[HN Gopher] Spring is a free RTS game engine
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Spring is a free RTS game engine
Author : homarp
Score : 65 points
Date : 2021-08-16 20:08 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (springrts.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (springrts.com)
| henearkr wrote:
| Best known for Zero-K, an open-source multi-platform futuristic
| RTS game that uses Spring as engine.
| homarp wrote:
| and Beyond All Reason,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28201265
|
| Zero-K is at https://zero-k.info/
| docflabby wrote:
| Been playing this for years - it's brilliant
| [deleted]
| azalemeth wrote:
| Is it possible to build this on MacOS? The wiki has some old
| build guides from about 2011 saying that "the next version will
| contain a .app package directly", but only binaries for Linux and
| Windows are provided. I presume this is just a reference to
| apple's awful opengl support, but I can't really find a
| conclusive explanation what happened, why, or if the engine will
| build at all if I try.
| epa wrote:
| Seems like this is based on total annihilation, one of the Best
| RTS games ever made.
| szundi wrote:
| Most played by us at the company, regular 6-8 people lan parties.
| We play BA (a game for the engine) that resembles the Total
| Annihilation game that this whole stuff is based upon. Best
| times. Really recommended.
| sockgrant wrote:
| Crazy! I was gonna come here to say this reminds me of Total
| Annihilation.
|
| So it sounds like you recommend it? I'll have to check it out!
| aerovistae wrote:
| There have been three posts to hacker news today of open source
| RTS games ... what's with that? Is it RTS Day or something?
| [deleted]
| dhosek wrote:
| From Wikipedia:
|
| * Spring (application), an E-commerce platform
|
| * Spring (game engine), an open-source RTS engine
|
| * Spring (operating system), an experimental operating system
| from Sun Microsystems
|
| * SPRING, a GIS and remote-sensing image-processing system with
| an object-oriented data-model
|
| * Spring Framework, an application-framework for the Java
| platform
|
| Spring Framework (what I think of when I hear Spring in a
| computing context) is 5 years older according to Wikipedia.
| Grakel wrote:
| I just can't make time for games that don't look good anymore.
| They don't have to be cutting edge, but they can't be plain,
| without lighting or an interesting color palette.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| The market is flooded with good looking games that are not fun.
|
| Consider the fact that big budget games spend a majority of
| their budget on graphics, and are conservative in gameplay,
| because it is a risk to do anything else otherwise. See also:
| the film industry[1].
|
| If you want to play games that are fun, look for games with
| graphics that are less than AAA quality. Smaller studios focus
| on what they want to build, at the risk of bankruptcy. This is
| the exact type of game engine you should be keeping an eye on,
| because small studios and independent developers don't all pick
| Unreal. They aren't spending their time building PBR-workflow
| assets because they take exponentially more time to build than
| the traditional 3D and 2D art workflows of yesteryear.
|
| It is a project management objective to trade those things off,
| so one can ship a game.
|
| There's a reason why games like Minecraft and Factorio have
| overwhelming mass market appeal. And Factorio actually has AAA
| level 2D graphics, but most kids wouldn't recognize that.
|
| There are more games than ever, and in addition, there are now
| games that are several years old which never stopped being fun.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/ozj2ov/matt_dam...
| Cyberdogs7 wrote:
| This engine is based off a 1990's game called Total
| Annihilation, Because of this, most of the fans and developers
| have an affinity towards the more simple graphics that mimic
| the original game.
|
| Also, there can be thousands of units on the map, and each
| projectile is physically modeled.
|
| Not to invalidate your stance, just providing background to why
| it is the way it is.
| Grakel wrote:
| That sounds cool. Sorry to offend.
|
| I just picked up Patron, which reminds me of old Sierra City
| builders I used to love like Caesar 2, but with quite decent
| graphics.
| Cyberdogs7 wrote:
| No offense taken! I am a big fan of both the original and
| SprintRTS, so I may have had bias in my writing.
| poisonborz wrote:
| For the record, the engine was written from scratch, and not
| based, only inspired by TA - to bring its style of RTS to
| true full 3D. It has compatibility/easy portability of TA
| maps and units though.
| Cyberdogs7 wrote:
| That is a very valuable distinction. Because of this, there
| is a full 3d viewpoint available as well as built in LUA
| scripting.
| Graffur wrote:
| That's interesting. I find myself the opposite. The games that
| are improved graphically year on year are normally quite boring
| or scripted. Fifa and COD series for example.
|
| I can appreciate great graphics like Red Dead 2 but if it could
| be 10% more fun but look 10% worse I would always pick the more
| fun option.
| poisonborz wrote:
| Exactly. I'm playing Red Dead 2 now and it's mind blowing how
| slow and limiting the controls are despite the world looking
| so full and lively. For the sake of realism and movie-like
| presentation, the player is reduced to A-B button pushing, to
| not interfere with the nicely laid out scripted scenes.
| pythonaut_16 wrote:
| One thing I've picked up on that I especially hate is when
| a cut scene has you press buttons solely for the sake of
| interactivity, i.e. they don't utilize game mechanics.
|
| "Press X to..." in a situation that you will never
| encounter again or press X again in. Like the cut scene
| isn't teaching you a mechanic, it's just making you pay
| attention.
| aphroz wrote:
| I love this game and I wish there were more people playing it to
| make it easier to find an online game maybe that will change now
| thanks to HN
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