The future of Yoda Soccer

Post by **Massimo32** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 8:03 pm

Hello everybody,
just after the last version 0.73, the development of Yoda Soccer has been stopped. This is due, beyond to the usual difficulty to find free time, to the fact that a new idea is born for a new project.

The idea is to create a game completely open from the point of view of the development (C++/SDL is going to replace Blitzmax) and free from problems of intellectual property (the name Yoda, the graphics too similar to SWOS).

The imminent release of SWOS 2007 for Xbox/Vista, will make the owners of such systems happy, but it doesn't concern the growing number of GNU/Linux (myself included), Mac and presumablly also XP users.

Yoda Soccer during its development has not been limited to try to clone SWOS, but we believe that it has also added some appreciated innovations. Therefore in our opinion there is room for a free project that, like Yoda, with the contribution from many people, succeeds to realize something that let amuse ourselves without the need to obey to those 'marketing' logic that have damaged commercial games.

From the practical point of view, we'll try to re-use where possible the old work, but of course the code will be rewritten from scratch. The idea is to use c++, sdl, and opengl, and to supply a version at least for the three main operating systems: linux, windows and osx. The code will available in the svn repository provided by sourceforge.

The name hasn't been chosen yet… suggestions are welcome!!

More to follow…

stage7 · Post by **stage7** » Fri May 04, 2007 4:53 am

Aw, too bad...

Well, you have your reasons, good ones indeed. I just hope the project will remain as open as it is now, i.e. I eventually found BlitzBasic easy to read and write, and even made some sample applications just for fun because of this project, and you were very kind helping me to solve some problems to implement my ideas

Whatever you do I hope I will be part of it whichever way I can. So it would be great if you keep the database and images formats the same, as it will be easier to edit them

Keep up the good work.

PS: Sensi 2006 was a BIG disappointment for me.

OckHAM · Post by **OckHAM** » Fri May 04, 2007 11:34 am

I have to disagree, the last "beta" release with the new control system was an huge achievement and the game just missed some solid ai together with tackle and headers to be absolutely what all the Sensible fans were waiting since 90's. If this announcement means that we have to wait two more years to have a playable and renewed clone of Yoda than it's very bad and I frankly don't see the point in stopping the development to start a new one, as Yoda still works for XP, Linux and Mac...

Post by **Massimo32** » Sun May 06, 2007 11:39 am

stage7 wrote: Whatever you do I hope I will be part of it whichever way I can.

Great!

stage7 wrote: So it would be great if you keep the database and images formats the same, as it will be easier to edit them

We'll reuse as much of the previous work as possible.

stage7 wrote: PS: Sensi 2006 was a BIG disappointment for me.

For me too.

Post by **Massimo32** » Sun May 06, 2007 12:05 pm

OckHAM wrote: I have to disagree, the last "beta" release with the new control system was an huge achievement and the game just missed some solid ai together with tackle and headers to be absolutely what all the Sensible fans were waiting since 90's.

Unfortunately, the new control system require to rewrite the ai from scratch. And meanwhile I can better see the many limits of using BlitzMax.
Just some examples:
- it's impossible to port the game to other platforms (PS3, Linux PPC, handhelds, etc.)
- nobody in the free software community will like to join the development
- the game (even if released under GPL) will never be included in a free software repository.

Blitzbasic/Blitzmax helped me a lot to write the game. But now I simply don't want to spend more energy to develop with it.

OckHAM wrote: If this announcement means that we have to wait two more years to have a playable and renewed clone of Yoda than it's very bad and I frankly don't see the point in stopping the development to start a new one, as Yoda still works for XP, Linux and Mac...

Well I think that the experience of Yoda we'll help us. The core of the game could be ready in less than one year. This time we'll concentrate only on the gameplay at first.

Using free software tools (that are available for example in any Linux distribution), means that everybody can get the latest code in his computer and compile it in a few minutes. In my opinion this will encourage people to help with development and make it faster and richer.