List of (other) FOSS game engine replacement projects

Not about OpenMW? Just about Morrowind in general? Have some random babble? Kindly direct it here.
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lysol
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List of (other) FOSS game engine replacement projects

Post by lysol »

Many of you already know of some of these, but I thought I'd make a thread with a list of active and interesting projects similar to OpenMW. Partly because I'd like such a list myself because I sometimes forget about some of the projects and it takes time finding them again. So here it goes:

List of (interesting) FOSS game engine replacement projects
  • exult – A very old project that runs Ultima VII. Is still active on GitHub. Should probably be fully playable, but please report here if I'm wrong. (Post updated: Jan 2019)
  • Freeablo – Engine for Diablo 1. Lead by our very own wheybags. Is still active on GitHub. Don't know about playability yet. (Post updated: Jan 2019)
  • gemrb – This engine recreates the Infinity Engine, which is used for Baldur's Gate I & II, Planescape: Torment and others. Is fully playable already according to the website. (Post updated: Sept 2018)
  • openage – Replacing the Age of Empires II Engine. They seem to have big plans for scripting and stuff. Active development. (Post updated: Jan 2019)
  • OpenTESArena – afritz1, a member here on the forums, is working on this replacement for the engine of The Elder Scrolls: Arena. Actively developed. Interesting project! (Post updated: Jan 2019)
  • OpenDF – Runs The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. Started by our very own Chris/kcat/KittyCat. Uses many of the dependencies that OpenMW uses. Slow development, but we all hope you still have plans for it Chris! :) Last commit was in June 2018. (Post updated: Jan 2019)
  • OpenRCT2 – Replacing the engine for Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 & 2. Getting better and better for every day, so I'd say there's no reason to not use this engine. Will probably soon become what OpenTTD is to Transport Tycoon Deluxe. Don't think I need to update on this one, the engine is very mature already.
  • OpenRA – This engine runs the classic Command & Conquer games, such as Red Alert, Tiberian Dawn and Dune2000. They are also working on implementing support for Tiberian Sun, and there is also a fork working on support for the KKnD games. The engine is fully playable already. (Post updated: Jan 2019)
  • OpenRW – Supposedly short for "Open Re-Write", an engine made to run GTA III (and in the long term hopefully Vice City and San Andreas). Active development. Playable, but you can't make any significant progress in the game according to the website. (Post updated: Sept 2018)
  • OpenTTD – While this of course is a very simple game engine to recreate compared to OpenMW, this is still an engine to look at to know how the future might look for OpenMW. First replacing the engine for Transport Tycoon Deluxe, and later even shipping replacement for all the assets, OpenTTD is now the only serious way to play Transport Tycoon Deluxe. The engine is so far ahead of what the original engine could do. Before OpenTTD really became the real standard, there was a competing thing called TTDPatch, which was kind of what MWSE or MCP is to Morrowind. TTDPatch did a lot of good stuff for the game, but eventually OpenTTD just got better and better. The project is pretty much finished already, but still under active development. Won't need to update on this one.
  • REGoth – Replacing the zEngine that runs the two first Gothic games. You can't really do anything other than run around as of yet, but otherwise it seems quite mature. Development is unfortunately kind of dead. Only one merged PR in january, otherwise the last commit was in july last year. (Post updated: Jan 2019)
  • Spring Engine – Originally a replacer for Total Anihillation's game Engine, but is nowadays a fully fletched RTS game engine. There are several games using the engine. Still active development on GitHub. Don't think I need to update this one either, since even if the project dies, it seems to be essentially finished. Like OpenTTD, but in another way, I'd say this gives you an idea what OpenMW might become: Not just a game engine replacement, but simply a game engine.
  • TiaraCE – Reimplementing the Halo Custom Edition engine. Has not had a commit for over a year, so probably dead by the looks of it. (Post updated: Jul 2019)
  • Xoreos – Replacing Bioware's Aurora Engine, for games such as Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 and more. Development was slow a few months ago, but seems quite active now. Not really much gameplay yet as far as I can tell. (Post updated: Jan 2019)
The list is based off of stuff I find interesting and suggestions from this thread. I can't list every single project out there, there are already lists like that out there. See below for example.

A huge list of most known projects:
https://osgameclones.com/

Honorable mentions:
  • Daggerfall Unity – Daggerfall Unity is another engine replacement for TESII: Daggerfall. This project is turning out great actually just entered its "alpha"-stage, which means they just went feature complete. Very active development in other words. I don't list it in the main list since it using the Unity engine, which is not really FOSS. But do check it out if you don't mind that, it looks great already. (Post updated: Jul 2019)
Do suggest here in the thread if there's something I should add, or if something is out of date and needs updating.
Last edited by lysol on 14 Sep 2018, 11:34, edited 5 times in total.
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DestinedToDie
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Re: List of (other) FOSS game engine replacement projects

Post by DestinedToDie »

Oh wow, Vice City was actually my childhood game. So I later tried playing GTA III at my early 20-ies and it crashed all the time. Still, very interesting, considering how close the engine is to Vice City. I never finished GTA III, partly because that mission "Grand Theft Auto" was impossible as I was really bad at navigating the city. With an engine rewrite I might have the drive to try again and this time explore more of the world.
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Ace (SWE)
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Re: List of (other) FOSS game engine replacement projects

Post by Ace (SWE) »

Some other ones;

Librelancer - Engine replacement for the 2003 space trading simulator Freelancer, not quite playable yet. (C#)
JSettlers - Engine replacement for The Settlers 3 (Java)
FreeSO - Engine replacement for The Sims: Online (C#), additionally also has the Simitone "fork"/addon for The Sims 1.

Additionally, there's a list available that includes both FOSS engine replacements as well as clones, homages, and remakes;
https://osgameclones.com/
Last edited by Ace (SWE) on 07 Sep 2018, 21:53, edited 1 time in total.
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lysol
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Re: List of (other) FOSS game engine replacement projects

Post by lysol »

DestinedToDie wrote: 07 Sep 2018, 18:22 Oh wow, Vice City was actually my childhood game. So I later tried playing GTA III at my early 20-ies and it crashed all the time. Still, very interesting, considering how close the engine is to Vice City. I never finished GTA III, partly because that mission "Grand Theft Auto" was impossible as I was really bad at navigating the city. With an engine rewrite I might have the drive to try again and this time explore more of the world.
I know right? Vice City is such a nostalgic classic for me too. Never really played GTA III, so this project should be really interesting.
Ace (SWE) wrote: 07 Sep 2018, 18:39 Some other ones;

Librelancer - Engine replacement for the 2003 space trading simulator Freelancer, not quite playable yet. (C#)
JSettlers - Engine replacement for The Settlers 3 (Java)
FreeSO - Engine replacement for The Sims: Online (C#), additionally also has the Simitone fork for The Sims 1.

Additionally, there's a list available that includes both FOSS engine replacements as well as clones, homages, and remakes;
https://osgameclones.com/
Thanks! I'll add some of them if they sound interesting. I realize (especially after checking that osgameclones-site) I can't make a complete list, so I'll just make a list of interesting (subjective of course) and not dead projects.
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lysol
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Re: List of (other) FOSS game engine replacement projects

Post by lysol »

Ok, so about the FreeSO. This quote:
The FreeSO engine additionally supports an experimental 3D mode, which allows you to see the game from a different perspective. 3D meshes are reconstructed at runtime from the z-buffers included with object sprites. FreeSO also generates 3D geometry for walls and floors at runtime, and switches to an alternate camera with different controls when the mode is enabled.
This is brilliant. I mean total genius. Haha, it's so crazy that they can, at runtime, create 3D assets from the original 2D assets.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: List of (other) FOSS game engine replacement projects

Post by AnyOldName3 »

What forward thinking mad genius decided they needed to include depth data for the sprites in a 2D game? Were they drawing things in true' depth order rather than front to back according to the isometric grid in the original engine? That seems like far more work than would ever be necessary as I don't see it making things look much better for less effort than just drawing sprites for a person interacting with an oven or whatever and replacing the oven sprite when it's needed.
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Ace (SWE)
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Re: List of (other) FOSS game engine replacement projects

Post by Ace (SWE) »

You have to remember that there were objects like showers and armchairs in the game, ones that would have to be drawn both behind and in-front of the 3D avatar at the same time when in use.
Including depth information just makes sense in that case.
Clement
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Re: List of (other) FOSS game engine replacement projects

Post by Clement »

AnyOldName3 wrote: 07 Sep 2018, 21:47 What forward thinking mad genius decided they needed to include depth data for the sprites in a 2D game? Were they drawing things in true' depth order rather than front to back according to the isometric grid in the original engine? That seems like far more work than would ever be necessary as I don't see it making things look much better for less effort than just drawing sprites for a person interacting with an oven or whatever and replacing the oven sprite when it's needed.
As Ace said, it's required because of the 3D characters. It's not hand drawn 2D sprites, it's precomputed 3D, the depth data is easy to get. In more modern games, like Pillar of Eternity, normal and specular maps are also added to get dynamic lighting.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: List of (other) FOSS game engine replacement projects

Post by AnyOldName3 »

With modern hardware, I'd have thought modern games would get nearly the same performance doing things at runtime, with the added benefit that things don't look stupid on high-resolution displays.
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Greendogo
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Re: List of (other) FOSS game engine replacement projects

Post by Greendogo »

Besides our local devs' OpenDF there's also Interkarma's Daggerfall in Unity: https://github.com/Interkarma/daggerfall-unity
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