A couple of hours ago Google published the final list of 1125 students who will be working on free and open source projects as part of Google Summer of Code 2008 program. This year 8 students will work with us at Thousand Parsec project. This is twice the number of students we had last year. Here’s what they will be working on this summer:

• 3D Client for Thousand Parsec - Blog - Eugene Tan Jie Ming
• Tigris and Euprhates Ruleset Adaptation - Blog - Dustin E. White
• Genetic Conquest: An AI Client for Thousand Parsec (RFTS ruleset) - Blog - Victor Ivri
• DroneSec: A simple, one hour game for tpserver-py - Blog - Juan Lafont
• A Modified Risk ruleset for the Thousand Parsec C++ server - Blog - Ryan Neufeld
• Remote Server Configuration Protocol and Single-Player Mode - Blog - Aaron Mavrinac
• AI for RFTS - Blog - Vincent Verhoeven
• Schemepy - Blog - Chiyuan Zhang

You can be sure that all of us, students and mentors, will do our very best to complete these projects successfully. Exciting months for open source 4X games are ahead of us. I hope you look forward to the results as much as we at Thousand Parsec do.

Tags: games, game, gaming, gamedev, 4x, strategy, turn-based, strategies, tbs, programming, google, summer of code, soc, gsoc, open source, free software

Great news for all fans of turn-based 4X strategy games set in space. We (well mainly Tim Ansell with help from Nathan Partlan) at Thousand Parsec project have released a new version of the free and open source wxPython based client for playing Thousand Parsec games. There is a lot of new features, the client looks better and it is easier to use. Translation of the client is now possible and I have already translated it into Slovenian language. Remember, translation is a great way to easily help the project. Of course a lot of bugs have been fixed and the new version should work much better on Mac OS X. Be sure to read the full announcement for version 0.3.0 to see the entire changelog and download links. This is also the very first time we provide our own package repositories (currently only for Ubunutu and Debian Linux). We will try to set up repositories for other Linux distributions in the future. I already started to work on packages for Mandriva Linux. Maybe they will even be included in Mandriva 2008 Spring. Now let’s get playing and let’s see who will be the one to conquer the universe.

Tags: games, gaming, game, 4x games, strategy, turn-based, strategies, tbs, wxpython, python, wxwidgets, free software, open source

One of the items from the KDE swag I got at aKademy 2007 in Glasgow was a large KDE logo sticker. Since I don’t have my own car and I couldn’t convince my father to put it on his car the sticker was just laying somewhere around the house. Until this day… Today I gave the sticker to my cousin Matej and a few moments ago he proudly put it onto his snowboard (Elan Prodigy 152). I hope the sticker is snow-resistant enough to stay on the snowboard for as long as possible. Can’t compare with Mark Kretschmann getting an Amarok tattto, but it is still a great way of promoting KDE on sunny Vogel and at other Slovenian ski centres. Anyway, you can see the pictures on KDE-Look.org.

Tags: kde, community, promotion, snowboarding, snowboard, elan

My plan today was to go to Kopete plugin development BoF first. But I couldn’t find the room and the Geo Services BoF I stumbled upon looked very interesting, so I just stayed. There were a lot of interesting ideas where geo-location information could be used. For example tagging photos in DigiKam and other documents with location. This could then be integrated with Strigi desktop search so you could quickly search for photos taken at or around some place. There were also some concerns raised about publishing your location, so a user should be aware of privacy when it comes to it.

The second BoF today was about KDE Games. Developers talked about the best way to handle resizing game windows. You see, it takes a certain amount of time to re-render the SVG image after you resize. There were also discussions about the welcome screen, which enables players to quickly start games, and how to make game instructions easier to get to.

I’ve also stayed at the SQO/Research BoF where people where gathering ideas for tests that could be used to measure quality of open source software. Something similar to English Breakfast Network and Ohloh. I didn’t have any ideas at the time, but later at home I got an idea that one of the tests could check out how well code is prepared for internationalisation and translation.

The next BoF was about Plasma, the new desktop that is coming in KDE 4 and is heavily based on desktop widgets/desklets/gadgets which are called Plasmoids. I didn’t hear or see much new about Plasma, but during the talk Zack Rusin managed to get an OpenGL plasmoid working. Way cool! Oh yeah I almost forgot. Aaron Seigo told us that there are some companies interested into Plasma, which would like to use plasmoids and all to build a multimedia centre interface.

The last BoF I went to was about KDE Education project. One thing we all agreed on was that Edutainment should be renamed to Education. There was also a debate whether some applications (like KhangMan) should be in KDE Games package or remain in KDE Education. Other topics included the need for more artwork, the need for KEduca replacement and educational plasmoids. You can read more in KDE Edu BoF Report.

This was it for the day and the last thing for this year’s aKademy. I returned back to hostel earlier to pack the baggage and get some sleep before waking up at 3:40 in the morning getting on a long trip back home. Too bad time flies so quickly during aKademy.

Tags: kde, akademy, akademy 2007, community, conference, meeting, desktop, free software, open source, glasgow, scotland, bof

Together with my sister we’ve just finished packing our luggage for our trip to Glasgow, Scotland. As I’ve already written before, we’re going there for the annual KDE community meeting called aKademy. I think I’m quite well prepared for the conference. Using KOrganizer I’ve made a detailed plan of all the talks and BoFs and other events that I intend to visit. KOrganizer also has a very nice export function which outputs all the events into a nicely formatted HTML file. So thanks to KOrganizer you can see my detailed aKademy 2007 calendar. Our plane lifts off in less than 12 hours and we also need about 3 hours to get to the airport so I should better get some sleep. I’ll report back, here on my blog, when we get to our destination. Can’t wait to meet all the KDE people in person. Oh, and thanks again to Linux User Group of Slovenia for sponsoring my trip.

Tags: kde, akademy, akademy 2007, community, conference, meeting, desktop, free software, open source, glasgow, scotland

Well almost. There was a concert performed last night by an Italian Pink Floyd tribute band called Seamus. Although it was raining heavily the day before the event, the sky was luckily clear during the concert. If the weather wasn’t good with us, the performance would be in a large tent here in Bohinjska Bistrica, which sucks badly when it comes to acoustics. So the concert itself was at a place we call »Pod Skalco« (could be translated as Under the Rock) right next to Lake Bohinj. Seamus band played for about two hours and a half and everyone from our team of five agrees that they were very very good. And if old Pink Floyd gurus like my father and his friend Toni say this you can safely believe it to be true. It was a lot of fun and great music for only 5€ of entrance fee. In fact I was quite surprised that there were not more people at the concert. Ah well, those not being there, including my sister, can be very sorry. They missed a lot of great music for little money.

Tags: pink floyd, seamus, rock, concert, concerts, bohinj, slovenia, slovenija

One of my favourite films of all time is Das Boot. It’s a story about a German World War II submarine U-96 and its crew embarking on a dangerous mission. Submarines also fascinate me in general. When younger I’ve often played submarine simulation games like Silent Hunter and Jane’s 688(I) Hunter/Killer. Today I’m happy I can say we have a free and open source submarine simulation game that also runs on Linux.

I’m talking about Danger from the Deep (DftD) which is a World War II German submarine simulaton game. Source code is released under GPL license and artwork under Creative Commons license. Danger from the Deep 0.3.0 has just been released and it features much improved graphics (thanks to upgrade to OpenGL 2.0 and GLSL 1.1), 4 new u-boat types (IIA, IIB, IIC, IID), a new Tribal class destroyer, models can now have moving parts (turrets, guns…), multi-threaded code, new sound system, improved torpedo management, new basic torpedo camera and more. For details see latest news section.

I’ve played DftD for a couple of minutes today and I can say it looks like a very promising open source game project. If you are also a submarine fan be sure to download Danger from the Deep and… Dive! Dive! Dive!

Tags: navy, submarines, simulations, simulation, subsim, games, game, gaming, free software, open source, danger from the deep, dftd

This year will be my first time attending aKademy conference, a meeting of KDE users, developers and contributors. Akademy 2007 will take place in Glasgow, Scotland from 30th June to 7th July 2007.

Air plane tickets for me and my sister have just been booked, thanks to Jure Koren, who helped with his credit card (I don’t have any of my own yet). We’ve already arranged for accommodation in Glasgow Euro Hostel about two weeks ago. So everything is ready for the departure. Well almost, I still need to buy a power socket adapter.

Big thanks also go to LUGOS who will be paying for my plane ticket and the room. Without them this trip wouldn’t be possible, or it would be very hard. Can’t wait to meet you at aKademy 2007!

P.S. If you’re coming don’t forget to add yourself to the list of aKademy 2007 attendees.

Tags: kde, akademy, akademy 2007, conference, meeting, desktop, free software, open source, glasgow, scotland

PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a very nice gaming console. Actually it is much more than just a console. It is also the cheapest way to get some of the new technologies like Blu-ray Disc player and the Cell microprocessor. Another great thing about PS3 is that it is a very open console, which is also using a lot of open standards (like OpenGL for graphics) for game development. Sony even officialy allows you to install Linux on PS3 and the company is directly helping with development of support for PS3 in the Linux kernel. This openness has already enabled some of the very interesting uses of PS3. For example it is used to build an academic computing cluster (a cheap way to build super-computers), performs calculations to help with cancer/Alzheimer’s research and it is also used for some real-time ray-tracing.

But there is one important piece of hardware in PS3 that Sony (or nVidia) is still blocking direct access to: the RSX ‘Reality Synthesizer’ graphics processing unit (GPU). If full access to RSX was allowed to programmers people could create even more amazing and creative new stuff with PlayStation 3. In a hope to persuade Sony to open-up the full access to RSX a petition has been started. So if you are a PS3 owner or will become one in the future be sure to sign this petition. Hack, even if you are not interested into PS3 right now, consider signing the petition. Help bring more freedom and openness into game consoles.

Tags: playstation, playstation 3, ps3, sony, hardware, rsx, reality synthesizer, graphics, petitions, petition, linux

When I woke up yesterday morning a message from Tim Ansell was waiting for me on Jabber. It was some extremely great news about open source game project Thousand Parsec, which I joined a couple of months ago. Google has just published the list of mentoring organisations for Google Summer of Code 2007. What is so great about it is that Thousand Parsec was one of the selected organisations. This also means that I get to be one of the mentors.

I must say this has surprised me a bit. Thouand Parsec is quite a small project, not that well known and 4X space strategy games are unfortunately not as popular today as they were a few years ago. Who knows, maybe the foundation of existing code base, our plans for the future or some other part from the project description convinced Google to choose Thousand Parsec. Whatever the reason, this is our chance to get some fresh new developers, to get the project to the next level and make it more known and appealing to gamers. We have to make the most out of this chance.

So, if you are a student and would like to work on a task for a vibrant free and open source game project, I encourage you to take a look at Thousand Parsec : Google Summer of Code 2007. Here you will find some instructions and ideas for a project on which you can work during the summer. I’m sure it will be fun, you will learn something new and if you finish your project you will even get 4500$. Our community is waiting for you! And don’t forget that the deadline for submission of student applications is 26^th of March.

Update: The deadline for student applications has been changed to 26^{th of March, So you now have about 4 days left to join the fun.}

Tags: games, 4x, strategy, turn-based, strategies, tbs, stars!, galactic civilizations, programming, google, summer of code, soc, gsoc

Just in time for Christmas holidays the community of developers, artists and translators released a new major version of free and open source turn-based strategy game The Battle for Wesnoth. In version 1.2 single-player mode has a new tutorial and three new campaigns: Two Brothers, The South Guard, and Under the Burning Suns. The existing campaigns include new scenarios, dialogue, items, and optional bonus victory objectives. Multi-player mode also has new features. There are new units, new terrain types and artwork has also improved much. Translators have worked hard to update the translations and I’m proud to say that my cousin Matej also did a great work helping with Slovenian translation. For more info about the new version check out the release notes, where you can also find download links for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Now let’s get playing!

Tags: games, strategy, strategies, turn-based, tbs, fantasy, linux, free software, open source, mac os x, windows

About 11 years ago we were using OS/2 Warp as our main operating system on our first family PC. I was 15 years old back then and it is only natural I liked playing games a lot. By far the largest chunk of my computer time was spent playing a 4X (explore, expand, exploit and exterminate) strategy game Galactic Civilizations developed by Stardock. I just loved researching new technologies, using planet resources to build fleets of spaceships and conquering more planets.

After a year or so we had to switch to Windows and since I couldn’t live without a healthy dose of 4X I had to find a game similar to GalCiv. Luckily I found the game of Stars! which was developed by Jeff McBride and Jeff Johnson who were at the time employed at Microsoft (at least something good came from them :)). Even today I think Stars! is the best 4X game ever. Very complex and deep and a lot of fun. Later I also played Galactic Civilizations for Windows, but that didn’t last long since I started to switch to Linux and I spent less of my free time on games and more on other things.

Let’s fast forward to present. I’m a full time Linux user now and some time ago I was in a little bit of a nostalgic mood. So I started looking for free and open source Linux games similar to Stars! and Galactic Civilizations. I found a project called FreeStars, but its website didn’t show much promise, especially since it stated that it doesn’t yet compile on Linux. So the search continued and I came across a project named Thousand Parsec. The website was looking very nice, there was a lot of information, and there were screen shots of working clients.

Thousand Parsec project doesn’t try to be just a clone of Stars!. They are creating a general framework for making 4X space empire building games, that can be very long, have a huge universe and can be played online. Although the game is not yet at the same level as Stars!, I see a lot of potential in it. Noticing that there is a C++ protocol library (libtpproto-cpp) available, I’ve decided that I could also help with the development. But more details about this later…

Anyway, if you are like me and love playing games like Stars!, Galactic Civilizations, VGA Planets and Master of Orion, then be sure to check out the Thousand Parsec project. A major new version 0.2.0 of Python/wxWidgets based client has just been released and in addition to Linux it also works on Mac OS X and Windows.

Tags: games, 4x, strategy, turn-based, strategies, tbs, stars!, galactic civilizations, vga planets, master of orion, linux, mac os x, windows

A new crop circle has appeared in an oat field near Amity, Oregon, where it was completely invisible from the road but unmistakable from the sky. This time the message from the aliens is quite clear. It could be understood as: “We use Firefox web browser” or “Earthlings, use Firefox web browser.” Since many of us are intelligent enough to know how Firefox is great, we already use it

Of course it should be clear that the crop circle is not from aliens. It was made by 12 people from the Linux Users Group at the Oregon State University who like Firefox a lot. They have documented the whole process. The photos are already available and we can expect videos soon.

Tags: firefox, crop circle, crop circles, web browser, web browsers, fun, funny, entertainment