''MegaGlest'' is a

free and open source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time." By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, tur ...

computer game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, mo ...

in a fantasy world, mixing elements of re-imagined past civilizations, magic and

steampunk Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and Applied arts, aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century Industrial Revolution, industrial steam engine, steam-powered machinery. Steampun ...

. It is an actively developed

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...

of the 2004 game ''

Glest ''Glest'' is a free and open-source real-time strategy computer game from 2004. ''Glest'' is set in a medieval fantasy world with two factions, and was compared with ''Warcraft III'' and the Empire Earth, ''Empire Earth'' series. The game receive ...

'', which is no longer under development. Screenshot of MegaGlest Gameplay

Gameplay

''MegaGlest'' is set in a

fantasy world A fantasy world or fictional world is a world created for fictional media, such as literature, film or games. Typical fantasy worlds feature magical abilities. Some worlds may be a parallel world connected to Earth via magical portals or items ...

with seven factions: Magic, Tech, Indians, Egypt, Norsemen, Persian and Romans, which together form the ''Megapack''. Each come with their own set of units, buildings and upgrades, advantages and disadvantages, which allows for variation in strategy while keeping a balanced gameplay. For example, the Tech faction uses traditional human warriors and has

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

mechanical devices in its arsenal, and are strong in

melee combat A melee ( or ) is a confused hand-to-hand fight among several people. The English term ''melee'' originated circa 1648 from the French word ' (), derived from the Old French ''mesler'', from which ''medley'' and ''meddle'' were also derived. Th ...

while the Magic faction is designed for more advanced players with most of their units morphed from or summoned by others. Magic lacks the hand-to-hand combat strength of the Tech faction but features more versatile units.

Tileset A tile-based video game, or grid-based video game, is a type of video game where the playing area consists of small square (or, much less often, rectangular, parallelogram, or hexagonal) graphic images referred to as ''tiles'' laid out in a g ...

s are selected at the new game setup menu and determine the graphical nature of the ''MegaGlest'' game world. ''MegaGlest'' provides cross-platform

online multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

LAN Lan or LAN may refer to: Science and technology * Local asymptotic normality, a fundamental property of regular models in statistics * Longitude of the ascending node, one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in space * ...

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

support. Because of the modability of the engine, ''MegaGlest'' can play games from a variety of player-created mods and total conversions, spanning very different themes. The ''Japanese'' mod is an artistic mod with units and buildings inspired by historic Japanese warfare. ''Prax'' is another fantasy-themed tech tree which bears some similarities to MegaGlest's Magic and Tech factions but improves upon them, bearing both units and structures with very different properties and making use of newer engine features. The ''Military Glest'' and ''Enemies and Allies'' mods have a contemporary warfare theme and the ''Vbros Mods'' have a variety of factions; British, Western, Pirates, Canadians, Crusaders, Dark Knights, USA, Moon, Chess, Penguins, and much more.

Game engine

While the term ''MegaGlest'' is usually used to refer to the complete game, the

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...

, referred to as MegaGlest Engine, may also be used to create separate games. At this time, there is one released game which is built on the MegaGlest Engine: ''Annex - Conquer the World'', another

game, has a futuristic scenery with Manga elements, vehicle and hero units, and is therefore quite different from ''MegaGlest''. Two more games are under development, planning to combine the open source engine with proprietary assets.

Development

''MegaGlest'', a cross-platform game, is a

continuation In computer science, a continuation is an abstract representation of the control state of a computer program. A continuation implements ( reifies) the program control state, i.e. the continuation is a data structure that represents the computat ...

of real-time classic ''Glest'', which has not been developed since April 2009. The ''MegaGlest'' game intends to continue in ''Glests spirit and with similar

gameplay Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game. The term applies to both video games and Tabletop game, tabletop games. Gameplay is the connection between the player and the game, the player's overcoming of challenges, and t ...

, while improving existing features and adding more functionality, and therefore continues to use the ''Glest'' versioning scheme. The ''MegaGlest'' engine is designed to be moddable, with game elements defined by editable

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

files. While a

map editor In Video game, video games, a level (also referred to as a map, mission, stage, course, or round in some older games) is any space available to the player during the course of completion of an objective. Video game levels generally have progres ...

and a model viewer are included, additional game assets can also be developed using separate open source applications (such as

Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer (from Latin ''mixus, the PPP of miscere eng. to Mix)'' or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary ...

) and are stored in open and documented formats (

PNG Portable Network Graphics (PNG, officially pronounced , colloquially pronounced ) is a raster-graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. PNG was developed as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange ...

JPEG JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...

Ogg Ogg is a digital multimedia container format designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of digital multimedia. It is maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation and is free and open, unrestricted by software patents. Its name is ...

) and the software's own ''G3D'' Glest model file format. ''MegaGlest'' focuses on stable releases which provide reliable cross platform multi-player games while implementing new features and delivering new game content. The engine is continuously improved but this is of secondary exiguity after stability. Another ''Glest'' fork, ''GAE'', was primarily oriented towards extending the game engine and providing more options for full conversions, and was more experimental in nature. In 2011 it was suggested that the two forks should merge, but due to different philosophies and goals amongst the developers of both forks this effort was called off during the planning stage. Hosted originally on

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...

, in 2013 the project migrated to

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

Reception

MegaGlest was positively reviewed by several gaming sites, and downloaded 300,000 times alone from

between 2010 and 2016. *TuxArena.com: ''Except for the game saving issue, MegaGlest has everything you would expect from a 3D RTS.'' (MegaGlest 3.6.0) *Softsea.com: Rating: 5 of 5 stars (as of November 2012) *

: User Rating: 98% recommended (as of February 2013). *FreewareFiles.com: Editors Pick, User Rating: 4.74 of 5.00 stars (as of February 2013). *Linux Games DB: User Rating: 8.1 of 10 (as of February 2013). * Softpedia.com: User Rating: 4.9 of 5.0 stars (as of February 2013). *MacGameScout: User Rating: 4.9 of 5.0 stars (as of February 2013). *PenguSpy.com: User Rating: 9.53 of 10.00 stars (as of February 2013). A golem.de review in 2010 was favorable. In 2012 a

Free software magazine ''Free Software Magazine'' (also known as ''FSM'' and originally titled ''The Open Voice'') is a Web site that produces a (generally bi-monthly) mostly free-content online magazine about free software. It was started in November 2004 by Austral ...

review called the game "a fantastic, free software strategy 3D game".MegaGlest: a fantastic, free software strategy 3D game
by Tony Mobily on

(2012-02-04)

References

External links