Civil: the journey continues

Originally I just wanted to import the sources of the original Civil project to Github to preserve them and to facilitate further development with the aim to rescue an abandoned project.

However, I could not stop myself and started to continue myself. I started setting up a restructured text based documentation that can be automatically be created by readthedocs each time the code repository gets updated and I setup Travis CI (it was ridiculously easy) to automatically run tests and report errors each time the code repository gets updated. Unfortunately there are not tests at the moment.

The goal is to jump-start the continuation of the project by

• Updating the code base to Python 3
• Switching the GUI framework from PyGame to something more modern
• Reducing complexity in the code base and the game model
• Removing unused or unnecessary parts of the code base
• Delivering installers for Windows
• Adding tests

I welcome everyone taking part in this. Let's collaborate on Github.

FreeRails: the journey continues

Originally I just wanted to import the sources of the original FreeRails project to Github to preserve them and to facilitate further development with the aim to rescue an abandoned project.

However, I could not stop myself and started to continue myself. The project used Maven as build system. I converted this to Gradle. I cleaned up a bit, started a restructured text based documentation that can be automatically be created by readthedocs each time the code repository gets updated and I setup Travis CI (it was ridiculously easy) to automatically run the tests and report errors each time the code repository gets updated.

The goal is to jump-start the continuation of the project by

• Updating the code base to Java 8 (applying the full code inspection capabilities IDEs like IntelliJ can provide)
• Switching the GUI framework from Swing to JavaFX with somewhat improved/scaled artwork
• Reducing complexity in the code base and the game model
• Removing unused or unnecessary parts of the code base
• Delivering installers for Windows

I welcome everyone taking part in this. Let's collaborate on Github.

Try to rescue Civil

I try to rescue the American Civil war strategy game Civil, which was developed mostly between 2000 and 2004 in Python and is in an intermediate state.

Check the Civil blog for further details.

Import of original Civil sources

I imported the sources of releases 0.80 - 0.83 from the original Civil Sourceforge page. Actually there wasn't a Windows executable. The game consisted of Python code and some C modules (probably to speed up critical sections) which need to be compiled. For Linux there was a build script included.

Civil is worth to be rescued

While collecting information about open source games and storing these in a Github repository, I stumbled on the Civil project. It was thought as a cross-platform, turn-based, networked strategy game where players take part in scenarios set in historical battle theatres. The U.S. Civil war was the primary focus. It was written in Python and main development took place between the years 2000 and 2004 with this Sourceforge project. The game was in an intermediate stage, far from completed but already much more than just a tech demo.

One major drawback was that the original FreeRails project used CVS as versioning system, which is now very much outdated. I decided to import the project (and some of its history) to Github and Git. Since 21th of December 2017 there is a Github page for Civil. I preserved a bit of the history (all of the releases I could find on Sourceforge and the final CVS state).

I hope that this will facilitate further development. It would be nice if development of Civil could continue with the help of new tools and library usable from Python.

FreeRails: Images from 0.2.6

The main screen.

The graphics is a bit outdated, mostly 2005-like with Swing as Java GUI framework and simple graphics optimized for screens of lower resolution as nowadays. But at least it runs almost out of the box in 2017 thanks to Java and the JVM.

FreeRails: Import of original sources

I imported the releases on the FreeRails I, II, III projects on Sourceforge and saved the available source package in a branch of the Github repository. I also re-released some of the historic available versions.

• Last release (0.2.7) of FreeRails (2000-2005) Link
• Last release (0.4.0) of FreeRails2 (2007-2008) Link
• Last release (0.0.4) of FreeRails3 (2016) Link

The Railz I, II projects on Berlios (exported to Sourceforge) are also saved in a branch of the Github repository. Some re-released versions are

•  Last release (0.3.3) of Railz (2004-2005) Link
•  Last release (0.4.0) of Railz2 (2012-2014) Link

 These branches and releases cover the existing development as far as I know it.

About 200 entries in the OS games collections

In the last two weeks I collected information about many open source games and added them to the repository on Github. I have now about 200 entries including often needed, popular libraries or gaming frameworks.

The build instructions are a bit sparse so far. I focus on getting a more extensive list, then filling in build instructions.

I also identified some projects that are in development for a long time (kind of abandoned) and showing some gameplay that are worth to be rescued. I may rescue the code of them, put it on Github and they see what else can be done about them.

FreeRails is worth to be rescued

While collecting information about open source games and storing these in a Github repository, I stumbled on the FreeRails project. It was thought as a railroad simulation/strategy game based on the RailRoad Tycoon and RailRoad Tycoon II games. It was written in Java and main development took place between the years 2000 and 2005 with this Sourceforge project and some side and continuation projects. The game was in an intermediate stage, far from completed but already much more than just a tech demo. I wrote a small article about the history of FreeRails so far.

One major drawback was that the original FreeRails project used CVS as versioning system, which is now very much outdated. I decided to import the project (and some of its history) to Github and Git. Since 15th of December 2017 there is a Github page for FreeRails. There was already another import by lukeyj13, one of the original developers, but I preserved more of the history (all of the releases I could find on Sourceforge and the final CVS state and the Railz sister project).

I hope that this will facilitate further development. It would be nice if development of FreeRails could continue with the help of modern development systems like Git, Gradle, IntelliJ code inspections and others.

Open source games

I started a repository on Github that collects information about open source game projects.

It contains extended information like a one line description, the genre, the primary programming language, source repository locations and build instructions.

It also includes projects still in development.

Statistics about the contained projects is automatically assembled using a small Python script.

I hope, the collection can be useful.