Escape Velocity: Override, something of a classic from the 90s is getting remastered with Cosmic Frontier: Override and it's seeking funding on Kickstarter.
Cosmic Frontier: Override is a space trading game, inspired by the original Elite from 1984 and their plan is to release Cosmic Frontier: Override in 2021 on Linux (plus macOS and Windows). The project creator, Peter Cartwright, was also the writer on Escape Velocity: Override. The original designer, Matt Burch, is not involved but did not object to Cartwright doing a remake like this.
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What it will feature:
- Hundreds of star systems, planets and space stations to visit
- Dozens of different classes of ship to pilot, and fight against
- Numerous human and alien factions with their own characteristic technologies
- A wide range of weapons and equipment for your ship
- Hundreds of missions, including some which will change the face of the galaxy
Mod support is also going to be a huge focus. Shortly after the release, they're planing to put out a free modding kit with a full guide to the scripting language used so players can make their own content like entirely new scenarios and ships. They're also trying to keep it compatible with the original set of Escape Velocity games.
They will also open source the game engine, Kestrel. This won't happen during the initial development, they said due to "practical reasons" but it will "become open source" after release. They haven't said what license but it will be permissive enough for people to use it to make their own games. You can read more about the game engine on their blog posts.
For the crowdfunding campaign they currently have 26 days to go to hit £36,500 and they're already on £13,221 from 159 backers at time of writing so it's looking good so far.
You can see the Kickstarter here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I have a very faint memory of playing a game just like that, maybe in the very early 2000s or even before that.
Now I know what the name of game that was, heh.
Craggles086 Aug 6, 2020
Open GL or Metal only? Oh I think that Direct X was mentioned also.
Hopefully some options for multi player?
From his Kickstarter development news posts, looks like MIT License...
“Open Source: Progress towards the initial alpha version
The initial alpha version doesn't mean a playable version of Cosmic Frontier. Far from it. Sorry! It means a version of Kestrel that is feature complete enough, to begin building Cosmic Frontier properly. A lot of stuff already exists for Cosmic Frontier in one form or another, but much of it exists in various sandboxed environments from the "R&D" phase of development.
As mentioned above, the plan is to Open Source Kestrel in August. People will be able to start playing around with it and using it for their own purposes, or simply contributing to it in order to improve it or fix issues. Kestrel is going to be released under the MIT License.”
Last edited by Craggles086 on 6 August 2020 at 10:53 am UTC
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