openage: a volunteer project to create a free engine clone of Age of Empires II, primarily aimed at POSIX platforms such as GNU/Linux, comparable in its goals to projects like OpenMW, OpenRA and OpenTTD.
openage uses the original game assets (such as sounds and graphics), but (for obvious reasons) doesn't ship them. To play, you require an original AoE2: AoC installation (wine is your friend; in the near future, setup discs will be supported).
The foundation of openage:
| Technology | Component |
|---|---|
| C++11 | Engine core |
| Python | Scripting, media conversion, in-game console, code generation |
| CMake | Build system |
| OpenGL2.1 | Rendering, shaders |
| SDL2 | Cross-platform Audio/Input/Window handling |
| Opus | Audio codec |
| Humans | Mixing together all of the above |
Our goals include:
- Fully authentic look and feel
- This can only be approximated, since the behaviour of the original game is mostly undocumented, and guessing/experimenting can only get you this close
- We will not implement useless artificial limitations (max 30 selectable units...))
- Multiplayer (obviously)
- Optionally, Improvements over the original game
- AI
- Re-creating free game assets
- An easily-moddable content format
- A powerful integrated Python console and interface, comparable to blender
Our goals specifically exclude:
- Network compatibility with the original game. You really wanna have the same problems again?
- Binary compatibility with the original game. A one-way script to convert maps/savegames/missions to openage is planned though.
- What features are currently implemented?
See status.md.
- What's the plan?
See milestones.md. We also have a list of crazy xor good ideas.
- How do I get this to run on my box?
See building.md.
- I compiled everything. Now how do I run it?
You first need to use the convert script (will be automated in the near future!) to convert the original game assets to the (a lot saner and more moddable) openage format. Then, you can simply run the game using ./openage --data=assets.
- Waaaaaah! It
- segfaults
- prints error messages I don't want to read
- ate my dog
All of those are features, not bugs.
To turn them off, use ./openage --dont-segfault --no-errors --dont-eat-dog.
If this still does not help, try the contact section or the bug tracker.
-
How does openage development look in practice?
- Awesome.
-
Can I help?
- Yes, please!
See development.md.
Project documentation is accompanying the source code in the doc/ folder:
- Have a look at the doc directory.
- We use Doxygen, as described in the doc readme
- Have a look at the source.
None of us uses Windows, so a port has no priority.
However, we're using cross-platform libraries wherever possible, so a port should be pretty easy to accomplish. We'll eventually look into poriting using mingw32/mingw64 or maybe cygwin.
If you want to beat us to it, go for it! We'd prefer as few preprocessor switches as possible, preferrably they should all be placed in a few 'cross-platform abstraction files' (just talk to us for details...).
- Being typical computer science students, we hate people.
- Please don't contact us.
- Nobody likes Age of Empires anyway.
- None of you is interested in making openage more awesome anyway.
- We don't want a community.
- Don't even think about trying to help.
Guidelines:
- No bugreports or feature requests, the game is perfect as is.
- Don't try to fix any bugs, see above.
- Don't implement any features, your code is crap.
- Don't even think about sending a pull request
- Don't note the irony, you idiot
- We even have a list of tasks that definitely don't need your work.
To prevent accidential violation of one of those guidelines, you should never
- learn git
- fork the repo
- learn python
- learn c++11
- read the code and documentation
- contribute anything to the code
- contact us
cheers, happy hecking.
Most of us hang around on our IRC channel (#sfttech on freenode.net).
Do not hesitate to ping us, we probably won't notice you otherwise.