''Stratagus'' is a
free and open-source
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
cross-platform
In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software r ...
game engine
A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software i ...
used to build
real-time strategy
Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, turn ...
video games. Licensed under the
GNU GPL-2.0-only, it is written mostly in
C++
C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
with the configuration language being
Lua
Lua or LUA may refer to:
Science and technology
* Lua (programming language)
* Latvia University of Agriculture
* Last universal ancestor, in evolution
Ethnicity and language
* Lua people, of Laos
* Lawa people, of Thailand sometimes referred t ...
.
History
On June 15, 1998 Lutz Sammer released the first public version of a free ''Warcraft II''
clone for
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
he had written, named ''ALE Clone''. In 1999 it was renamed to ''Freecraft''. In June 2003, a
cease and desist
A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not dis ...
letter was received from
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduat ...
, who thought the name ''Freecraft'' could cause confusion with the names ''
StarCraft
''StarCraft'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney and owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series, set in the beginning of the 26th century, centers on a galactic struggle for dominance am ...
'' and ''Warcraft'', and that some of the ideas within the engine were too similar to ''Warcraft II''. The project halted on June 20, 2003.
The developers regrouped in 2004 to continue work on the project, renaming it ''Stratagus''. Their focus changed from cloning ''Warcraft II'' to creating an open source, configurable engine for RTS games including support for playing over Internet/LAN or playing vs. computer opponents. A separate project, ''Wargus'', was started to get ''Warcraft II'' data files running in the ''Stratagus'' engine. This mod requires a legal copy of ''Warcraft II'' and allows for cross-platform support such as Linux and other operating systems. The free media set imitating ''Warcraft II'' was discontinued.
On June 10, 2007, development of Stratagus was paused.
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
SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirrorin ...
to
Launchpad
A launch pad is an above-ground platform from which rocket- missiles or space launch vehicles take off vertically.
Launch pad may also refer to:
Computing
* Launchpad (macOS), an application launcher introduced in Mac OS X Lion
* Launch Pad (s ...
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 th
Stratagus team on Launchpad In 2014
Wyrmgusstarted as a
fork
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods ei ...
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
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
.
Playable ''Stratagus''-based games are: fantasy ''Aleona's Tales'', medieval ''Battle for Mandicor'', ''Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness'' (plus expansion ''Beyond the Dark Portal'') port ''Wargus'', ''Warcraft: Orcs and Humans'' port ''War1gus'', futuristic ''Battle of Survival'', historically-inspired ''Commander
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
'', ''
StarCraft
''StarCraft'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney and owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series, set in the beginning of the 26th century, centers on a galactic struggle for dominance am ...
'' port ''Stargus'', and space age ''Astroseries''. Of these, only ''Aleona's Tales'', ''
Wargus
''Stratagus'' is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source cross-platform game engine used to build real-time strategy video games. Licensed under the GNU General Public License, GNU GPL-2.0-only, it is written mostly in C++ with t ...
'', ''War1gus'', and ''Wyrmsun'' are complete.
Programming
The ''Stratagus engine'' is a 2D engine based on
cross-platform
In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software r ...
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
libraries
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
like
SDL,
gzip
gzip is a file format and a software application used for file compression and decompression. The program was created by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler as a free software replacement for the compress program used in early Unix systems, and in ...
,
bzip2 and others.
Basing on
Lua
Lua or LUA may refer to:
Science and technology
* Lua (programming language)
* Latvia University of Agriculture
* Last universal ancestor, in evolution
Ethnicity and language
* Lua people, of Laos
* Lawa people, of Thailand sometimes referred t ...
as their primary
scripting language
A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled.
A scripting ...
, virtually all the abilities in the engine have been made available to the users of Stratagus for easy
modding
''Modding'' is a slang expression derived from the English verb " to modify". The term refers to modification of hardware, software, or anything else, to perform a function not originally intended by the designer, or to achieve bespoke specific ...
, removing the need to change the original C/C++
source
Source may refer to:
Research
* Historical document
* Historical source
* Source (intelligence) or sub source, typically a confidential provider of non open-source intelligence
* Source (journalism), a person, publication, publishing institute o ...
. Animations are created from a set of
.png
Portable Network Graphics (PNG, officially pronounced , colloquially pronounced ) is a raster-graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. PNG was developed as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange ...
pictures; this technique was commonly used in the time that ''
Warcraft
''Warcraft'' is a franchise of video games, novels, and other media created by Blizzard Entertainment. The series is made up of five core games: '' Warcraft: Orcs & Humans'', '' Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness'', '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos ...
'' and other
RTS
RTS may refer to:
Medicine
* Rape trauma syndrome, the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim
* Revised Trauma Score, a system to evaluate injuries secondary to violent trauma
* Rubinstein–Taybi syndrome, a condition characterized by ...
had come out.
''Stratagus'' and ''Wargus'' have been
ported
In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...
to run on
Pocket PC
A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...
,
Symbian
Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system
A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typic ...
and
Android devices. Wargus has also been ported to the
GP2X
The GP2X is a Linux-based handheld video game console and portable media player developed by South Korean company GamePark Holdings. It was released on November 10, 2005, in South Korea only.
The GP2X is designed for homebrew developers as wel ...
and
Open Pandora
The Pandora is an operating system, handheld game console and mobile personal computer originally released in 2010. It is designed to take advantage of existing free and open-source software and to be a target for homebrew development. It incl ...
Linux handhelds.
Reception
''Stratagus'' was downloaded from
SourceForge.net
SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirroring ...
between 2004 and June 2017 over 185,000 times.
stats 2000-06-07+to+2019
on SourceForge.net
SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirroring ...
(May 2019)
See also
*Game engine recreation
Game engine recreation is a type of video game engine remastering process whereby a new game engine is written from scratch as a clone of the original with the ability to load the original game's data files such as music, textures, scripts, shad ...
* bnetd
References
External links
*
''BoS Wars''
Commander Stalin
''Stargus''
''Wargus''
''Battle for Mandicor''
{{Video game engines
AmigaOS 4 games
Free game engines
Free software programmed in C
Strategy video games
Linux games
Lua (programming language)-scriptable game engines
Lua (programming language)-scripted video games
MacOS games
MorphOS games
AROS software
Amiga games
Open-source video games
Real-time strategy video games
Free software that uses SDL
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