Star Ruler 2 from Blind Mind Studios has officially become open source and not just the game engine, it seems it's the whole thing.
Writing on their Steam forum yesterday, the developer said this:
Hi everyone! It's been a few years now since Blind Mind Studios went inactive, so we figured if we're not doing anything with the code to SR2 we should just release it under an open source license.
If anyone is interested in seeing how the engine works, or tweaking whatever, the code for SR2's StarFlare engine is now fully available at https://github.com/BlindMindStudios/StarRuler2-Source
The repository includes build instructions for windows and linux, but no prebuilt binaries, this does mean everyone can play the game for free, but you will have to put in some extra effort to build it first.
If you're not going to do anything with your game any more, that's a pretty awesome thing to do for the community. They deserve a pizza or two for that.
The entire code for the game engine is under the MIT license, with art assets, images and 3d models are licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 2.0 license (a non-commercial license). It even includes the Wake of the Heralds DLC Expansion! There is one caveat though, the music is not included but it can be detected and played if you own it—likely as they licensed it from somewhere else (a very common thing).
I did take an early look at the game way back in 2015 and it was quite a different experience, so now hopefully more people can join in and see what they think and perhaps continue the effort.
Hat tip to MrTogatsu.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
If BossKey Productions - Nexon would do the same thing for LawBreakers ; that would be good.
All in all though, this is an incredible gesture. If only more developers would put the official seal of approval on their “abandonware” like this.
Question: if they are "not active", who gets the money from a steam or GOG purchase?
If it works for me, I'd consider buying it for the music and to support the dev.
Avehicle7887 Jul 23, 2018
Last edited by Avehicle7887 on 23 July 2018 at 11:08 pm UTC
Quoting: denyasisMany kudos to these devs. Will be compiling tonight to see if it'll run on my old laptop.
Question: if they are "not active", who gets the money from a steam or GOG purchase?
If it works for me, I'd consider buying it for the music and to support the dev.
Agreed. Hearing this makes me want to actually purchase it now. :) I just want to be sure the devs actually get the money.
I bought SR2 as well a few months back, but didn't get around to play with it. It seemed quite a recent (and decent) game to me, even if reviews seem to deem it unbalanced. So I am quite surprised with this move.
I can't wait to see what the community will do with it! I wish well to the developers as well.
Quotethis does mean everyone can play the game for free, but you will have to put in some extra effort to build it first
Edit: what I mean with rude is anything that would offend the developer, and would put off other developers that might otherwise be tempted to do the same.
This strikes me as odd, as MIT doesn't prevent binary distribution at all...
Anyway, the devil is out of the box... Would it be considered rude to put it up on FlatHub?
Last edited by MayeulC on 24 July 2018 at 2:52 pm UTC
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