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.

OpenFracas 0.4 Released

We are proud to announce the next version of OpenFracas, v0.4, has been released. This release is our best yet, with exciting new features and a focus on quality.

Specifically, this new version brings the following improvements

• New drawing code, making the game board
  
• Customizable. Change text sizes, and line styles
• Faster. Game feels more responsive. Redrawing rates are improved
• Resizable. Resizing the board is now possible
• Animated. The drawing is now fast enough to have simple animations
• Teams can be created when starting a new game, allowing for more challenging and exciting gameplay
• End-of-game dialogue displays statistics and a timeline, showing the game's course
  
• Map previews are faster when creating a new map
• Map previews have been added when opening an existing map
• Basic map creator. Create maps, and export them to OpenFracas
• Default maps are included
• Eurpoe
• Risk
  
• Complete use of Tango theme on Windows to improve interface aesthetic
  
• User interface refinements and improvements
  

The new version 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.

Planning things out in advance.

We've been working on OpenFracas for about half a year now, with various degrees of activity dictated by the other parts of our lives, and now we've got the game into a playable state. A lot of the work we've been doing for the past while now (post 0.3 release) has been to experiment with new features and things that would improve the existing experience, rather than to add huge new aspects of play to the game. The option for capitals, for example, which made its way into the game with the 0.3 release, was something quite drastic. The work being done now is more ... subtle, if you will. This means that we've been working more with the existing code base than we have with new code that we're still in the process of creating.

This has already prompted one big code cleanup at the core of the game, and we're currently experimenting with overhauling the drawing code to try and speed up map rendering a little bit. The code in some sections has been growing slowly for so long, that it has become rather untidy. By untidy, I mean that when additional features were tacked on, they were not done so with any overarching pattern or approach in mind. As an example, a lot of the code designed to figure out which countries neighboured others (the part that has been rewritten already) wasn't designed to take things like harbours into consideration - they didn't exist when the code was written. We wanted to have it working asap so we could go ahead and get other important parts written as well. Recent work on adding new features prompted us to revisit this code and replace it with something cleaner and more flexible. The result is code that is more more readable, and much faster to create.

Now that the game is (for the most part) working, we need to do more of this kind of rewrite. Before we move on and add things like sound, networking, game saving, etc, we need to stop and clean up the code we have already.

Our plan, as it stands now, is to focus primarily on usability and polishing the user-related aspects of the game for our version 0.4 release. We want to have the game working very well for the 0.4 release, because we're not entirely sure how long it will be until we make another release after that. After 0.4, we're going to be doing a lot of clean-up on the our code-base. This is not the kind of work that will necessarily add new features, but is that necessary kind of work that will allow us to add new, more complex features faster in the future.

Mucking about with a map editor

It's something that OpenFracas has been missing. The ability to create custom maps is something that we'd love to give users, and eventually we will. We have no official plans for it yet, but once we have a map editor that is capable of creating these maps, we want to have a custom maps section on our web site.

All of this is jumping the gun a little bit, since the Map Editor is very new, and very lacking in features. For now, at least. The code for drawing maps in the map editor is actually where the code for the new faster map previews (mentioned earlier) comes from. This has been sitting around for a while, now, growing ever so slowly. It might not make it into the 0.4 release, as there are a number of other things that we want to get done, or need to polish, but eventually we'd really like to make map customization available.