Overgrowth from Wolfire Games goes open source

It's always nice to see a game being open sourced, even if it doesn't include any assets. It will keep the game alive even if the developer is not around anymore to take care of it.

This made my day :-)

Nice to see that their codebase and build process for Linux is not some obscure afterthought and should be relatively easy to maintain in the future.

The game itself is sadly a bit meh and while there is some experimental multiplayer support, it seems like the overall engine design doesn't really lend itself to expanding that further.

Would be nice though if someone took that awesome procedural animation system and made a library for Godot out of it or integrate it with Blender or so.

Quoting: JuliusNice to see that their codebase and build process for Linux is not some obscure afterthought and should be relatively easy to maintain in the future.

The game itself is sadly a bit meh and while there is some experimental multiplayer support, it seems like the overall engine design doesn't really lend itself to expanding that further.

Would be nice though if someone took that awesome procedural animation system and made a library for Godot out of it or integrate it with Blender or so.

The game itself is awesome (and by game I mean the engine), have you never tried the editor mode? You can do a lot of things there way easier than on a normal engine

Quoting: edoThe game itself is awesome (and by game I mean the engine), have you never tried the editor mode? You can do a lot of things there way easier than on a normal engine

As a sandbox and mod platform it seems quite cool indeed, but the official story campaign is very lackluster.

Wolfire Games was always good about supporting non-Windows platforms, and I enjoyed the first game, Lugaru, quite a bit, so it's really nice to see this (especially since I had forgotten that there's a sequel) - I'll have to grab it when I've got a moment!

Quoting: Julius

Quoting: edoThe game itself is awesome (and by game I mean the engine), have you never tried the editor mode? You can do a lot of things there way easier than on a normal engine

As a sandbox and mod platform it seems quite cool indeed, but the official story campaign is very lackluster.

So, precisely the same story as Neverwinter Nights. It's always annoying when game reviews focus so much on the campaign without noting that the original campaign is ancillary to the game's true potential as a platform.

awesome af

Great!

Does nobody remember Black Shades for Linux?

Https://www.icculus.org/blackshades/

It was simple, fun, and tricky at the same time.

Quoting: JuliusNice to see that their codebase and build process for Linux is not some obscure afterthought and should be relatively easy to maintain in the future.

The game itself is sadly a bit meh and while there is some experimental multiplayer support, it seems like the overall engine design doesn't really lend itself to expanding that further.

Would be nice though if someone took that awesome procedural animation system and made a library for Godot out of it or integrate it with Blender or so.

One always forgets that open source also makes it easy to port to previously unsupported platforms. Like maybe someone will make a native m1 macbook port!

Quoting: Shaolu

Quoting: Julius

Quoting: edoThe game itself is awesome (and by game I mean the engine), have you never tried the editor mode? You can do a lot of things there way easier than on a normal engine

As a sandbox and mod platform it seems quite cool indeed, but the official story campaign is very lackluster.

So, precisely the same story as Neverwinter Nights. It's always annoying when game reviews focus so much on the campaign without noting that the original campaign is ancillary to the game's true potential as a platform.

To be fair, it's not like they've put a big disclaimer in their marketing to indicate that the campaign is just there as an example of what the platform can do. The 'main story' gets a mention in the game's Steam store description.
I think it's quite fair for the average player to assume that the main story is the main pull of most games that they play.

I also don't think there's that many actually captivating story mods on the Workshop right now. Most players aren't modders, and Overgrowth hasn't exactly attracted a massive modding community as of yet. It certainly doesn't have a modding community as dedicated as Neverwinter Nights had, and likely never will unless Wolfire suddenly gets a big marketing budget.

I bought Overgrowth when it was in alpha, and I do love the game and I loved the game back then, but to be honest, it does still feel like there's something missing. Also, just looked up a few journalist reviews, and it seems their main gripe is the janky platforming and wallrunning, which I think is quite a fair criticism. Doesn't seem to be much criticism of the story in those few reviews I looked at, and there's lots of praise for the combat system.