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Bug#808945: RFP: openrct2 -- theme park simulation game (clone of Rollercoaster Tycoon 2)



Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: chrysn <chrysn@fsfe.org>

* Package name    : openrct2
  Version         : 0.0.4
  Upstream Author : Ted John <ted@brambles.org>
* URL             : https://openrct2.com/
* License         : GPL-3+ (with potential issues)
  Programming Lang: C, Assembly
  Description     : theme park simulation game (clone of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2)

OpenRCT2 is a recreation of the RollerCoaster Tyocon 2 game. It relies
on the presence of the original game's asset files, and is unplayable
without them.

The game itself is a build-up economy simulation, in which the player
take the role of a park manager. The game's goal vary by scenario, but
are usually achieved by freely built roller coasters and other rides and
shops, while managing finances, staff and general guest happiness.

OpenRCT2 also features a cooperative multiplayer mode.


openrct2 copies the gameplay of the original rollercoaster tycoon very
closely, and like the original game, offers many hours of challenging
scenarios with a plethorea of rides to build. so far, it is the most
(the only) complete theme park simulator available as free software or
for linux.

the game is currently being reverse engineered from the original
rollercoaster tycoon binary, still depends on binary sections thereof to
be included in the executable. as such, neither the sources nor the
resulting game are distributble in debian, maybe not even in nonfree.
the authors claim using the same process originally used with openttd,
which after some discussion made it through dfsg checks, so in the end
the game should become distributable. (personally, i tend to subscribe
to a rather broad definition of derivative work and strict
interpretation of copyright, under which this would forever be tainted
for not being a clean room clone, but the history of openttd seems to
indicate that i'm being overly cautious.)

anyway, the game will depend on original artwork (possibly managable
with game-data-packager), so until free assets to make it playable are
available, it could at best go into contrib. until the original .exe can
be dropped from the build process, the build is likely to be i386 only
(but can both be built and used on amd64).

the game declares several dependencies available in debian. unpackaged
libraries are shipped in a dedicated orclibs zip file (argparse, cutest,
lodepng), they probably need to be packaged beforehand if they are not
modified. (i vaguely remember lodepng being one of those "don't bother
with library stuff, just copy/paste the file in to your sources and
season to taster" libraries).


overall, this is package is likely not to be a usable package any time
soon. i'd like to use this bug to spool preparative work on a future
package, that is, packaging of libraries, packaging of game data in
game-data-packager, and discussion of legal aspects of distribution.

best regards
chrysn

-- 
Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and
he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
  -- Terry Pratchett (attributed)

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