OpenSuse Chameleon in Games?

[Unknown 4242]

Just an idea. How does a game like Gex, or just a game staring the Novell's "Geeko" mascot, sound?

Just an idea, I am not an experienced programmer!

Why is he not in games anyway? Is he copyrighted? Suse would benefit from free advertising even if he was, so they are likely to agree to making one.

Novell makes ads with him all the time, this would just be an extension of their animation projects, if Novell helps make it in 3d, plus this would benefit whatever programs/libraries they chose to use.

Just posting here because it is game-related. Bump if it doesn't belong, please.

[CharmyBee]

SuperTuxKart has a bunch of OSS mascots, forgot if it featured the chameleon though. There's not many new games featuring them anymore than they used to (like in the 90s where a tux in ANY incomplete game would garner lots of hype on Slashdot)
I think the oss-mascots-in-games novelty has died off by now. I'm not against the mascot game idea.

[Unknown 4242]

I know that oss-mascots-in-games is (pretty much) a dead fad but Novells chameleon is just the perfect canidate in my opinion.

Not only is he ALLWAYS shown to be cool and smart, he is very physical, just look at Novells mountain climbing video. He's perfect for games, esp. platformers.
And since he has been used in 3d animations, there are already models set-up for 3d games AND experienced artists for cutscenes.

The main reason I thought of him is because I love 3d platformers such-as Crash Bandicoot and Gex: Undercover Gecko. If this were to be a clone of Gex he would be a perfect match.

1) He is a lizard -and a cool one at that.
2) Media Deminsion becomes internet, and TV becomes computers.

IMHO Linux needs a good 3d platformer esp. an item collecting, straight-forward level (not scavenger hunt) type.

"Note to self: Don't drink the water at Tommy Chongs." -Gex

[CharmyBee]

The most notable chameleon in a game i've seen is Espio. He runs up walls and ceilings in Chaotix and turns invisible in Sonic Heroes (getting past laser barriers and not being seen by enemies). Perhaps he could take some ability cues from that example...except for the shuriken-throwing ninja power parts.

[Unknown 4242]

Sonic Heroes, man I want to play that game so bad! I love character-switch type games. My fave is Norse by NorseWest. By the way are there any of this type for linux (Natively I mean).

Nice avatar CharmyBee. Did you draw it yourself, I haven't seen that character before?

[lykwydchykyn]

I thought his name was skirpy? There's a skirpy in supertuxkart, I thought it was him. But I don't know.

I always thought Konqui needs his own game. There's even a free-as-in-freedom blender model of Konqui premade. But nobody makes Konqui games. :-(

[CharmyBee]

Sonic Heroes, man I want to play that game so bad!
Doesn't run in WINE for me unfortunately. :(


Nice avatar CharmyBee. Did you draw it yourself, I haven't seen that character before?

I didn't draw it (Sonic X) but I did clean it up and transparencize it. He also happens to be Espio's best friend, and annoying (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGw9v7ev64U).

[Unknown 4242]

Didn't know the KDE dragons name was Konqui. Although I dispise KDE, Konqui is pretty cool.

If he was in a game I think it would be a Spyro type game or a fantasy flight-sim game. What type of game do you think Konqui should be in?

It would be cool to get great mascots into games, although some mascots will always have subpar roles (Wilbur-Gimp, Hexley-Darwin Os, Glenda-Plan9 OS) unfortunately, Konqui may be one of these due to the weird name and because IMHO is hard to place as a main character. Although He? looks like a perfect shop merchant in an Final-Fantasy type game - a perfect easter egg for a non-mascot game.

Geeko (or whatever his real name is) is likely to be like Wilbur and the others despite he is near perfect character wise and production wise for video-games and the fact that he is very fit (perfect role-model and makes the game more real). His style would have to be changed for the game though to make him less real and more gamey. I would love to see Konqui in a game too, Just not as much because I just heard of him.

Thankfully no-one thought of making a Clippit or MSN butterfly themed game during the "Mascot-boom."

[CharmyBee]

What type of game do you think Konqui should be in?
He reminds me a lot of Croc (from Croc: Legend of the Gobbos), so I can't stop thinking about a Mario64-ish platformer.

[Unknown 4242]

Been listening to some chiptunes for the last couple of hours and it made me wonder: Why do most native Linux games have little to no music or music that is over-doing it. For example the music in the Bomberman clone "Bomberclone" trying a little to hard to sound like the Amiga or something even though most people are used to a bomberman type with realistic music not emotionless chiptunes.

I bet it is because linux music studios can't use virtual instruments only samples, unlike FLstudio (formally known as Fruity Loop studio).

Never heard of chiptunes? Try googling "Nullsleep Her lazer light eyes"

[lykwydchykyn]

Been listening to some chiptunes for the last couple of hours and it made me wonder: Why do most native Linux games have little to no music or music that is over-doing it. For example the music in the Bomberman clone "Bomberclone" trying a little to hard to sound like the Amiga or something even though most people are used to a bomberman type with realistic music not emotionless chiptunes.

I bet it is because linux music studios can't use virtual instruments only samples, unlike FLstudio (formally known as Fruity Loop studio).

Never heard of chiptunes? Try googling "Nullsleep Her lazer light eyes"

I don't know what that would have to do with it; most games nowadays distribute music as ogg files anyway, tracker modules are getting rarer. I've heard a good variety of music with the games in the repositories, but most of it is either techno type stuff or lofi rock. Some stuff is chiptunes type stuff, but I think that's more for the retro effect than any technical limitation of Linux.

Besides, just because the game is free software doesn't mean the music was made with Linux based tools.

Oh, and Linux music studios DO use virtual instruments. Several are available in the repositories. They use a format called DSSI, and I have heard that VSTi's can be made to work with a special compatibility plugin.

[Unknown 4242]

VSTI's that what I was thinking of when I said virtual istruments I just couldn't remember the name. You can get them in Ardour it's just a pain IMO to compile it, ardour is not legaly aloud to distribute binaries with VSTI capability built in and most high quality virtual instruments are copyrighted in VSTI format, not linuxs fault.

Allot of games that have music, such as the Kenta Cho games, have excellent music, it's the 3 star and below games that have little to no good music - there's a lot more than the 5 star arena shooters, and classics like Frozen bubble, Freedroid and Pingus. But you are right I checked over some games again and more than I remembered had good music.

Linux has lots of great audio tools most of them require samples though (Audacity). Maybe for some of the better games with no music the makers refused to use alternatives to Linux software and thus made no music, but the ones with great music got the help of musicians and didn't refrain from non-Linux tools.

I have no idea what you are talking about with tracker modules. Sounds bad, whats being tracked? Ogg is awsome but where are you getting this from am I arguing without knowing? Linux has no technical limits, the retro music is just trying to hard to be retro it losses the magic of chip-tune to make souless cheese. Make it sound retro, don't add more complexity than needed! To much complexity then it stops being retro game music and becomes bad chip-tune.

Sorry for any ranting. **googles lofi-rock**

[lykwydchykyn]

I have no idea what you are talking about with tracker modules. Sounds bad, whats being tracked?

It's an older form of doing sample-based music on computers. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Module_file

Ogg is awsome but where are you getting this from am I arguing without knowing? Linux has no technical limits, the retro music is just trying to hard to be retro it losses the magic of chip-tune to make souless cheese. Make it sound retro, don't add more complexity than needed! To much complexity then it stops being retro game music and becomes bad chip-tune.

I was just responding to your thought that the reason there are chiptunes is because Linux doesn't support VSTi's (without pains, that is). I just don't think it's a technical issue, it's just what the author wanted, that's my point.

As for music being cheesy, well, I guess it's all a matter of taste. I haven't heard the music in question so I don't know. To each his own. ;-)

[Unknown 4242]

It's an older form of doing sample-based music on computers. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Module_file

As for music being cheesy, well, I guess it's all a matter of taste. I haven't heard the music in question so I don't know. To each his own. ;-)

I 110% agree, most of the music I like is hated by 99.8% of the people I know (Dark ambient, Hardstyle, Gabber, Rocky Horror Picture Show) to each his\her own. What do you think Konqui's music would be like actiony, humerous, emotional, thought-provoking classical/trance, pumpin Hardstyle, Electro-house/dance or whatever? Basicaly what genre or theme?

I think "Geeko's" would be actiony, smooth -not like mission impossibles theme- no stopping just blending together. With a slow humming part here and there where the baseline and other action sounds stop and give an epic or anticipating atmosphere, hopefully you know what i'm talking about, and then bust right back into the main rhythm.

[CharmyBee]

Chiptunes get me on my nerves because of the C64-wannabe appregios, then again to each their own.

Tracker music has an antique feel because most of them often use the old ST## sample sets from the mid-late 80's/early90's. The big advantage to me is a seamless loop point to another pattern and no stream redundancy for smaller, lossless size.

What confuses me is some games that convert their previously fine tracker music to OGG, destroying the loops (TuxRacer forks mainly, and newer version of SuperTux)

Good tracker music in linux games: Pingus, TecnoBallZ, TuxRacer. Bad: TuxKart, FreeCraft, gl-117, Nexuiz, OpenSonic (windows midi import)

[lykwydchykyn]

I 110% agree, most of the music I like is hated by 99.8% of the people I know (Dark ambient, Hardstyle, Gabber, Rocky Horror Picture Show) to each his\her own. What do you think Konqui's music would be like actiony, humerous, emotional, thought-provoking classical/trance, pumpin Hardstyle, Electro-house/dance or whatever? Basicaly what genre or theme?

If it were me doing the music... well, it'd depend on the setting of the game, but I'd probably go for a heavy medieval influence, lots of string and pipe sounds. But I'm thinking more adventure than just action.

[Unknown 4242]

If it were me doing the music... well, it'd depend on the setting of the game, but I'd probably go for a heavy medieval influence, lots of string and pipe sounds. But I'm thinking more adventure than just action.

Good thinking lykwydchykyn!
I can't believe I didn't think of that, it makes perfect sense Western dragon+Medieval sounds. Must be because im used to most linux games being very arcadey (Vectoroids); I didn't think of Medieval sounds because they are more serious. And of course with that mindset I didn't think of adventure games, to my knowledge thats an old dos niche (that could have a good comeback).

Konqui just might get a game if a good solid idea can be made. So far an adventure with medieval influence and a good dragon as the main character. What could the problem be, a princess taken by a bad dragon, or perhaps like Shrek he doesn't want to be bothered for being a dragon?

For "Geeko" I think the main problem would involve a rescue with some infiltration, perhaps saving Tux and Tuxette or converting servers to OpenSuse to draw power from the villain until he can be faught in the final battle.

I think the game mechanics for geeko should involve cool prince of persia type movement with added in lizard traits such as jumping over an enemy by double jumping then swinging on a pole with his tail.

BTW lykwydchykyn are you or do you personally know any programmers?

[Unknown 4242]

Just to be clear I am talking about the lizard used in commercials, not the logo chameleon. As seen here:

http://ocw.novell.com/training-resources/geeko-training-videos/video-youtube/?searchterm=geeko

They had a set of funny "5 minute warning" videos of him for Brainshare online but must have recently deleted them :(
The videos had some funny moments, like when he put his hands up to show 5 minutes -- he put up one hand with 3-finger and 2 from the other.

It looks like they considered other mascots but somehow used generic characters.
Off of the style guidelines page: http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/Style_Guidelines

Kart Guidelines for the official packages

* For the main-package: karts should relate to a certain open-source mascot.
o Ideas : Gnu, Pidgin bird, SUSE chameleon, BSD beastie, firefox, thunderbird, mono/blender monkey, KDE dragon, Ogre, windowmaker panda, Perl camel, PHP elephant, snort pig, workrave sheep, XFCE mouse, python, adium duck, tortoiseCVS/SVN, cairo insect, mantis insect, etc...


Anyone know why?