Flare

Community Spotlight: Justin Nichol

Before Double Fine opened the Kickstarter floodgates on the game dev world, Justin Nichol ran a successful campaign for creating Fantasy Portraits for Flare. Since then he’s contributed excellent concept art and model textures.

1. Where are you from and what do you do?

I’m from Southern California. I’m an aspiring entertainment designer and
illustrator. I’m also a free culture advocate, game designer, community
organizer, amateur coder and fitness buff.

2. What is the first video game you remember playing?

It sounds cliche, but I think the first time I ever played a video game
was when my mom brought up home a Nintendo with a copy of the original
Mario Bros.

3. What drives you to contribute to Flare?

I love fantasy, I love gaming, I love free culture/software and I want to
help create a participatory entertainment culture. Beyond that, Clint is a
stand up guy who really cares about the quality of what he makes, and
listens to his contributors and community.

4. Any advice for people who are interested in making games?

I can only really say what I know about concept design, which is to banish
the idea that you need talent at a thing to do it well. It’s cliche, but
practice is many times more important than talent, and if you stay humble
and work you will get better consistently.

5. Are you involved in any other interesting projects?

I am the founder of a tabletop games collective called Black Flag Games,
we’re currently publishing a boardgame called To The Barricades,
co-developing a mech combat card game called Subversiva, and a great
narrativist story game with social commentary called Kinfolk. I’ve also
contributed to Battle for Wesnoth and PARPG.

Community Spotlight: Igor Paliychuk

Igor has done a lot of work with the Configuration menu in Flare. Beyond that, he’s added a really interesting feature that we plan to showcase more in future versions: the hero can transform into any enemy and gain use of their powers. Imagine transforming into a Fire Antlion to gain massive fire resist, or a Wyvern to be able to fly over water and pits. Here’s more about Igor!

1. Where are you from and what do you do?

My name is Igor Paliychuk, I’m from Ivano-Frankivs’k, Ukraine. I’m working as system administrator, my hobby is Software localization (into Ukrainian/Russian) and a little user mode coding.

2. What’s your favorite game or genre of games?

I like 3D actionRPG games with good scenario line. For me classics of the genre are games from Gothic series, Two Worlds, Fable: The lost Chapters. Games like these can fully move you to another reality, and graphics here doesn’t stand at first place.(Even now IMHO Gothic I/II are good games.)

3. What drives you to contribute to Flare?

Well, I’m for free software, and I’m for free 3D actionRPG games, though developing such games is very time-consuming. But 3D isometric game as Flare can became also as impressive as fully 3D, as i said graphics quality doesn’t stand here on first place. Even now we have some closed source fully 3D games, that look like isometric(Diablo3, Torchlight). I don’t get why developers write 3D models and don’t use them fully, showing only part of them. So that’s why I’m contributing into Flare: we can make awesome game, that can stand near current closed source actionRPG games.

4. Any advice for people who are interested in making games?

Just do something you like. That’s the main idea! And share it with people.

5. Are you involved in any other interesting projects?

Mainly in localization. E.g. Battle for Wesnoth, Hedgewars, Summoning Wars, VDrift, HolySpirit, ReactOS, Lazarus IDE, KVirc and other usefull software. You can check full list here.

Flare’s new site layout

I tweaked the site layout a bit. It coincides with our shifting focus in Flare’s development — moving from a mere dev blog to a site all about Flare The Game. Hope you like!

The main feature of this new design is to prominently display a Flare “trailer” and download links from the front page. Right now I’m embedding GameBoom‘s v0.16 video. But I’d really like a short (maybe 1 minute?) trailer type video for that space instead. It doesn’t have to be very flashy (especially not yet, before much of the game’s plot is nailed down). It’s something I might create later when I have time, but if someone does a great fan trailer I’d post that instead.

Finally you’ll notice the new set set of links (pictured above) under the main download buttons. These are Flare builds/repos maintained by third parties. If you maintain Flare on another OS/platform/device and want it listed here, please email me with the info!

Quiet week coming — vacation

I’ll be out of town from July 14-22. This blog may go quiet during that time. The first real break after a release is so nice — I get to refocus and brainstorm about game ideas for the future.

GitHub activity might slow down too. But, if you’re interested in helping Flare grow as an engine during this time, I highly recommend you check out polymorphable, an LPC entry by pennomi (Thane Brimhall). Every new game made with Flare makes the engine that much more flexible, robust, and proven!

Community Spotlight: Brandon Morris

If any particular song in Flare is bringing you back to the good old days of dark/gothic dungeon crawl goodness, you’re probably hearing the handiwork of composer Brandon Morris. Here’s his spotlight!

1. Where are you from and what do you do?

I was born in Naples,Florida USA. I have been in the Dallas area for about 8-9 years now. I am studying Audio Engineering and Commercial music. Throughout Highscool I was a big music guy and took a lot of AP classes in theory but when college came, I began to get into sound design and audio engineering.

2. What is the first video game you remember playing?

First game for me was Probably Wolfenstein on floppy disk. But I didn’t become severely obsessed with music in video games until Warcraft : Orcs and Humans and Warcraft II: Tides of darkness.

3. What drives you to contribute to Flare?

Since I didn’t hop on Flare till after there was a nice array of content. I saw how it was doing the Isometric art style that I always loved in old blizzard games. Matt Uelmen was also a very high appreciated composer in my eyes. So I wanted to live my little dream with this game. Not to mention Clint is actual fun to work with. Which is highly appreciated in the Open source/Free Libre community.

4. Any advice for people who are interested in making games?

This might sound cliche but, make games because you love it. On top of that, Take work where you can find it. Regardless if the game is not really your style. If you have the ability to help out, help out.

5. Are you involved in any other interesting projects?

Not at the moment. Majority of the time I just help out where I can on Music Forums, Unity Forums, and sites like OGA. Been looking for projects recently.

New Address: flarerpg.org!

Flare has finally moved to a dedicated domain. All of the old links should work (301 permanent redirect) but it’s a good idea to update: https://flarerpg.org

The blog is also sporting a new comment system powered by Disqus. I’ll be adding more features to the site soon, in addition to changing the layout of the starting page.

Community Spotlight: Thane Brimhall

I’m starting a new occasional blog entry called Contributor Spotlight. Flare is supported by a great group of volunteers and they deserve some public kudos!

Today’s spotlight is on Thane Brimhall. Besides having a ridiculously awesome name, he’s been a contributor to Flare for over a year now.

1. Where are you from and what do you do?

I’m an all-purpose software developer (web, desktop, and mobile apps) in Provo, Utah, USA. I primarily use Python as my programming language.

2. What is the first video game you remember playing?

I think the first video game I remember is Treasure Cove – a learning game where you swam around in the ocean solving basic math and science questions. Looking back at it, it was horrendously repetitive – the same three stages over and over, hundreds of times, until you gained enough points to “win” the game.

3. What drives you to contribute to Flare?

Two of my favorite things are free software and games (whether real or virtual). I’m notoriously bad about dropping video games as soon as I’ve beaten them, (including Diablo II), but Flare keeps me hooked no matter how many times I’ve played the same content. And trust me, I’ve played the Averguard Temple hundreds of times. I’ve dabbled in other FOSS projects, but I really think the rapid pace of development makes Flare a consistently rewarding game to work on.

4. Any advice for people who are interested in making games?

If you’re looking at starting a game, I’d recommend not repeating work that other people have already done. It’s easy to get burnt out when you’re trying to get the stupid map to render. If you don’t have a good reason to start from scratch, I’d branch out from an already existing project. But even with a built engine it’s easy to get burnt out, so the biggest piece of advice I have is “never give up.”

5. Are you involved in any other interesting projects?

I’m currently working on a Liberated Pixel Cup entry based on the Flare engine: https://github.com/pennomi/polymorphable. Other than that, I’ve done a (very) little bit of work on ParselTONE, a Python interface for FreeSWITCH (an internet telephony server).

Flare v0.16 Released!

Flare version 0.16 is ready for playing and modding! Originally slated as “Advanced Enemies”, this update actually includes a wide variety of engine updates.

Release Highlights

• Improved enemy pathfinding, including flying creatures
• Summon or transform into enemies!
• Config menu including keybindings, mods, and more
• Orthogonal map support

Screenshots

Extended Release Notes

• Code Features
  • A* Pathfinding (Nojan)
  • Enemies now block movement (Clint Bellanger)
  • Enemies, powers, and map events can spawn enemies (Clint Bellanger)
  • Floating Combat Text (Thane Brimhall)
  • New Widgets: tabs, check boxes, scroll bars, sliders, and more (Gallaecio, David Bariod, Justin Jacobs)
  • Config Menu, including keybindings and mods (David Baiod, Justin Jacobs, Igor Paliychuk)
  • Flying Creatures (Clint Bellanger)
  • Patrolling Enemies (Thane Brimhall)
  • Transformation/Shapeshifting into any creature (Igor Paliychuk)
  • Configurable XP per level and per creature (Thane Brimhall)
  • Configurable sell price for items (Justin Jacobs)
  • Orthogonal Map Support (Thane Brimhall)
  • Powers can target neighboring squares (Justin Jacobs)
  • Intramap teleportation events (Clint Bellanger)
  • Optional Permadeath (Thane Brimhall)
  • NPCs can be both Talkers and Vendors (Justin Jacobs)
  • Animated Tiles (Igor Paliychuk)
  • Gold Autopickup (Justin Jacobs)
• Art Features
  • Widget art via RPG GUI Construction Kit (Lamut)
  • Wyvern art (Clint Bellanger and Justin Nichol)
  • Wyvern sounds (Brandon Morris)
  • Antlion and Zombie summoning animations (Clint Bellanger)
  • New Minotaur animations (Lamut)
  • Cursed Grave creature (Clint Bellanger)
  • Female Merchant Vocals (Holly Daniel)
  • Creepy Forest theme music (Brandon Morris)
  • Ancient Temple map (Clint Bellanger)
  • Full set of Kickstarter portraits (Justin Nichol)
• Fixes
  • Handle systems without sounds (Justin Jacobs)
  • Joystick handling fixes (Justin Jacobs, Igor Paliychuk)
  • Multi-line gettext support (Gallaecio)
  • Movement around corners (Daniel Santos)
  • Disable unusable powers in the action bar (Daniel Santos)
  • Multiple Event Components per line for Tiled compatibility (Thane Brimhall)
  • Unspent attribute points shown on the Character Menu (Igor Paliychuk)
  • Threat range and entering combat fixes (Justin Jacobs)
  • Close vendor bag when closing inventory (Justin Jacobs)
  • Faster previews on Load Game screen (Justin Jacobs)
  • Isometric Rendering optimizations (Stefan Beller)
  • Misc fixes (AI0867, AMDmi3, CmPons, manuelafm, runtime-x86, matthiaskrgr)
• Translations
  • French (Morgan Strauss)
  • German (Thomas Glamsch and Chris Oelmueller)
  • Italian (Giovanni Dalla Torre and Andrea Ranaldi)
  • Russian (Sergey Basalaev)
  • Slovak (Miro Jánošík)
  • Ukranian (Igor Paliychuk)

Download

• Windows
• OSX
• Linux (sources with cmake)

Support Flare!

Love Free/Libre games? Love old school Action RPGs? Think your favorite single-player game shouldn’t require always-on Internet connection? (ahem). Well, please support us here at Flare! Here are ways to help:

• Tell your friends! Share, Like, Tweet, Carrier Pigeon, Smoke Signal, etc
• Join us in development! Check us out on GitHub
• Flattr us or Paypal donate! Click the left sidebar, or check out our Donations page to see where the commissions go

Animated Tiles

To show off the new animated tiles feature, the lit braziers are now in motion.

Last Call For Translations

Last call for translations for inclusion in the v0.16 release!

Render lighting

This week I’ve taken the time to re-render some of the oldest assets with updated lighting. This includes 3-point lights, ambient light, ambient occlusion, and rendered using the smoother Mitchell-Netravali anti-aliasing. Where possible I left the assets using full alpha transparency.

The difference may be subtle to most, but it’s an important step up in quality.

Before:

After:

Stop! Collaborate and Listen

String freeze! I got one new map added in time, a small Ancient Temple. It’s an area to help bridge the gap between the goblin camp quest and the Averguard hold.

Sergey Basalaev has regenerated the .pot files and submitted the Russian updates.

And we’re ready for new translations! The best way is to submit them as a pull request on GitHub. But I’ll gladly take them other ways — feel free to email your .po files to me at clintbellanger at gmail.

Monster Spawners

I’m adding monster spawners to Flare. You’ve seen these in classic action/RPG games: they constantly summon enemies until you destroy them. This one’s a Cursed Grave that spawns zombies.

Flare v0.16 RC 1

It’s still early in the release process — we have a good amount of game data, art, bug fixes, and translations before actual release. But enough of the core features are there for testing.

Download Flare v0.16 Release Candidate 1

Features to look for in this version:

• Improved enemy pathfinding
• Enemies can no longer stack in the same position
• Hero can no longer move through enemies
• Flying creatures added (there is one Wyvern in the Plains)
• Config Menu with plenty of options
• New portraits during character creation (not all have matching heads yet…)
• Permadeath option when creating a character (how far can you get?)
• Floating combat text

There are plenty of other neat features under the hood, but haven’t been put to use yet. Examples: enemies can summon other enemies. Enemies can be spawned from map events. The hero can transform into an enemy and gain their powers temporarily. We’ll try adding some of these before release.

If you find bugs, please submit them to our GitHub issues list.