
Unknown Horizons: An open-source 2D realtime strategy game - sidi
http://www.unknown-horizons.org/
======
chadrs
Growing up, we always had Macs, so when my grandma got an old Windows box from
a surplus auction, I went to OfficeDepot and bought Anno 1602, a game no one I
knew had ever heard of, for $9.

Actually it was a pretty awesome game, despite having different controls from
every other RTS; the focus was more on trade than military which was pretty
cool. They ended up making a few higher budget sequels as well:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_(series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_\(series\))

Unknown Horizons is basically a clone of the original Anno 1602, and I've been
sort of following the development for 6 or 7 years, always thinking "that
would be the perfect open source project for me to contribute to" but sadly I
haven't really spent much time playing it and haven't written any code for it.

~~~
Tomte
I've never managed to get into the Anno series, but in Germany all the Anno
games were _huge_. Like "Call of Duty"-huge, not in sales numbers, of course,
but in mindshare.

Pretty fascinating how games don't necessarily cross cultural borders.
"Patrician" was also huge, and there were lots and lots of similar games. Also
football managers like the "Bundesliga Manager" series.

~~~
onli
Actually, Anno 1602 sold 2 million units, which is very much for a PC-game
from the 90s and on CoD-level, adjusting for market size.

But in general you're right of course. The other parts of the series sold
less, and there are a bunch of other great german games that weren't even
registered on the international market. Not sure that this is still a problem
though, with steam and internet distribution in general those culture specific
games maybe disappear.

~~~
Tomte
Those football managers and most of those German economy simulations have
already disappeared, precisely because the German-speaking market (D, A, CH)
is considered to be too small nowadays.

~~~
bhaak
They just have been replaced by games like "Farming Simulator".

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sidi
I love Unknown Horizons as one of the rare desktop games that's both open-
source and built with Python.

On revisiting my past contributions to it some years ago, realized it could
use more publicity. Kudos to the team for maintaining it all these years.

Direct github link: [https://github.com/unknown-horizons/unknown-
horizons](https://github.com/unknown-horizons/unknown-horizons)

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Vekz
Code repo [https://github.com/unknown-horizons/unknown-
horizons/](https://github.com/unknown-horizons/unknown-horizons/)

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gprasanth
Also checkout 0 A.D. - [https://play0ad.com/](https://play0ad.com/)

~~~
silveira
I play this game every day.

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cheiVia0
They are looking for translators for the next release:

[http://www.unknown-horizons.org/devblog/115/114/Unknown-
Hori...](http://www.unknown-horizons.org/devblog/115/114/Unknown-Horizons-
needs-your-help/)

~~~
akerro
Direct link:
[https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/uh/](https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/uh/)

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notliketherest
This is great. As a kid learning programming (hell, as an adult programmer) I
wish I would have had access to open source games! Kudos to the team.

~~~
shakna
Keep an eye on GitHub's Game Off then! [0]

[0] [https://github.com/showcases/game-off-
winners](https://github.com/showcases/game-off-winners)

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ralfd
Anyone else having graphic bugs in the sprites on the Mac? Makes it sadly
unplayable as text/icons are often unreadable.

~~~
mr_squidd
Could you open a new issue here (with a screenshot if possible)?
[https://github.com/unknown-horizons/unknown-
horizons/issues](https://github.com/unknown-horizons/unknown-horizons/issues)

A while ago I got access to a mac, so we should be able to test things better
now. Contributers come and go, I'm not even sure we have someone for macOS
packages right now.

I'm not really using macOS, but I just tried the last release, and I think we
might be having the same problems.

I'll try to test the current git version, since the last release was in 2014.

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xjia
Remind me of FreeCol [1]

[1] [http://www.freecol.org/](http://www.freecol.org/)

~~~
akerro
It's more like Anno than Civ

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foota
Reminds me on the face of Banished

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edem
Do I have to learn python to contribute?

~~~
cheiVia0
You could contribute artwork or translations.

~~~
akerro
They are using weblate for translations
[https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/uh/](https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/uh/)

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silveira
On Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt-get install unknown-horizons

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vasili111
Is there any MMO or multiplayer elements in this game?

~~~
mr_squidd
Yes, you can play the game together with others.

We do have reports of games getting out of sync though. The multiplayer code
definitely needs more love, but there is only so much time. For the next
release, we will evaluate the current state of multiplayer and decide if we
can fix the issues. Otherwise it's probable that multiplayer will be a focus
in the next year.

(I've been contributing to the project from time to time in 2012/2013 and
getting more active recently, hence me writing "we".)

