Stratagus

Stratagus

Developer(s) Stratagus team
Initial release June 15, 1998 (1998-06-15)
Stable release
2.4.1 / November 1, 2016 (2016-11-01)
Repository github.com/Wargus/Stratagus
Operating system AmigaOS 4, BSD, Linux, Mac OS X, MorphOS, AROS, Windows
Type
License GNU General Public License
Website wargus.github.io

Stratagus is a free cross-platform game engine used to build real-time strategy video games. Licensed under the GNU GPL,[1] it is written in C and (mostly) C++ with the configuration language being Lua. SDL, gzip and bzip2 are among the external libraries used.

History

Battle for Mandicor screenshot

On June 15, 1998 Lutz Sammer released the first public version of a free Warcraft II clone for Linux he had written, named ALE Clone. In 1999 it was renamed to Freecraft. In June 2003, a cease and desist letter was received from Blizzard Entertainment, who thought the name Freecraft could cause confusion with the names StarCraft and Warcraft, and that some of the ideas within the engine were too similar to Warcraft II.[2] The project halted on June 20, 2003.[3]

In 2004[4] the developers regrouped to continue the work by the name of Stratagus, with a change in the aim. The former interest in using the data files from WarCraft had diminished. The difference being, the project was previously using the data files from Warcraft II was split off into the new and separate project Wargus and the free media set imitating Warcraft II was discontinued.[5] Note that two versions later spawned from this, one allowing users to play in linux environments.

On June 10, 2007, development of Stratagus was paused .[6] The Stratagus developers began working on Bos Wars, which uses its own modified version of the Stratagus engine.

In June 2010 some of the developers moved Stratagus project from Sourceforge to Launchpad and started working on Stratagus and games again. Wargus (for Warcraft II), War1gus (for Warcraft I) and Stargus (for Starcraft) continued to be developed by the Stratagus team on Launchpad. In 2014, Wyrmgus started as a fork from the Stratagus engine to develop a strategy game based on free assets with a wider scope than the original engine allowed. The Stratagus team has since also moved to Github.

Playable Stratagus-based games are: fantasy Aleona's Tales,[7] medieval Battle for Mandicor,[8][9] Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (plus expansion Beyond the Dark Portal) port Wargus, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans port War1gus, futuristic Battle of Survival,[10][11][12][13][14][15] historically-inspired Commander Stalin,[16][17][18][19][20] StarCraft port Stargus, and space age Astroseries. Of these, only Aleona's Tales, Wargus, War1gus, and Wyrmsun are complete.

Programming

The Stratagus engine is a 2D engine based on a set of pictures in a .png file to show animation. This style was commonly used in the time that Warcraft and other RTS had come out.

Basing on Lua as their primary scripting language, virtually all the abilities in the engine have been made available so that a user of Stratagus does not have to make changes in the original source unless they wish to add new features not presently supported by the engine.

Stratagus and Wargus have been ported to run on Pocket PC,[21] Symbian and Android[22] devices. Wargus has also been ported to the GP2X and Open Pandora Linux handhelds.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Stratagus's copyfile at Debian Packages
  2. ↑ "Howard Wen, ''Stratagus: Open Source Strategy Games'' linuxdevcenter.com July 15, 2004". Linuxdevcenter.com. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  3. ↑ FreeCraft Cease and desisted by Blizzard – Slashdot
  4. ↑ stratagus news
  5. ↑ "Stratagus". LinuxDevCenter. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  6. ↑ "Stratagus homepage".
  7. ↑ Aleona's Tales (Stratagus game) – Free Gamer
  8. ↑ Battle for Mandicor – Filewatcher
  9. ↑ "Battle for Mandicor". FreshPorts. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  10. ↑ "Bos Wars". EeeSite. December 12, 2007. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  11. ↑ "Bos Wars – Software Informer". Bos-wars.software.informer.com. April 15, 2009. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  12. ↑ "Bos Wars". LinuxLinks. April 7, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  13. ↑ "Bos Wars - Moblin.org". Garage.moblin.org. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  14. ↑ "Bos Wars". FOSSForUs. November 1, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  15. ↑ Bos Wars – Softpedia
  16. ↑ Andrew (November 28, 2009). "Commander Stalin: Real Time Strategy Game". Web Upd8. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  17. ↑ "Commander Stalin: Open Source Free Strategy Game". open-tube. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  18. ↑ "Commander Stalin". FOSSForUs. November 1, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  19. ↑ Commander Stalin – Softpedia
  20. ↑ Commander Stalin, Tux Blog: Linux Software & Games Reviews.
  21. ↑ "n0p's homepage".
  22. ↑ "Stratagus for Android homepage".
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