Another kind of open source software

By: François

TYPO3 is part of the three open source projects selected to take part in the Hackcontest. Another project is an Adobe Illustrator clone and the last one is a game...

A nasty troll gets a taste of magic (image taken from wesnoth.org)

Open source software covers the whole range of software: operating systems, development tools, productivity suites, games, you name it. However except for things like Tetris or Shanghai (mah-jong) clones, these projects tend to be little known. It thus comes as a bit of a surprise that a game was selected to take part in the Hackontest, along with much more serious-looking pieces of software like TYPO3 or sK1, a vector graphics software. And we're not even talking about a Civilization or Doom clones (both exist) but a clone of Worms, a game both perfectly silly and totally hilarious, where little worms fight each other using machine guns, bazookas, exploding sheep (seriously) or more simply karate kicks.

We know that there are a lot of gamers among the geeks (and vice versa). Among them are certainly quite a few quality developers whose code should not be taken less seriously just because it's a game. For my part I have been playing Battle for Wesnoth for a good while now and have enjoyed it very much. The graphics are certainly not as shiny as commercial games (a similar game would be Heroes of Might & Magic), but the possibilities for convoluted plots is much higher thanks to a very sophisticated setup language (XML-based). Only geeks with a lot of free time would dream that up. For commercial companies it probably wouldn't be profitable to develop such an advanced engine. And the campaigns are crafted with much more love and detail. The size and complexity of the software is no less than TYPO3.

So all hail for this healthy competition and may the best win! And you, do play any open source games?