Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
* Package name : open-ig
Version : 0.95.205
Upstream Author : Dávid Karnok
* URL : https://github.com/akarnokd/open-ig/
* License : LGPL with nonfree data
Programming Lang: Java
Description : real-time space strategy game
Open Imperium Galactica (Open-IG) is a re-implementation of the 1996
Digital Reality game Imperium Galactica.
.
The game challenges the player to build infrastrcuture across several
planets, equip both space and ground troops, and lead them in battle in
a far future.
license
=======
the implementation itself is published under the terms of the LGPL, but
the game data is licensed separately. as [1] outlines, the data
copyright holders allow only the original author to distribute the game
data they have released, and only as a part of the Open-IG project.
whether we can arrange this to be mirrored in nonfree or whether we'll
need to set up a downloader package that fetches the data from its
original source (and whether even that is ok at all) remains to be
discussed with upstream and/or digital reality.
it looks as if the game does not include a mechanism to fetch the
copyrighted material from the original cds.
as no data exists that makes the game playable without free data right
now, the game itself would go to contrib.
sources / packaging
===================
the game is currently distributed with its own launcher that downloads
the various language packs as well as game content, some of which is
also available in the project's source code repository.
the game code itself resides in a git repository; i have not tried to
build it from there. it seems that the author builds the jars directly
from eclipse.
usefulness / relevance
======================
players of the original game will likely want to switch to the open-ig
version because the original is hard to play in dosbox (cf. [2]: game
seems sensitive to quick io...). having watched about an hour of
gameplay (of the original game), it looks fun.
dependencies / stability
========================
the game is reported to run well; i have not yet managed to get it
running on my sid machine ("an unexpected error occurred" without a
stacktrace, GUI is shown but freezes, but i got far enough to see that
it is a working recreation of the original game).
its only dependency seems to be a java vm. i'm currently testing around
with openjdk, but can't rule out that the trouble i'm seeing is due to
not using the oracle vm.
[1] https://github.com/akarnokd/open-ig/wiki/Legal-FAQ
[2] http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?showID=1965
--
To use raw power is to make yourself infinitely vulnerable to greater powers.
-- Bene Gesserit axiom
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