

The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle - jeff18
http://www.humblebundle.com/?frozenbyte

======
JonnieCache
I find it interesting that the linux crew are paying over twice as much as
windows/mac users on average. Higher average age and therefore disposable
income do you suppose?

~~~
Wilduck
Or a signal that Linux users are willing to pay for quality software?

~~~
b0rsuk
I loathe to admit it, especially because I'm an amateur game
programmer/designer. But Open Source games today are seriously lacking in
creativity and originality. _Vast_ majority of them are clones of equivalent
proprietary projects. Let's examine a couple a couple of succesful Open Source
games:

\- Freeciv: duh \- The Dark Mod: Thief clone \- Hedgewars: Worms clone \-
Violetland: Crimsonland clone \- OpenArena, Alien Arena, Nexuiz, Warsow
(Quake1/3 clones) \- Wesnoth: Final Fantasy Tactics ? Console TBS ? Simple to
the point where armor is represented via more hitpoints and tin can knights
need more healing. \- billion of DooM source ports \- Cube, Sauerbraten FPS
games have intriguing engines utilizing octrees, which enables to display huge
number of geometry. These engines are used almost exclusively to creat dumb
Quake clones.

Sadly, many good or promising Open Source games started as commercial ones.
The code was released later, often because the game was a commercial failure
(i.e. Fish Fillets, 0. A.D. ). More generally, open source is often where
software goes to "die".

About the only games I can name as exceptions are roguelikes, particularly
Nethack and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. These are open-source games with no
equivalent in proprietary/commercial world.

\--------

I'm convinced this is not a problem with lack of money, time, or motivation.
Even the greediest of the bunch, 2D and 3D artists, end up contributing to
mature projects. OpenOffice, Mozilla, GIMP. Hell, Linux ! I think it's a
__problem with leadership __. This article, incidentally - linked from Hacker
News - was an eye opener for me:

[http://blog.asmartbear.com/ignoring-the-wisdom-of-
crowds.htm...](http://blog.asmartbear.com/ignoring-the-wisdom-of-crowds.html)

("Design is not a democratic process", "Eventually you realize there’s only
way to please everyone: Cook something bland, mild, and safe, like chicken and
rice. But does chicken and rice actually please anyone? Not really, it was
just what everyone hated the least.", "Votes become vetoes")

It also talks about stuff like the jellybeans experiment. What _wisdom of
crowds_ is good or bad for.

Usually, innovative, potentially bad ideas are shot down. You're left with
chicken and rice - things that people hated the least. That's why clones are
so popular - you know in advance it is a solid game idea. It's much easier to
get contributors. But good luck getting motivated contributors for a unique
game !

More generally, I think open-source games often end up going one of 2 paths:
\- bland clone, huge project inertia \- Frankenstein feature creep, in my
opinion Nethack belongs here

I think open source is bad at going where no one has gone before, and this is
important for games. It won't stop me from trying, though.

I think Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is one notable exception - it _mostly_
manages to keep leadership focus. You could say they don't exclusively use
greedy algorithms for design.

~~~
ansible
> About the only games I can name as exceptions are roguelikes, particularly
> Nethack and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. These are open-source games with no
> equivalent in proprietary/commercial world.

Actually, that's not the case.

The gameplay for Blizzard's Diablo and Diablo2 are highly reminiscent of
Angband.

I've never seen a commercial variant of something as twisted as Nethack
though. :-)

~~~
b0rsuk
I don't know what's your definition of a roguelike game, but mine includes
"Save/continue instead of save/load AND permanent death". Diablo1 has
permanent death but you just reload if you die. Diablo2 has save/continue but
no permanent death. I guess Torchlight is the same.

Save/continue combined with permanent death has BIG impact on gameplay, it's
almost like a separate genre. Look at Dominions3 (TBS from 2010, free demo).
It fulfills the condition I described. It has things unthinkable in many other
games, like many divination spells that provide information. In a save/load
game they would be pointless, you could just go into an unexplored area and
reload, repeat. Also, Dominions3 has spells that bring back your valued
commanders from dead... but they make them weaker (wight, mummy) and can't be
reused over and over.

Save/continue with permadeath has large impact on player behavior too. Players
tend to a lot more carefully, value escape tools. Knowing what's coming in
advance is good.

You may want to try Notrium. The game is free, however it won't run on Linux
without wine. Aside from save/load, I think it's a much better
graphical/realtime roguelike than Diablos.

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giberson
I'm curious, what is the licensing on the included Jack Claw source code?

Could I mod it and release it? (Commercially?) What about the included media?

PS. Attempted to get answers from fronzebyte via the in page "chat with
frozenbyte" widget. Not much help from them at all. Kind of discouraging.

    
    
        Heya, curious about the included Jack Claw source--whats the licensing on it?
        →Would some one be able to mod and release the source? With existing media assets? How about commercially?
        →(Not that I want to buy the source, compile it and sell it) But was curious about utilizing the engine and assets to create a different game and how release options would be liited (or not)
        →limited*
        Joonas/FrozenByte: I suggest you to go to the frozenbyte jack claw forums and ask about the stuff there.
        →Where would that be?
        (no answer)

~~~
gnufs
Here's the license text from the README of the source code:

    
    
      JACK CLAW SOURCE CODE LICENSE
    
      THE COMPUTER CODE ("SOURCE CODE") CONTAINED HEREIN IS THE SOLE PROPERTY OF FROZENBYTE LTD. ("FROZENBYTE").
      FROZENBYTE GRANTS TO END-USERS A ROYALTY-FREE, PERPETUAL LICENSE TO USE, DISPLAY, MODIFY, DISTRIBUTE AND 
      CREATE DERIVATIVE WORKS OF THE SOURCE CODE, SO LONG AS SUCH ACTION IS FOR NON-COMMERCIAL, ROYALTY-FREE
      AND REVENUE-FREE PURPOSES. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE END-USER TAKE ANY ACTION WHEREBY THE SOURCE CODE CONTAINED
      HEREIN WOULD BE USED FOR REVENUE-BEARING PURPOSES. THE END-USER UNDERSTANDS AND AGREES TO THE TERMS HEREIN
      AND ACCEPTS THE SAME BY USING THE SOURCE CODE IN ANY WAY. 
    
      THE SOURCE CODE IS PROVIDED AS-IS AND FROZENBYTE MAKES NO WARRANTY AS TO THE USABILITY OR CORRECTNESS
      OF THE SOURCE CODE. ANY USE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. 
    
      FROZENBYTE RETAINS THE RIGHT TO ALTER THESE LICENSE TERMS AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON. 
    
    
    
      SOURCE CODE README AND FURTHER LICENSE NOTES
      --------------------------------------------
      Last update to this file: 12th of April 2011
    
      Jack Claw was a project in development at Frozenbyte during the years 2006-2008. It was a big-budget multiplatform game for next-gen consoles and PC. The project was canned in 2008 and the team set to work on Trine ( http://www.trine-thegame.com ) instead. More history on the project can be found at Frozenbyte's website or on the Jack Claw website, and more info on the transition from Jack Claw to Trine can be found in the Gamasutra postmortem: 
      http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/5826/postmortem_frozenbytes_trine.php
    
      This source code package allows you to compile the game and develop it further if you wish (for non-commercial purposes). All other Jack Claw files, including the art assets and the level editor, remain the sole property and copyright of Frozenbyte. You may not distribute any of the files not included in the source code package. Should the source code include any 3rd party files or software, the copyright remains with the original owner and you are not allowed to distribute or modify such files or software. It is also forbidden to distribute Jack Claw or any direct derivative, in any way (e.g. not even for free), in any "app stores" such as the Mac App Store or similar, or in any distribution channel that has authorization control by a third party. 
    
      If you have a question about the license or a specific file, please don't hesitate to contact us. We're mostly just covering our legal base with this stuff. 
    
      Please note that we cannot provide any official support for this source code release, although we will try to help where we can. 
    
      If you are interested in developing Jack Claw, please get in touch with us or join the community - we are not actively developing the game on our own anymore but we are generally open to ideas, and our main interest is to just get the game out there and see what happens, and support the community with their ideas.

~~~
krakensden
That's actually... a really bad license. Noncommercial only and no revenue is
really restrictive, and retaining the right to relicense the software whenever
Frozenbyte chooses?

~~~
dddrh
It is because they hope to create a crowd-sourced game later down the road.
The idea is that by releasing the source they can hold contests to create
levels and bosses and music and therefore create a finished product with
minimum effort.

source: <http://frozenbyte.com/blog/?p=176>

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ultrasaurus
I think I'm going to have to break my no-game-buying pledge for this bundle,
another comment [1] pointed out Trine is local co-operative and I want to show
my support for that type of gameplay.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2438072> (in a dead thread)

~~~
avolcano
More and more people are using their PCs with big TVs, so hopefully it'll make
a comeback. Valve announced Steam will have a big screen/TV mode soon, and
it'll be interesting to see if Portal 2 supports split screen natively (L4D
1+2 did, but required some hacking around in the console).

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joshuaeckroth
The last bundle was fantastic. My wife & I are still playing World of Goo,
Osmos, and Braid. We're both busy people so these are exactly (and only) the
kinds of games we enjoy.

~~~
heyitsnick
Good for you - sadly I don't have that kind of self-control. I played through
Braid in one sitting - be it 10pm through to about 7am in the morning. Once I
started I couldn't put it down; it was probably the best gaming experience
I've ever had. Similar result the next weekend with Goo.

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reedlaw
Is there anything as good as Braid in this bundle? I bought the last Humble
Indie Bundle and nothing really struck my fancy as much as Braid. The game
play is truly innovative and the difficulty on par with Apple II and Amiga
games of my youth.

~~~
Splines
I've only played Trine of the games in this bundle, and it's a decently well-
polished game. It's basically a puzzle-platformer. I've only spent about an
hour on it, so I can't really comment on the difficulty.

I doubt it's as intellectually hard as some of the later Braid levels. Solving
those were so _satisfying_.

~~~
heyitsnick
I'm looking forward to the time when I forget the solutions so i can replay it
all again. I tried a couple of months ago but sadly all the answers came
flooding back. I'll give it another 2-3 years before trying again.

------
xsmasher
Did anyone download the source code that came from the last bundle? I'm always
on the lookout for good game code to examine.

~~~
uxp
None of the Humble Bundles actually include the source code with the purchase.
Sometimes the publisher has released the code of the games included in the
bundle on their own outside of the actions of the Humble Bundle.

The reason that Jack Claw in this bundle was open sourced is because it is a
prototype.

You can find sourcecode for games included in other versions linked from
Wolfire's blog:

<http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/06/Aquaria-goes-open-source>
<http://crypticsea.blogspot.com/2010/05/gish-open-source.html>
<http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Lugaru-goes-open-source>
[http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2010/05/penumbra-
overtur...](http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2010/05/penumbra-overture-
goes-open-source.html)

As far as I know, the second Humble Bundle did not include any games of which
was later open sourced.

~~~
alfet
"Puppygames is working on releasing the Revenge of the Titans source code!
ETA: 2 weeks."

@humble 7th of April, I got it on the last bundle but haven't played it yet,
does anyone know if it's good?

~~~
Groxx
It's an interesting free-form (ie, no true paths) tower-defense game. Pretty
large tech tree, pretty long game, pretty hard, and it under-went a major
gameplay-overhaul not too long ago. I'm not convinced it's _better_ , but it
did noticeably simplify a few things which were over-complicated. And large
changes / updates are generally indicative of developers who listen. As is the
overall level of polish, which I'd call abnormally high.

Definitely worth a try, unless you dislike tower defense games.

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jdboyd
I bought the previous bundle, but now I'm torn. On the one hand, I want to
show support for them and for linux gaming. OTOH, the hardware requirements
are rather steep for me. The games I've gotten around to playing from the last
bundle all run well on Intel graphics.

~~~
Splines
I just tried Shadowgrounds on a laptop with an Intel 4500MHD (and a 1.4GHz
Core 2 Solo) and it works and looks surprisingly well (I set the graphics to
"low" and res was ~1280x720).

Shadowgrouns: Survivor hard locked my laptop (running Win7), I'm guessing it's
some sort of driver issue :(.

Trine runs well at 1024x768, but bogs down at my native resolution (1366x768).

For reference, I can play CS:S, HL2 & Torchlight on this laptop just fine, but
that's probably about it (TF2 is iffy). SC2 & Minecraft are pretty much
unplayable. Modern shooters like L4D1/2 are completely out.

Hope that helps.

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tkahn6
The last bundle posed an interesting moral quandary for me. I didn't want to
spend much money, but I also didn't want to pay below what I thought it was
worth. So I ended up not buying it at all.

~~~
andylei
their marginal cost is basically zero, so both you and they would have been
better off if you had paid below what you thought it was worth.

~~~
albemuth
so as long as your contribution covers the bandwidth cost you should be good.

