SabiCube 1.0
A single-player total conversion of Cube2-Sauerbraten with focus on adding rpg/adventure elements. This package includes first chapter of the game ZetaProject, a test-map to display the new features, and with hundreds of open-source models and textures game-ready.
The goal is to make game-building as fun as playing a game, with intuitive menus and guides to help anyone make their own open-source rpg/adventure game, without prior knowledge of programming or 3D-modeling.
This is a work in progress so editor-workflow might change in future releases as we add features to the engine, but maps from the original sauerbraten (or compatible engines) will be able to load with minor adjustment.
SabiCube is tested on 64-bit (Kubuntu) and 32-bit (KXStudio), and we have provided a binary for both, so it should work, if you are lucky, If not... please follow the installguide found here : Github.com
Some of the major changes we have made:
main-menu and gui re-arranged to fit SabiCube options
basic inventory and inventory-items, works without any scripting
large collection of open-source map-models/textures available
focus on firstperson singleplayer
added new monstertypes
experience is granted when killing monsters or solving quests
destructible wood-crates with scriptable random loot
new hudgun animations: crowbar, pistol and shotgun
added file-browser to editor
two new item types, pickups and npcs/triggers
dynamic map-browser
simple scriptable game-menu
item pickups have weight (scriptable)
Player will be encumbered when carrying too much
playerskill strength allow player to carry more
playerskill health permanently increse playerhealth
playerskill energy permanently increse playerenergy
added crouch/sneak and speedrun, running require energy
health and energy-bar
fishing
lockpicking
shopping
savegames (autosave)
Further development:
As mentioned, we plan to focus on a more traditional rpg-style with melee/magic-combat, this is not to say that we're abandoning ZetaProject, we hope that the improvements we make to the new game, may be used to update and/or add a new chapter to ZetaProject.
You can follow the development on ModDb: Moddb.com where the latest "stable" release is available for download, and you can download the development version of SabiCube on GitHub: Github.com
Interesting... I'm making something with Cube 2 engine too... (with a modified version of the engine by my team)... great to see people doing stuff with it... and I'll test your game soon (I must install linux first)
I would love to see this game develop more
Never seen this game in my life
Damn, I remember playing Sauerbraten and Assault Cube all day; top that off with a little Wolfenstein:ET multiplayer and the day was gold.
Great work :)
"The goal is to make the game-building process as fun as playing a game, with *intuitive menus and guides* to help anyone make their own open-source rpg/adventure game"
A worthy goal. I have tried Cube2 in the past, and I found the user interface inferior to GMod. In gmod, you only have the menu key 'C' added to the normal keyboard interface, in Cube2 you have to learn CLI commands and an entire keyboard's worth of key mappings just for basic level editing.
How would someone distribute episodes for this mod? ("check out this 3-map story I made with some custom monsters and decorations") I have noticed with Cube2 that new content, like a new gun or sound effect, requires replacing the default assets with the custom assets, it's not just loaded at runtime like a Doom PWAD. So if you want a different monster you have to get rid of an existing one. Is that correct?
I have tried to make all command-line options available in the gui, at least the ones I use myself (just click F3 in editmode).
Please leave a note in the forum if you miss anything.
Items, npc's and sounds are scriptable, but monsters and weapons are hardcoded: Github.com
Adding custom monsters to the source is quite easy, and if your models fit the open-source license, I'd gladly add them.
Adding custom weapons is a bit tricky, so I'm currently trying to rewrite that part, making them scriptable.
Regarding distributing episodes, I haven't given it much thought yet. Some of the things I'd like to do, are just not possible with the current gui, so I either have to get creative... or switch to lua-scripting.
For now, you'll have to add a menu-entry to the main menu, just like ZetaProject: Github.com
Editing & compiling source code is not really like playing a game though, is it? Also the content-loading system of Cube engine seems rather mod-unfriendly, compared to many other engines like Doom, Doom3, Serious Sam, Crysis etc. where new assets can be loaded from a module. The engine should present a menu that you can click on to play with the custom content.
If a map author wants to add monsters to a SS map, he doesn't need to mess with source code, he can use a monster zoo expansion created by someone else, and the user just has to have the monster zoo and the new map downloaded. The original game content is unchanged.
I think that is a far more elegant solution. Good on you on working towards that with scriptable weapons.
How about having episodes have a standard format so that they include an entry on the main menu? It is pretty lame how after installing a Cube map that might be called the 'Monster Carnival' on the download page and the readme, you need to type "/map skljhgft" in the console to play it. Way to exclude casuals –- "only hardcore nerds deserve to play MY LEVELS!"
>>Editing & compiling source code is not really like playing a game though, is it?
Well for me it is :-) but I understand your concerns.
I'm trying to make a range of open-source monsters available, and modding the individual monsters via scripting is no problem, you just can't add more monsters than is defined in the code, so far I have 18 game-ready.
All maps are available from the start menu (I added a file-browser for maps and config-files), and since I only have one "complete" game, I haven't included scripting for other games. but you are right that the final result should be more intuitive to the end-user.
I was thinking about separating the editor and the "games" part, and make a real launcher for games with updating/installing and settings, only problem is to make it cross-platform. I mostly do Py-GTK or QT, and I have no idea how they work on Mac/Win.