Hey folks!

I'd like to start pushing toward creating more 3D content for the community, including high-poly, rigged 3D models (perferably with textures and basic animations).  As things stand, we just don't have the budget to do that right now, as such a job would run between $1000 and $3000 or more for male and female models.

So, this is where donations come in.  To the right of this blog entry, there is a "Donations" box, and contained therein is a button marked "Donate to OpenGameArt.org".  In particular, I'd like to nudge people toward the small subscriptions ($3 or $5 per month) which, despite the small denominations, would go a long way toward purchasing more art for the FOSS community, particularly if a lot of people decided to help us out.

Also, I've mentioned this in the past, but it bears repeating: For the forseeable future (as long as our bandwidth usage doesn't exceed the capabilities of the fairly hefty dedicated server I'm renting), every penny of the donations to OGA will go toward commissioning art for the community.  In addition to that, I will continue to put money from my own pocket toward commissions on a monthly basis as I am able to do so.  You can see more about our costs in the "More Information" section of the donation page.

Finally, if you're interested in creating some art for OGA, we are always thrilled to accept art contributions.  If you'd be willing to donate some of your time and talent but don't know what to contribute, consider stopping by our IRC channel (linked in the upper right corner of the site) and asking around.  There's always something to do. :)

Peace,

Bart

It's been mentioned several times in the past that one necessary thing OGA lacks is a decent selection of fonts.  In fact, I would venture to say that in general it's been very difficult to find good, free fonts out on the internet.  Of course, there are a lot of sites out there with tons of "free" fonts, but when you look closely at them, you'll discover that the random and arbitrary licensing restrictions on most of said fonts prevent you from using them for any sort of serious work, either Open Source or commercial.

So what's a FOSS developer to do?  Well, until recently, the only options were to (a) rely on certain standard font families that come preinstalled on most machines, (b) package some of the few existing fonts (such as the Liberation fonts) that are known to be safely licensed, or (c) roll your own, which is a ton of work.

Enter the Open Font Library.  As of the time of this post, the Open Font Library hosts 170 different fonts (and growing), all licensed in such a way (either Public Domain or the Debian-approved SIL Open Font License) that they're completely safe to use in any Open Source or proprietary software, commercial or otherwise.

But don't take my word for it.  Go check the site out for yourself, and if you're feeling up to it, contribute a font of your own!

Bart

Just wanted to put out a quick reminder about the Sci-Fi props contest we're running.  We're giving away Amazon gift cards and Google Wave invites (if you don't already have one).  You can read more about the contest here.  The contest ends on the 28th of December, so now is a great time to get started! :)

Bart

Hey folks!

So, OGA has a list of feature requests that's a mile long, and I, as the lone developer, simply don't have enough time to tackle them all.  If you're an experienced php coder (particularly if you know Drupal), OGA could use your help debugging and adding new features.  If you'd be interested in volunteering your mad coding skillz, please reply here or send me a message with the contact form.

Thanks!

Bart

Greetings!

Just wanted to let everyone know that we've posted a couple of new art commissions.

First, we've commissioned 10 fantasy character portraits (by Zeldyn), to be posted as they are completed.  The first one is of a female fighter.

Secondly, we've completed the first of many parts of the OGA Community Tileset (by qubodup, Blarumyrran, and myself), which you can find here. 

Peace,

Bart

Greets!

OGA has commissioned a bunch of new, freely-licensed content in the last couple of weeks that I'd like to draw your attention to.  In the art section, we have a set of 10 pixel art RPG monsters (each in three different color palettes):

http://opengameart.org/content/10-fantasy-rpg-enemies

In audio, we have five new songs suitable for a fantasy setting:

• http://opengameart.org/content/safe-room-theme
• http://opengameart.org/content/boss-theme
• http://opengameart.org/content/town-theme
• http://opengameart.org/content/overworld-theme
• http://opengameart.org/content/dungeon-theme

In the coming days, keep your eye out for a set of pixel art wilderness tiles and a set of fantasy portraits.

Hey folks!

We've had some exciting developments in the audio department today.  If you browse through the recently uploaded songs, you'll notice a lot of excellent material from Radakan, which is, in their words, "a single player RPG/adventure game set in a dark fantasy setting, where five races struggle for survival."  It's a cool project in active development that I highly recommend you check out.  Mad props (no pun intended) to OGA user and 3D artist pfunked, who is creating some stylized props and weapons for each of Radakan's 5 races.

Radakan is a promising project in early development, and they're looking for concept artists, 3D artists, and animators, as well as other help.  If you're interested in getting into FOSS game development, I'd definitely recommend joining their team.

Peace,

Bart

Hello again, FOSS Gaming Community!

I don't know about anybody else, but I for one have old code lying around from projects that never quite came to fruition.  For instance, I have, right now, sitting on this very hard drive, some code for a 2D platformer (highly optimized -- 400 enemies on screen at once back when my machine only ran at 400mhz), some code for a top-down 2D RPG engine based on the aforementioned platformer code, and finally some code for the beginnings of a 3D space strategy game (check out a brief video of it here).

Here's my question: Is there anywhere out there that serves as a searchable dump for old code?  Mind you, I'm not talking about project management sites like SourceForge and its ilk, but rather a place I could drop of my old code without the expectation of anyone maintaining it, so that maybe someone in the future could come along and use it for their own nefarious purposes.  In particular, this site would need be searchable, much like OGA is right now -- there's not much point in dumping my code somewhere if no one will ever find it anyway.  There needs to be a way to disseminate it to interested parties.

So, is there a site out there that does this?  If not, is this something that people would be interested in?  Do you have old code that other people might be interested in?  Would you be interested in my old code (or someone else's)?  Please stop by and leave your comments.  I'd really like to hear what people think about this.

Peace,

Bart

We're getting a lot of new visitors today.  If you like what you see, perhaps you can help give the community some direction.  Why not leave a post on our forum and plug your game project (regardless of whether it's a mature, well-established project, just a twinkle in your eye, or anything in between).  Tell us about it.  Let us know what kind of art you're looking for.  We'd love a chance to serve the community better. :)

Peace,

Bart