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Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

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Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#41

Post by VLM »

bru wrote: post #28
Cheerios wrote: post #17

There's a great port of this on Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androthsof...

Is that legal? That version seems closed-source! And I couldn't even access the developer's website (www.androthsoft.com). If the money went to the authors/official website I'd buy it in a heartbeat, but in the current situation I'd rather circumvent the official download channels...

"That version seems closed-source!"

https://github.com/cjhopman/Wesnoth-1.8-for-Android

The "Is that legal?" question is extremely complicated because you're looking for a positive answer in a marketplace full of a bazillion theoretical negative answers. They're not "selling GPL without releasing the source" as long as github doesn't go out of business. Is it legal, in the sense that there used to be a raging debate if your agreement to sell on the apple store was invalid thus illegal if you "sold" GPL'd software, which I stopped caring about once I got rid of my last iDevice and went all Android, so it may or may not be legal to "sell" GPL software on at least some app stores. Another app store example, for no reason I'm aware of, wesnoth used to be stuck in the incoming queue on fdroid, I donno why or if that was ever resolved or if it had anything to do at all with the license.

"If the money went to the authors/official website I'd buy it in a heartbeat"

Well, CJ is listed by name on

http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Credits

Along with about 500 other people. I suppose paying one of the 500 is superior to paying none of them. Personally I think the work he did to port is worth a "tip" so I paid for it a long time ago.

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#42

Post by VLM »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #40
VLM wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"bad tactics" If you remove the morality and ethical language, I have had some fun answering questions experimentally along the lines of "is it even theoretically possible even with save scumming to (insert unusual and adventurous idea/tactic here)" Yes I'm quite literate and I understand the scenario is trying to railroad me into following a certain very narrow track of gameplay, but I want to explore well outside t…

I remember there was a patch or a setting to Wesnoth that removed all randomness from the game. I.e. every attack chance is now 100% and every damage is now oldchance * olddamage. I guess it supported fractional HP. You might try that if you want to get very creative with your tactics.

I remember something about an option turn_limit: -1 to shut off turn limits, I went thru a phase of "can 3 archers win the scenario" and the answer was often yes, but it sometimes exceeded the totally arbitrary turn limit.

You can create a whole new game out of the intended game that way where it turns into something like a counterinsurgency game where you battle for the hearts and minds (well, at least the hearts) of the gold generating villages.

There's a lot of interesting railroad track in the game, but if you step off the tracks there is also interesting land that doesn't have a track on it, thats not even on the map. It can be turned into an imperfect sandbox, and that itself is a metagame to find the "best" way to convert it.

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#43

Post by sspiff »

chongli wrote: post #32
sspiff wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This technique has a (derogatory) name in the world of strategy games, "save scumming". I think in a single player game, the only thing that matters is that the player has fun. It is more common practice in games like RPGs, but less looked down upon, since certain quest lines and story elements are mutually exclusive. Think of the typical choice of being a "good" or "evil" character, and how they sometimes lead to di…

Save scumming is so pernicious and ubiquitous that it's driving the growth of an entire genre in response: Roguelikes!

Don't Roguelikes usually enforce restarting the game after death? I thought they didn't allow you to (easily) have multiple saves.

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#45

Post by a-saleh »

Morgawr wrote: post #13

This game will always hold a special place in my heart. Back when I was 17 I got hospitalized (nothing serious or life-threatening) for a couple of months and back then I didn't have internet everywhere or a smartphone to keep me company. My parents had brought my laptop to me but having no internet was really really boring. I had Linux installed but, alas, in 2006-2007 there weren't many Linux games to keep me compa…

I met those guys at fosdem as well some years ago. It was a small game-dev room, they stayed through all the presentations having their miniature hack-session throughout the whole time :-)

It was great. Remember that one of them had a great presentation about importance of designing their game in data and not in code, to allow non-developers to participate.

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#46

Post by a-saleh »

sspiff wrote: post #43
chongli wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Save scumming is so pernicious and ubiquitous that it's driving the growth of an entire genre in response: Roguelikes!

Don't Roguelikes usually enforce restarting the game after death? I thought they didn't allow you to (easily) have multiple saves.

> I thought they didn't allow you to (easily) have multiple saves.

That is the response :-)

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#48

Post by sspiff »

a-saleh wrote: post #46
sspiff wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't Roguelikes usually enforce restarting the game after death? I thought they didn't allow you to (easily) have multiple saves.

> I thought they didn't allow you to (easily) have multiple saves. That is the response :-)

Oh, I completely misinterpreted the earlier comment! Sorry!

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#49

Post by izietto »

I've just discovered that one of the biggest contributors [1] is Eric S. Raymond [2], who is the author of The art of UNIX programming [3] and one of the open source contributors of all time I admire most.

[1] https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/graphs/contributors

[2] http://www.catb.org/~esr/

[3] http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/

Re: Show HN: Wesnoth – Free, turn-based strategy game

#50

Post by saraid216 »

pedrosorio wrote: post #12
saraid216 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the main reason I don't like it. I'm too consistently unlucky to play games that hinge on luck. I do agree that it would become a lot less interesting at high-level play without luck, though. That's pretty much the price you pay for having turns, as a game designer.

"Consistently unlucky" =)

Yeah. I took notes across half a dozen games for a while before I realized I was depressing myself with empirical proof that the universe noticed me.
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