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2 months ago by
TomasRampas
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Keen Software House

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Prague, Czech Republic, March 14th – Second major update for Miner Wars 2081, game and engine source code released for easy modding, Czech localization.

Dear Community and Journalists,

Today we released second major update for Miner Wars 2081:
- Full game and engine (VRAGE) source code released for easy modding (360,000 lines of code) - available at our GitHub repository: https://github.com/KeenSoftwareHouse/Miner-Wars-2081
- Rendering engine has been rewritten from XNA to DirectX (better stability and performance, no more alt-tab crashes)
- Cooperative game saves inventory even for a non-host player (visitor)
- Normal and easy difficulty got a bit easier, hard difficulty got a bit harder
- Czech language localization
The most important news is the one about source code. We could say that Miner Wars 2081 is now open source but since "open source" means different things to different people, we are going to clarify it here: every customer who owns a valid Steam version of Miner Wars 2081 can download the source code from our GitHub repository, make changes, compile and run. He/she can distribute these changes as a source code or compiled DLL. The only restriction is that the work can be used only as a mod to Miner Wars 2081.

This source code has been released under very friendly and non-restrictive license, but please don’t confuse it with open source and/or free-software. More info: https://github.com/KeenSoftwareHouse/Miner-Wars-2081/blob/master/License.txt

Why have we decided to release full engine and game source code?
- It increases the value of Miner Wars 2081 for existing and new customers
- You can do any change; you have the same level of control as we do. Do you want to change some hard-core stuff in our rendering engine, physics, GUI? Change AI behavior? Add a new mission? Change a shader? Change a texture or model? Make a totally new game (total conversion)?
- You are not limited by a plugin API (you have full source code for game and engine)
- Engine & game written in C#, which is a very intuitive language and luckily still with reasonable performance
- You can start within minutes, low entry barriers. See this quick 2 minute video tutorial: http://youtu.be/4z3JbBxhMYI
- You can learn from our source code, contribute to it, fork it
- Interesting modifications can get into the next Miner Wars 2081 update or our next project
- We are very curious where can this lead and if this approach would be useful for our future projects
To those who would think that we did this because we are abandoning Miner Wars: no, we are not abandoning it. In fact Miner Wars 2081 is still selling well, covers our monthly bills and we believe that this step will increase our sales.

Aren’t we afraid of any risks? Well, we don’t think there are any direct risks other that some competition stealing our genius and top-secret ideas and code, but after seeing that game development is 99% about being committed and able to finish your project and only 1% about ideas, we don’t worry about this much. And to be honest, our curiosity about what would community do with the code is high and we just can’t stop ourselves from making this move.

In the past we have tried a similar approach - get members from our community and let them help with the development. Unfortunately this didn’t work well – this type of job requires face-to-face contact. So we decided for this different approach, everyone is free to do whatever he wants, we are not pushing others to do what they don’t want, and they don’t push us, and if we luckily meet in the middle ground, both sides are happy.

Please enjoy this update and let us know your opinions.
Thank you

Best Regards,
The Miner Wars Team

Source code repository: https://github.com/KeenSoftwareHouse/Miner-Wars-2081
2 minute video tutorial: http://youtu.be/4z3JbBxhMYI
Manual: https://github.com/KeenSoftwareHouse/Miner-Wars-2081/blob/master/Readme.txt
Official modding forum: http://www.minerwars.com/ForumCategory.aspx?id=13

FOLLOW US:

http://twitter.com/MinerWars
http://www.facebook.com/MinerWars
http://www.youtube.com/user/MinerWars
http://www.MinerWars.com

ABOUT MINER WARS

Miner Wars 2081 is a 6DOF (six degrees of freedom) action-survival space-shooter simulation-game set in the year 2081, 10 years after the destruction of all planetary objects in the Solar System.

You operate an advanced mining ship in a fully destructible and open-world environment, which remains persistent as you complete missions or play online with others. Realism and survival are key aspects of gameplay. Inventory and the way you use resources such as fuel, ammunition, oxygen, ore, and weapons are important when surrounded by dozens of warring factions.

Released: November 28, 2012
Platform: Windows

ABOUT KEEN SOFTWARE HOUSE:

Keen Software House is an independent video game development studio founded in 2009 by Marek Rosa. The company focuses on the development of Miner Wars™, the VRAGE™ engine, and other projects yet to be announced.

Motto: “We are passionate gamers who love developing games, and we are committed to making the kinds of games that players crave.”

NOTE TO EDITORS:

Game page: http://www.MinerWars.com/
Press contact: press@keenswh.com
Company web-site: http://www.KeenSWH.com/
Art pack (press info, logos, screenshots, backgrounds and more): http://mirror1.minerwars.com/Downloads/MinerWarsArtPack.zip

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1 months ago by
Mackindale

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First adopter award

Proud of you guys!
Having your source code available allows future generations of game designers to see what you guys did to make this amazing game, and make other games that are even MORE amazing! What in the world... or out of this world, does the future hold?

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