I’m getting back to a project I started in 2024 but got to pause it (couldn’t find anyone to help me). It’s called SuperTux Smasher (formerly SuperTuxBattleMelee), a platform fighter featuring Tux and other mascots in the open source community
So far, we are three people working on it (the other two just joined very recently) and they even get to do a logo for the game. There’s also a sample design of the main screen, and we’re working on the menu and a stage
We’re also looking for other potential people interested. Just note that it’s likely going to be a pixel art game, so if you know how to use Aseprite or Libresprite, that would be awesome. Otherwise, you can go as composer or programmer. You’ll just need to know how to use C++ and Squirrel (it’s like Lua, but with a true object-oriented paradigm), the latter will be used for modding support
If you’re interested, the source code is here on Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/SuperTuxSmasher/sts-game
Add also Anubis
Why not Godot engine?
I forwarded to someone I know who loves fighting style games, and has experience developing games. It sounds like a lot of people are willing to help with a varying level of topics.
My recommendation would be now to try to orchestrate everyone. If someone is offering help with artwork for example, have something they can work on; you may be able to get a full 3D model game if enough interest, I agree though that initially scoping for pixel art is a safe bet (maybe pixel art vs 3d model depends on device capabilities, or is an option you can toggle between). Make it collaborative so if multiple people for example have ideas about how to do the skill balancing (attack, defence, speed), they can all contribute to come together for the best implementation.
Good luck. Would love to see it on Apple/Android TV, Switch, and x86_64/ARM/RISC-V GNU/Linux. Make sure you figure out the right game architecture ahead of time to avoid issues later on (e.g. confirm if C++, C, Rust, or the Godot language is best for the project)
Brilliant idea! Don’t forget to include the Java mascot, I’d love to punch the shit out of that 😂
xD Haha, this made my day!
thanks for putting it on codeberg and not githib
I can’t help but I really hope you will get a cool game !
I can only recommend to quickly have a working prototype with 4p and a single character.
As a reference, not an open source game, but a cool demake: https://www.supersmashland.com/ this low scope game help Dan to have a nice skeleton for its later game Rivals of aether.
I’m in very early stages of a similar project (platform fighter) and a similar issue (I can’t do everything and was having trouble finding reliable people). I don’t know if our project goals are similar enough to warrant working together, but I think it may be worth talking about a possible collaboration. Perhaps even just to make the game multi platform (I’m targeting a retro game console) given that we’ll both need a lot of the same things even if the code itself has a lot of differences. Art, sound, music, story/text, but even things like defining character lists, abilities, and game balance related things is important and duplicative.
By very early stages I mean I don’t have any game logic written yet. I’m targeting retro game console hardware and so far I’ve mostly been writing code (primarily C) to test my understanding of how the hardware functions/limitations (already found some bugs between emulator and real hardware that impacts some home brew games from other developers), and then writing functions that will become a game building library (I don’t know that it’s right to call it an “engine”). Granted, I’m making a lot of assumptions at this point about what I’ll need in terms of features, but also in terms of how much system resources are safe to allocate to different pieces, so when I get things a little more understood and have some core library functions I’m happy with, I’ll start writing game logic to see what more I need / what changes I need to make.
I’ve not worked on it for a few months as I’ve been busy with contract work that I was just informed this week is ending prematurely due to budgetary changes. As such, I expect to have time to pick it up again starting next week.
I’m a 3D artist. Currently busy learning Godot, but I have over 20 years of experience in Blender3D.
You’re probably not going to need any artists for a while, since you’re first focus is building a game engine, but if this project is still alive when you have a functioning engine I wouldn’t mind at all lending my skills.
Not much but I added it to AlternativeTo (needs to be approved by an admin)
I’ve been thinking, it’d be great if we had an AlternativeTo alternative, but open source and community-maintained 🤔 Right now any contributions we make are owned by that single company, with no way to e.g. make a fork if something goes wrong :(
Does anyone know if something like that exists?
(I know about
awesome-lists but their use case is a little different, plus they’re scattered across many different repositories)
I would be interested in helping, but I am a web developer. Do you need help in that regard? Maybe for some sort of online account management platform, or just a website? I can design an API that the game could read from for publishing/finding servers and integrating with the player’s online profile. I can code in Svelte and React, and Node.js on the backend, particularly SvelteKit.
I just noticed you hadn’t bought the domain names, so I bought them to make sure nobody swiped them from you. I can transfer them to you after ten days (Cloudflare’s waiting period after registering them). I got supertuxsmasher.com and .org.
I also run an email service and would love to provide free email for the domain to you if you’d like. You can check out my service at https://port87.com/. I can help you set it up if you’ve never done that sort of thing before.
I have some family members who are composers. If you come up with a melody for the game theme, I could ask if they could develop it into a score. My sister’s orchestra might even be willing to record it if I ask super nicely. 😁
For now, the main focus is on the game code. Though yeah, web development is planned in the future, as it can be useful once mod support is fully implemented and the game is in a more playable state. I can make a public repo for you so you can contribute to it if you want
Yeah, I’d love to. Would you want just a static site for now that you could use for promotion?
Oh, also I do voice acting, so if you need that, especially for things like announcer voice, I can do that.
And the repo is up if you want to ^^ https://codeberg.org/SuperTuxSmasher/sts-web
For now, a static website would do. Like I said, it’s gonna be worked on more once we get modding support implemented and the game can be played
And normally, voice acting shouldn’t be necessary
Ok. I’ll start on it soon. I’ll just use Codeberg Pages to host it. My username on Codeberg is the same (hperrin) if you wanna give me access to the repo. :)
And added ^^
Is this made in godot?
Hey im not much of a developer but I can do some graphics and sorta specialize in logos that look like other games. Is there something I can do to contribute?
Heres some wallpapers ive made for Bazzite (Sorry its github, ill be migrating all my stuff as soon as I can.)
https://github.com/Nindelofocho/Bazzite-Wallpaper-Collection
These are really cool! Do you take commissions?
I wouldn’t call it a commission as I cant guarantee ill be successful 😅 but dm me what you want and ill give it a shot! I could always use practice.
Sure, you can contribute as an artist ^^
Of course I talked about doing pixel art because it’s what I planned for now, but it has yet to be decided really
And if you wanna contribute, the main repo is still in my post. Though you might want to check the first (and only at time of writing this) pull request, as it is being in a more advanced state. But yeah at some point once it’s playable, I’m planning to merge it
It feels like you are creating yet another generic game from scratch. Why not use something existing or Godot?
Because it’s fun ^^
But seriously, the goal here is also to make an engine specifically for the game, not using a full-featured one. Basically I wanna use and (most importantly) implement what is needed for my game, and any full-featured engine like Godot wouldn’t allow me to do it
Isn’t Godot incredibly light-weight? It’s not like we’re talking about UE5.
Having a FOSS option for a lot of types of games would be great, since it’s at least an option to fight lock-in. But I do agree that using Godot instead of making an engine from scratch could be a good idea
To echo what your saying and add a bit, it seems to me Godot would be a great idea.
Given OP has already stepped away from development once, I think a more universal game engine rather than a custom engine would be beneficial.
Also, I suspect, there are a lot more Godot developers compared to people who are willing to take time to understand and develop a custom game engine.
I’m not familiar with deploying custom code/packages/programs on a multitude of systems, but from the Godot updates, my understanding is that, its clicking a box. I feel that multiple systems are a nontrivial hurdle that could be avoided via Godot.
Last thing off the top of my head is that I recall one of the Godot tutorials is developing a pixel art fighting game. That seems like it would be an easy way to boot strap the game’s development.
Regardless, I think a FOSS brawler game is a great idea. Good luck with development and I look forward to checking it out when its available.
Idk anything about programing and all but would love to help, big melee player too. Dont know if it can help since all plat fighter theses days are either casual or melee clone
If you want this to succeed, make all the characters anime girl versions of their software. Mozilla foxgirl, etc.
![SuperTux Smasher - An open source platform fighter project [looking for people]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a0ad8cfe-c78a-4c0a-83c0-5e415b176e71.png){kind=link}