''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 ''Bos Wars'' is an open source, cross-platform real-time strategy video game. The game's engine is based on the open-source Stratagus engine, and is set in the future. The game allows the player to develop a war economy, managing energy an ...

'', 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 ...

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
Wyrmgus
started 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 ...

'', ''

'' 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

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

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 Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

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

(May 2019)

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 Windows games Fangames

History

Programming

Reception

See also

References

External links