. But you're picturing the wrong thing if you're picturing a need to substitute entirely custom scenarios. Instead, picture "paraphrasing to avoid copyright." Plagiarism isn't illegal; only literally republishing the text of another copyrighted work is. A hypothetical open-source Morrowind project could convey the same scenario with merely different prose — the same as they could convery the same object assets with merely different artistic direction.
I don't think that requiring the original game files is a huge hurdle, unless the game is very esoteric and hard to find. There are many widely-used game engines that require the game files, such as ScummVM, Rollercoaster tycoon, etc.
The problem is more that many of the open source game engines aren't complete: features are missing, bugs not present in the original, etc.
These sort of projects tend to be pretty large and also fairly binary: either it's complete, useful, and playable, or it's not (yet) complete and it's unplayable and useless. There's a bit of grey area, but a lot less than many other projects. You can get away with "small implementation of X which slowly accrues features over time" with many projects, but a lot less so with reimplementation of games.
These sort of projects tend to be pretty large and also fairly binary: either it's complete, useful, and playable, or it's not (yet) complete and it's unplayable and useless. There's a bit of grey area, but a lot less than many other projects.
Kinda hard disagree there, I guess. I’m following both Dethrace which is source port of Carmageddon, and OpenGothic2 which is source port of Gothic 2. And both of those projects were massive fun to play before even reaching feature parity. You just need to get your project to the point where game can be completed and there is no crash every 5 minutes.
> I don't think that requiring the original game files is a huge hurdle
It can be, because unless the game comes with all its own assets, it can't be a friction-free install for the end-users.
You can't expect to get the success of OpenTTD if you're unable to put the game on steam, and you cannot put it on steam if it won't run without the original game (which won't be on steam).
There other question of successfully cloning a game is "Will we ever be able to replace the requirement of needing the original game's files?"
With 2D games the answer is almost always "Yes, we can sooner or later have replacement 2D assets".
With 3D games you can forget about it; the effort and skill level is too high for volunteers to make it happen.
> These sort of projects tend to be pretty large and also fairly binary: either it's complete, useful, and playable, or it's not (yet) complete and it's unplayable and useless.
Everything is "binary" if you choose an arbitrary cutoff point.
Your example of ScummVM is a bad one: in ScummVM there are games that show nothing but a title screen, games where about half of the game works, games that are completeable but are lacking some aspect (e.g. music/sound effects/animations), games that are perfectly playable and completeable, and even games that have improvements upon the original games. The whole spectrum is present in ScummVM's engines at almost any point in time, as there are new engines constantly being added and others perfected. A game that's completeable but lacks music, for example, is certainly not "useless".
The fact that many of these engines are not (yet) complete is certainly not exclusive to game reimplementations. There's hardly any open-source project or game that declares itself "complete"
Eh, you are getting in wrong. There are lots of complete game engine reimplementations with most of the bugs fixed. They run far better than the original game engine on any new OS.
If any, it's good to have working WIP projects and reimplementations for games such as Resident Evil so they don't require emulation any more and thus they could run fast as hell on an Atom netbook.
> I don't think that requiring the original game files is a huge hurdle, unless the game is very esoteric and hard to find. There are many widely-used game engines that require the game files, such as ScummVM, Rollercoaster tycoon, etc.
But then the question is: Why not use the original game with ScummVM, DosBox or a VM (with whatever OS necessary)?
OpenRCT2 seems to be doing pretty well regardless. I don't know how the player counts compare, but the OpenRCT2 community seems very active and the engine seems to have a good deal of care and polish put into it. They upgraded the file format a while ago, greatly expanding the capabilities of the game (increased ride limit, etc)
As a fascinatingly rare case, OpenRA has the actual original assets a very convenient download away ("License and Game Assets" text[0]) right in the UI when you start it, thanks to an interesting license twist I did not know about[1].
(IIIRC minus the music and cutscenes, which you can import from the original games)
> The OpenRA game engine is free software released under the GPL3 license. The OpenRA mods require files from the original games, which are used under the license granted by the C&C Franchise Modding Guidelines. These files are not covered by the OpenRA license, and you will be prompted to download or copy them the first time you run a mod.
> EA has not endorsed and does not support this product.
While I appreciate the free assets, it's hard to beat the origin TTD soundtrack. Those were even recorded with real instruments for a rerelease[1], which turned out to be awesome, but I like the original midi one as well.
I'm constantly in one phase or another of a variation of this loop:
1) Play OpenTTD as a transportation game.
2) Get obsessed with the signalling possibilities.
3) Use the logic train mod to build basic logic gates & memory.
4) Start to build a general-purpose computer within OpenTTD.
5) Consider deeply how to design a minimal instruction set for such a train-based computer.
6) Begin development on an assembler, linker, and compiler for a custom instruction set
(definitely not self-hosted, but wouldn't that be fun???)
7) Get sidetracked because the project has grown too large.
8) Pick up OpenTTD and play it as a transportation game.
For me it’s all about making the biggest junctions possible with as high throughput as possible. There’s a lot of similarities with software engineering and concurrency here.
I always thought that when people were designing actual CPUs in games like openttd or factorio, they actually used tools to generate save games rather than do everything by hand? Is that not true?
it's not uncommon to see some computational elements in games on public servers, but building a real stored-program computer requires at least the clipboard patch if not direct savegame manipulation. (or incredible patience, i suppose)
OpenTTD is one of the rare remakes of a classic game that has succeeded in significantly improving upon the original. Though I stay away from playing it because it's so addictive.
I vividly remember playing the trial version over and over as a little kid on my first computer, a PentiumI system.
With no internet and no access to any computer stores that carried the game, the game was only a memory in my teens.
But then I got Internet access, and some time later discovered OpenTTD.
I started with point-to-point rail connections and escalated from there, into complex block-based any-to-any rail networks with train grouping and feeder systems via road and waterway. Then I discovered the FIRS mod and the networks got so complex I had to start inserting comments via the in-game signpost functionality to keep myself from trying to apply disproven "fixes" to certain hotspots.
And it even compiles and runs on my OpenPOWER ppc64le system!
Can't wait to start a new map, I haven't found enough time for the game the last couple of years...
I tried it because I loved the original and remember playing it for hours (and keeping the low difficulty game run over night to get a lot of money).
I think the controls haven't aged very well. Compared to modern games laying tracks is so damn complicated. I get that you can build complex layouts without the "helping game" get in your way but I just couldn't get into it anymore.
On the one hand that is true, but on the other OpenTTD _has_ made improvements to the controls. They are subtle, and very much in the spirit of the original game, but they are there.
The autorail tool (A, or the fifth button with the cross icon) is the one you want for a click and drag experience, and the most popular modpack, jgrpp, adds a "polyline" patch which lets the autorail tool also add in bends as needed. I suspect that patch will get merged eventually
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imo that’s the “problem” with most of the open source game clones. They are just the barebones engine where you need the original files. Which of course doesn’t sound like a big ask especially if it’s an older game but still additional extra steps that makes the users job harder. And also makes the official distribution of the game impossible. See how OpenTTD is available in one package on Steam [0]
0, https://store.steampowered.com/app/1536610/OpenTTD/
Isn't that an apples-to-oranges comparison?
Both games have graphics; you could substitute user graphics with the same semiotics, for the same objects into Morrowind, while retaining the same game feel, just like they did in OpenTTD.
Morrowind does additionally have scripted scenario dialogue and descriptive text. But you're picturing the wrong thing if you're picturing a need to substitute entirely custom scenarios. Instead, picture "paraphrasing to avoid copyright." Plagiarism isn't illegal; only literally republishing the text of another copyrighted work is. A hypothetical open-source Morrowind project could convey the same scenario with merely different prose — the same as they could convery the same object assets with merely different artistic direction.
The problem is more that many of the open source game engines aren't complete: features are missing, bugs not present in the original, etc.
These sort of projects tend to be pretty large and also fairly binary: either it's complete, useful, and playable, or it's not (yet) complete and it's unplayable and useless. There's a bit of grey area, but a lot less than many other projects. You can get away with "small implementation of X which slowly accrues features over time" with many projects, but a lot less so with reimplementation of games.
It can be, because unless the game comes with all its own assets, it can't be a friction-free install for the end-users.
You can't expect to get the success of OpenTTD if you're unable to put the game on steam, and you cannot put it on steam if it won't run without the original game (which won't be on steam).
There other question of successfully cloning a game is "Will we ever be able to replace the requirement of needing the original game's files?"
With 2D games the answer is almost always "Yes, we can sooner or later have replacement 2D assets".
With 3D games you can forget about it; the effort and skill level is too high for volunteers to make it happen.
Everything is "binary" if you choose an arbitrary cutoff point.
Your example of ScummVM is a bad one: in ScummVM there are games that show nothing but a title screen, games where about half of the game works, games that are completeable but are lacking some aspect (e.g. music/sound effects/animations), games that are perfectly playable and completeable, and even games that have improvements upon the original games. The whole spectrum is present in ScummVM's engines at almost any point in time, as there are new engines constantly being added and others perfected. A game that's completeable but lacks music, for example, is certainly not "useless".
The fact that many of these engines are not (yet) complete is certainly not exclusive to game reimplementations. There's hardly any open-source project or game that declares itself "complete"
If any, it's good to have working WIP projects and reimplementations for games such as Resident Evil so they don't require emulation any more and thus they could run fast as hell on an Atom netbook.
But then the question is: Why not use the original game with ScummVM, DosBox or a VM (with whatever OS necessary)?
(IIIRC minus the music and cutscenes, which you can import from the original games)
> The OpenRA game engine is free software released under the GPL3 license. The OpenRA mods require files from the original games, which are used under the license granted by the C&C Franchise Modding Guidelines. These files are not covered by the OpenRA license, and you will be prompted to download or copy them the first time you run a mod.
> EA has not endorsed and does not support this product.
[0]: https://www.openra.net/download/
[1]: https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/command-and-con...
Clones would be Bombermaan, Secret Maryo Chronicles, Freeciv, Pangzero...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuJy9oCdUns
I always thought that when people were designing actual CPUs in games like openttd or factorio, they actually used tools to generate save games rather than do everything by hand? Is that not true?
Choo-choo!
But then I got Internet access, and some time later discovered OpenTTD. I started with point-to-point rail connections and escalated from there, into complex block-based any-to-any rail networks with train grouping and feeder systems via road and waterway. Then I discovered the FIRS mod and the networks got so complex I had to start inserting comments via the in-game signpost functionality to keep myself from trying to apply disproven "fixes" to certain hotspots.
And it even compiles and runs on my OpenPOWER ppc64le system!
Can't wait to start a new map, I haven't found enough time for the game the last couple of years...
I think the controls haven't aged very well. Compared to modern games laying tracks is so damn complicated. I get that you can build complex layouts without the "helping game" get in your way but I just couldn't get into it anymore.
OpenTTD Game Mechanics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32698851 - Sept 2022 (14 comments)
OpenTTD 12.0-RC1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28654753 - Sept 2021 (62 comments)
OpenTTD 1.11 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26660154 - April 2021 (58 comments)
OpenTTD 1.10 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22772536 - April 2020 (114 comments)
OpenTTD Compiled to WebAssembly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19538715 - March 2019 (88 comments)
OpenTTD 1.8.0-RC1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16725375 - March 2018 (28 comments)
How are you to run over your competitors if they don't stop in the middle of the crossing?
Gamechanger! I love this game, this and factorio are like crack to me.
I love this game and I'm amazed at the amount of time and love spent on improving this gem.