Something to Show for the Work on Networking

I have been making good progress with the networking branch of OpenFracas. Although proper integration into the GUI is a ways off yet, I now have a game being shared between two frontends - a 'local' client and a network client.

Towards Network Play in OpenFracas

The ability to play OpenFracas over the network has been a goal of mine for a long time. It's been on the radar since the project began, and has been in development in some form or anther on and off since last summer. Thanks to my most recent shot at it, though, it is actually starting to fall into place now.

About a year ago, OpenFracas 0.4 was released, and with it was a new client-server model upon which all further development has been based on. This was driven by the realization that networking would eventually become an important part of the game, and that it would be best if this were not bolted on as an afterthought when that time came.

Last summer, I began working in earnest on a method by which OpenFracas could communicate over the network. While I eventually shelved the project after realizing that I was probably approaching the problem the wrong way, I did succeed in producing a very nice wrapper for network connections which allowed for easy transmission of simple messages in a data serialization specification called YAML. This is the same serialization specification that OpenFracas 0.6 uses for the new map format that it introduced.

Recently, I have taken another shot at completing this long-standing goal, and have had more success this time around. After some tinkering to refamiliarize myself with the work I had done previously (the useful parts, anyways), I started working on getting the game's front-end to communicate with the backend over the network. Right now, I have a kind of proof-of-concept implementation where a single instance of the game runs messages back and forth between the backend and the frontend over the network, as opposed to just making function calls, and I've been working recently on cutting down on the number of calls that the front-end has to make to the back-end in order to decrease network lag.

I still need to make adjustments to the GUI to allow people to open network slots for a new game, or to join network games on other people's computers. This whole project is useless without the ability for the user to actually enable and configure it to at least some limited degree, so its not really in a state where it can be demo'ed, but I'm hopefull that I'll soon have something a little more visual to show for my efforts.

OpenFracas 0.6.1 Released - Bug Fixes

OpenFracas 0.6.1 has been released. This is a bug-fix release addressing two issues with OpenFracas 0.6

• Crash when selecting a replacement capital.
• Crash (Segmentation fault) in Ubuntu 8.10 after generating a custom map.
  

The second crash involves an issue outside the scope of OpenFracas, and is actually located in one of the libraries that OpenFracas relies on. The fix in this case contains a work-around for the issue.

Ubuntu 8.10 users may still encounter instability with OpenFracas 0.6.1 due to another bug in the "libcairo-ruby" package. I am addressing this issue via a bug report on Launchpad, and the next version of Ubuntu due out in April has an updated version of this package which corrects this issue.

OpenFracas 0.6 Released

OpenFracas 0.6 "Cedric" has been released. This release marks the 1 year anniversary of OpenFracas. The most notable change in 0.6 is the new map file-format. Much of the work this release has been behind-the-scenes, making the game work with the new format.

While it may seem a trivial addition, it means that it is now possible to save and restore games in progress, as well as the maps upon which they were played. We originally inherited the map file format from Fracas 2.0, and had extended it well past what it was intended to handle in order to get it to keep up with the progress of OpenFracas. Nevertheless, it was far from an ideal solution. We didn't have support for reading and writing Fracas games-in-progress, and the file format in general wasn't suited to our goals for OpenFracas.

Additionally, a new Maps section has been added to our website at http://www.openfracas.org/maps.php where users can download maps and saved games, and can also upload their own creations to share with others.

The file format used now, .ofmap and .ofgame are based on the YAML data serialization library/format and are a much more robust file format, while still maintaining human readability.

The Map Editor has received updated code to allow it to use the new file formats, as well. The features of the Map Editor will grow in time as it matures, and the last of the code-base is brought around to using the new formats.

OpenFracas 0.6 is available on the downloads page; please feel free to contact us with any questions, concerns, or bugs on our forums.

Ubuntu users who have added our repository to their package manager will find the new version automatically available as an update.

We are proud to announce the release of OpenFracas 0.5. The most notable changes in the 0.5 release are:

• Sounds and Music
• OpenFracas now supports up to 8 players
• New troop count drawing algorithm
  • Better placement of troop counts
  • Scales troop counts to fit within smaller country
• Options to restart a game or reuse the current map
• Streamlined User Interface
• Map Editor improvements
• More player colours to choose from
  
• Help documentation, revised from Fracas help, now available
  

Perhaps most significantly of all: Since the last release, OpenFracas has undergone major changes in its internal organization and structure. This means that OpenFracas is in a better position to begin adding more advanced and complex features in future releases.

A new developer, Eric, has joined the OpenFracas team since the last release, and has produced the new troop count drawing algorithm.

OpenFracas 0.5 is available on the downloads page; please feel free to contact us with any questions, concerns, or bugs on our forums.

Ubuntu users who have added our repository to their package manager will find the new version automatically available as an update.

MapEdit picking up some much needed features.

So now the map editor has progressed to the point where I am no longer embarrassed to call it my own. Chiefly, the map editor can now open files as well as save them - so that's a big one. The ability to name the countries has long been missing from the programme, as has support for a new feature that should be included in OpenFracas 0.5, that of unplayable land. Unplayable land, with proper support from the map editor, allows for the creation of maps like this work in progress of mine

The Provinces of the Roman Empire.

The darker grey areas represent regions which cannot be conquered, and (unlike water) cannot be traversed.

Integration with the Nautilus File Browser

If .map files (the files used to store map data in the original Fracas) are associated with OpenFracas in the file manager, double-clicking a map file should open OpenFracas with that map file loaded. This has not been the case so far, and was not in our last release, but our next release (whenever that may be) should remedy this via the installation package. (at least on Linux - we're still looking into integration with Windows).

Additionally, another nice touch that we've been working on is thumbnail integration wtih nautilus. Now, when opening a nautilus file browser windows to view Fracas .map files, you will be able to see thumbnail previews of the maps. Here you can see a nautilus file browser showing thumbnails for a collection of maps from OpenFracas, and from the Homebrew Maps page taken off of the original Fracas's site.