Open source 2D ISO (Fallout-like) engine recruiting C++ coders *screenshots + demo*

[mvBarracuda]

Team name:
FIFE developing team.

Project name:
FIFE - Flexible Isometric Fallout(-like) Engine.

Brief description:
Just like the name of our project suggests we work on a new open source engine for isometric RPGs. The engine started as a Fallout-related project but we recognized very fast that it offers the potential to be used as a general 2D isometric engine for the development of cross platform RPGs. The engine supports the assets of the original Fallout games but it is meant to be suitable for the creation of all kind of 2D RPGs. We are focusing on the programming of the engine itself but will bundle it with an example mod. This way modders have a starting point to create their own games based on our engine.

Since we do not focus on the creation of a complete game we will be working on comfortable and easy-to-use editing tools. Engine and editor are planned to run on all flavours of Linux, Win32 and MacOSX.

The FIFE project is about 18 months in development now and we have released four public pre-alpha versions of the engine on sourceforge / freshmeat in January & May 2006. We did recently release our last stable milestone: FIFE 2007.0. The work on the 2007.1 milestone is coming along quite well and we're currently working out the roadmap for the next two upcoming releases after that. 2007.2 & 2007.3.

Target aim:
Open source GPL v2.0 (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php); non-profit

Compensation:
We are confident that advanced coders will find it quite exciting to work on the creation and the designing of a whole engine with other experienced and passionate open source coders. But as we're a non-profit project the only thing we can provide is the satisfying feeling to work on an ambitious project.

Technology:
Linux, Windows, MacOSX
C++, Boost library
SDL, OpenGL (optional)

Warning:
It seems that we should have stated this earlier as a lot of coders seem to be overstrained with the undertaking of creating a whole engine. That is not meant to sound rude but FIFE is a quite complicated large-scale project that needs a different working approach compared to smaller projects. We're searching for experienced C++ developers which want to take the challenge and work with other serious and experienced programmers. Please have a look at our code first before you apply for any position. There were several developers who applied for positions in the past who couldn't cope with the task and did leave the team.

As this is neither satisfying for you nor for us, the best way to find out if you want to take the challenge is to have a look at our current code base. You can either get the most recent code from our Subversion repository or download a fresh engine snapshot from our homepage (if you're not familiar with SVN yet or don't have the needed tools installed). If you got a Subversion client installed (we suggest to use TortoiseSVN (http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/) if you're on win32), you should definately go for the SVN checkout. The source packages tend to become outdated rather fast as they're just updated for every major milestone.

SVN sourcecode checkout:
svn co https://svn1.cvsdude.com/fife/engine/trunk/core

HTTP sourcecode download:
FIFE 2007.1 src package (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.1_src.tar.bz2)

Talent needed:
Engine designer & programmer
Advanced C++ skills and engine design knowledge are required for this position as you will need to make design decision about the architecture of the engine. Experience with SDL, OpenGL or QT would be really appreciated but isn't a must. It is far more important that we find someone who can invest a serious amount of time to improve the engine design and give the development a direction.

Editor designer & programmer
Advanced C++ skills and engine design knowledge are required for this position as you will need to make design decision about the architecture of the editor. We did initially plan to use qt4 (http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt) for the editor, however our old editor programmer went absent without official leave :-/

So we decided to leave the decision which GUI library to use for the editor to the programmer who wants to work on it. Some possible choices are:
Qt4 (http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt)
CEGUI (http://www.cegui.org.uk/)
WxWidgets (http://www.wxwidgets.org/)
Guichan (http://guichan.sourceforge.net/)

As long as it's open source and works cross platform (Linux, Win32, Mac) we're fine with whatever library you choose :-)

It's hard to define a good starting point for the editor programmer, however he should be familiar with the engine code itself to understand the way the engine works and adopt this concept for the editor.

One possible starting point would be to have a look at the recently finished map format design document and the archetypes concept:
FIFE XML map format design document (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Map_Format)
Archetypes concept (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Archetypes)

Team structure: (only currently active members listed!)
Phoku - engine designer & coder
Sky0 - engine coder
Jasoka - engine coder
mvBarracuda - project manager

My job as project manager is to keep the team together and to ensure that the communication structure inside the team works so everyone enjoys working on the project. Among other things I'm responsible for the news updates @ FIFEngine.de (http://www.fifengine.de), the project wiki and to provide the official and unofficial win32 packages.

Website:
Homepage (http://www.fifengine.de)
Development wiki (http://wiki.fifengine.de)
Getting started guide for interested developers (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Getting_started)
Doxygen code documentation (http://docs.fifengine.de)
Design documents (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Category:Design_Documents)
Developer blog (http://blog.fifengine.de)
Roadmap for the upcoming releases (http://roadmap.fifengine.de)

Current release:
FIFE 2007.1 Win32 (official release) (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.1_win32.exe)
FIFE 2007.1 src package (official release) (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.1_src.tar.bz2)

Ways to contact the team:
IRC channel: irc.quakenet.org | #fife
eMail: mvBarracuda@web.de (mailto:mvBarracuda@web.de?subject='Interested in FIFE')
icq: UIN -> 98600423 (http://www.icq.com/whitepages/wwp.php?to=98600423)

Important:
You can either use our free XMLmaps with the engine or access the original Fallout maps with it. If you want to use the Fallout maps you will need a legit copy of Fallout 1 or 2. The FO 1/2 maps are far more advanced compared to our own XMLmaps; basically we just set some placeholder textures on them to have something that lets you start the engine without having to own Fallout. So if you want to experience the full beauty: give the Fallout maps a go.

To give you an impression about the status of the project we took sample screenshots of the current release (using the Fallout maps):

Split personality. The new multiple cameras feature (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/3/33/2007.1.001.jpg)

Welcome to the New California Republic! (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/9/95/2007.0-r1.002.jpg)

FIFE offers a console interface to debug your games with (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/c/cb/2007.0.002.jpg)

One of our custom XML maps with placeholder gfx (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/1/10/2007.0.003.jpg)

Transparency for roof tiles (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/a/ad/Prototype1_010.jpg)

Feedback:
Feel free to add whatever feedback you like :-) Critics will help us to improve the project.

[mvBarracuda]

Phoku revealed the roadmap for the next FIFE releases today and we're planning a GFX contest entitled "Send them in!". You can read about all the details @ our developer blog:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2007/03/05/08.17

[mvBarracuda]

Just wanted to announce that we've got a new developer on the team who's currently working to get FIFE running on Macintosh again.

If everything works out as planned, we'll already provide universal Mac binaries for the upcoming 2007.1 release :-)

[Yves M]

Definitely looks like a nice and serious project. Good luck with it.

[mvBarracuda]

Definitely looks like a nice and serious project. Good luck with it.
Thanks for the encouragement :-)

I've updated the thread today as it was quite heavily outdated considering the recent progress made.

[mvBarracuda]

We're currently working hard to get the 2007.1 release out. Therefore we decided to release a last test build for win32 so users can get an impression what new features are coming with the new release.

Download:
http://members.fifengine.de/bin/FIFE_r988_win32.exe

[mvBarracuda]

Ahh well, the work on the final fixes for the 2007.1 is going extremely slow :-/ Seems like we'll need to delay the release till the end of April, if not even further.

So here is at least a new screenshot of the content that will be featured in the official 2007.1 demo map, stay tuned :-)

http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/1/15/2007.1.004.jpg

The graphics have been taken from Reiner's tilesets:
http://reinerstileset.4players.de/

[mvBarracuda]

It's done :-) After over three months of hard work, we've fixed the last issues today and released the 2007.1 milestone of FIFE. The most important improvement is the new custom map format that can be considered as stable. We created a demo map for this release for a number of reasons:
* Show the modders how the FIFE map format and specific concepts like the tilesets, archetypes and prototypes work.
* Set up a starting point for modders so they can get into the world of FIFE more easily.
* Create something that looks totally unFallouty to get away from the "FIFE-is-just-a-Fallout-emulator"-image. Welcome to the Isle of FIFE :-)

Here is a screenshot of our new demo map, using graphics from Reiner's Tilesets (http://reinerstileset.4players.de/index.html):
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/f/f0/2007.1.005.jpg

New features since the 2007.0 release:
* Stable custom XML map format for FIFE including our demo map to show the new features and syntax of it :-)
* FPS limiter (can be set in fife.config) to save important CPU time for future tasks (AI, pathfinding, etc.)
* Tile and object coordinates can be displayed (press "c")
* Color key overriding for Fallout transparency effects (see content/gfx/fallout_overrides.xml)
* Fixed DAT1 decoding code (bug was introduced with the DAT1 rewrite)
* Major map model classes have been exported to Lua and are now accessable via the console
* Map size dependant, configurable geometries
* Colorkeying for the SDL renderer
* Add custom VFS sources via vfs.addSource (see content/etc/vfs_sources.txt)
* Increased startup speed with FO2 DAT files
* Enhanced camera with support for multiple viewports (see content/scripts/demos/map_control.lua)
* Built against SDL_image 1.2.5 and guichan 0.61 now (Win32 binaries)

Get the win32 package here:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.1_win32.exe

Get the src package for linux, mac and kind of other POSIX systems here:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.1_src.tar.bz2

Install guide:
1. Unpack
2. Read README.txt

[mvBarracuda]

The last weeks were quite busy for the majority of the team members so there was we've published no news update since the release of the 2007.1 milestone about 4 weeks ago. Now we've found some time over the weekend to summarize all the events that happened in the last weeks to give you can overview about the current status of the project.

The full article can be found at the developer blog (http://blog.fifengine.de) and covers a bunch of topics including some remarks about the feedback concerning the recent release, news about the upcoming universal binaries for Macintosh systems, an update about the SVN and wiki restructuring process and the reintroduced MSVC 2005 and new KDevelop support for FIFE. Have a nice read (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2007/05/19/09.47) :-)

[mvBarracuda]

http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/f/f1/FIFEbanner5.png (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Map_GFX_contest)

About FIFE
FIFE is an open source 2D engine that aims to become a whole framework for the creation of cross platform (Linux, Mac, Win32) roleplaying games. Although we are having trouble getting the development started on the editor, we aim to include modding tools in future FIFE releases. The project is in development for almost 21 months now (ohh, we're getting old :-/) and we did release several public milestones of the engine over this time.

The latest release, entitled FIFE 2007.1, shipped about one month ago and features our first larger custom map for FIFE. The engine supports some of the assets of the Interplay RPG classics Fallout 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_%28computer_game%29) & Fallout 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_2). The Fallout assets served as test content for the engine but we've moved away from our Fallout roots over the last year and FIFE is slowly becoming a general purpose 2D RPG engine, suitable for the creation of all kind of roleplaying games.

Here is an impression of our demo map that shipped with the 2007.1 release:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/f/f0/2007.1.005.jpg/300px-2007.1.005.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/f/f0/2007.1.005.jpg)

About the contest
The demo map shown above was created with free graphics from Reiner's tilesets site (http://reinerstileset.4players.de/englisch.htm). We're trying to build a community around FIFE and we're also of course trying to get them involved in the project. A first step into this direction is our upcoming graphics contest, called: Send them in!.

The contest will start at the first of June, 2007 and the end of it is scheduled for the first of August, 2007. There are basically four different categories in which you can take part: floor tiles, roof tiles, static & animated objects and animated characters. You can take part in more than one category but there are certain requirements for each category; if you want to win the prize of the contest, you'll need to fulfill them.

So what is the prize? FIFE programmer Phoku offers to code an (useful) ~10 man hours feature into FIFE for the winner. This is probably a good way if you're considering to use FIFE for an own project but one important feature is still currently missing in your opinion. Although there will be no monetary compensation as the whole team works in their free time on the project, we're hoping for a bunch of interested participants nevertheless.

We're aiming to use the contributions of all participants of the contest for a new demo map that will hopefully already ship with the upcoming 2007.2 release.

More information
You want to know more about FIFE and the Send them in! contest? Our project site (http://www.fifengine.de) and the development wiki (http://wiki.fifengine.de) are good starting points for you. Our wiki features a separate rather detailed article (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Map_GFX_contest) that is dedicated the contest. All details about the rules of the contest, license-specific issues and the different contest categories can be found there.

If you still got questions about this upcoming event, feel free to visit the team at their project irc channel (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=IRC) or ask your questions directly at the talk page of the corresponding article (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Talk:Map_GFX_contest#Contest-related_questions). You'll need to register at the wiki to get write access. We were not keen to enforce wiki registration, but the spam attacks of unregistered bots are really getting on our nerves and waste our time that could be invested far more useful.

We want to thank every interested graphics artist who takes part to support an work in progress open source project :-)

[mvBarracuda]

Time for yet another update here :-)

The progress of the last two weeks is quite encouraging. We've decided to give the extend approach for scripting a try in a separate branch but it looks like that this branch will replace our current trunk version quite fast. The work on it isn't finished yet but it seems that the performance drawback of the extend approach should be bearable; some initial tests (although with work in progress code and just on tested a Linux system) did show almost no performance drawbacks at all.

For anyone who's interested to know more about it and is not afraid of playing around with some work in progress code, check out our extend branch in SVN:
branches/active/extend (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/browser/branches/active/extend)

One major advantage of the extend approach in combination with <a href="http://www.swig.org/">SWIG</a> is that you'll be able to get FIFE running with bindings for your favourite scripting language quite easily. We do currently play around with Python support and that works quite well. Additionally we'll maintain support for Lua bindings as Lua was our language of choice before we decided to try something different than embedding the scripting language into FIFE. It shouldn't be too hard to create Ruby or OCaml bindings for FIFE either and if we find somebody who maintains these bindings, they'll find their way into our Subversion repository so you won't even need to invest time to generate the bindings yourself (although SWIG makes it rather easy in most cases).

Here is a nice screenshot from one of our recent test sessions. It shows the FIFE console that now can execute Python code e.g. for ingame manipulations or debugging your FIFE-based game:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/3/3e/Ext_branch_teaser_1.jpg

Besides the work on the extend branch we're currently trying to fill our wiki with use cases for some possible FIFE-based games. That's because we intend to tackle the design of our scripting API after the work on the extend branch has finished. There is already a pretty small API in place but as it was written as proof of concept and for doing initial scripting tests it is neither consistent nor feature-complete. So we're trying to collect some real game examples first, analyze them concerning their requirements for a scripting API and plan to come up with a consistent design for our API after that.

If you consider to use FIFE for an own game in the future feel free to lend us a hand by contributing to the use cases. And don't be afraid: there are already a bunch of examples listed there that should make it easy for you to get started. If you would like to contribute but don't understand the concept of the use cases or got other related questions feel free to ask them here or at the talk page of our use case wiki article:
Use cases for the FIFE scripting API (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Use_Cases)

And last but not least we're still searching for interested programmers who would like to collect some experience working on a rather large scale group project :-) And we're usually kind guys and don't bite so if you want to find out more about us before you sign a lifetime contract with us feel free to visit our irc channel :-)
#fife @ quakenet (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=IRC)

[mvBarracuda]

Yet another FIFE update coming to you :-)

The work on the extend branch is coming along quite well lately and our current lead programmer Jasoka decided to summarize the current status from the developer's point of view. He does comment on the new Python support of the engine and raises some points how the modularization of FIFE should work.

For everyone who's interested in reading Jasoka's full text, feel free to check it out at our developer blog:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2007/07/11/18.44

[Efitap]

I have a few observations about the project:

What do you hope to achieve with a general, open-source RPG game engine? Putting it a bit rudely (but not intentionally rude) - games turn people's time into time spent without any value back. Not so with productivity applications, such as office software and back-end products, games give nothing but a time loss to their users.

Additionally, do you expect to compete with commercially available games? There was a mention of FFXI VI, I checked it out and see graphics that were fun 20 years ago. Today, better games are available as flash games, giving a smoother impression to boost with simpler tools.

I guess my point is - nobody wants the 1980 nintendo look today, with computer games and consoles giving nothing short of stunning graphics, how do you expect to reach any measure of success without a team that will be dedicated around the clock for at the least 2-3 years - top that off without any form of pay?

The way I see it (and I am still trying to keep this on a sound level) is that the game industry is too costly to compete with. In order to produce something that is near the standards of today's successfull games, you have to invest so much time and effort (read: money) that it is simply not doable in open source. This is, to my opinion, the reason why there are no successfull games on the open source platforms - sure they exist. I've seen blockbusters such as Doom come to Linux years over years after it initially hit the shelves for the PC market. But old games only attract collectors and people with special interest, not the general market.

On the other side, as a fun project for a team of old school geeks (such as myself), the project itself gives great value and fun, I am sure about that. I would've joined the programming team myself, weren't I so involved in other projects already.

I do wish you good luck on the project, even though I don't understand the "why" :)

[mvBarracuda]

What do you hope to achieve with a general, open-source RPG game engine? Putting it a bit rudely (but not intentionally rude) - games turn people's time into time spent without any value back. Not so with productivity applications, such as office software and back-end products, games give nothing but a time loss to their users.
Our main target audience for FIFE are not players but game creators. There are a lot of creative people out there who would like to create a game but are afraid that the currently available solutions for creating such a game are too complicated for them.

There is no full-featured 2d game development solution with specific support for isometric-like perspectives; that's why we want to create something like that.

Additionally, do you expect to compete with commercially available games? There was a mention of FFXI VI, I checked it out and see graphics that were fun 20 years ago. Today, better games are available as flash games, giving a smoother impression to boost with simpler tools.
Nope we don't want to compete with commercial games as the trend seems to be that a lot of RPGs go MMO lately. I'm a fan of old school isometric RPGs like Fallout, Planescape: Torment or Arcanum. As the game industry doesn't seem to produce such masterpieces with actual choice and consequence, turn-based combat and meaningful dialogue anymore, we want to create a platform for indie developers who think that old-school RPGs still have a rather large target audience.

I guess my point is - nobody wants the 1980 nintendo look today, with computer games and consoles giving nothing short of stunning graphics, how do you expect to reach any measure of success without a team that will be dedicated around the clock for at the least 2-3 years - top that off without any form of pay?
Nobody is talking about Nintendo 1980's look; e.g. Arcanum was released in 2001. 2d graphics tend to help to concentrate on the actual gameplay instead of going for 3d graphics whoredome while forgetting about the key element of RPGs: choice and consequence.

To me there was no RPG released that featured choice and consequence comparable to the level of Fallout, Planescape or Arcanum since the genre adopted 3d graphics: can you name at least one?

The way I see it (and I am still trying to keep this on a sound level) is that the game industry is too costly to compete with. In order to produce something that is near the standards of today's successfull games, you have to invest so much time and effort (read: money) that it is simply not doable in open source. This is, to my opinion, the reason why there are no successfull games on the open source platforms - sure they exist. I've seen blockbusters such as Doom come to Linux years over years after it initially hit the shelves for the PC market. But old games only attract collectors and people with special interest, not the general market.
As said: we don't try to compete with mainstram RPG developers. We just want to create a framework for creative people who are frustrated by the route the mainstream RPG genre has taken in the last years.

On the other side, as a fun project for a team of old school geeks (such as myself), the project itself gives great value and fun, I am sure about that. I would've joined the programming team myself, weren't I so involved in other projects already.
Feel free to consider to apply later in case you got some time on your hands again :-)

I do wish you good luck on the project, even though I don't understand the "why" :)
Thanks :-) We hope we could clear up our reasons for working on this project at least to a certain extend.