←back to thread

OpenTTD is an open source simulation game based upon Transport Tycoon Deluxe

(www.openttd.org)
302 points doener | 1 comments | 04 Dec 24 05:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.207s | source
Show context
haunter ◴[04 Dec 24 06:57 UTC] No.42315057[source]▶
What made OpenTTD a great success that it's playable out of the box. Most open source game remakes [0] are engine-only and you still need the graphics, arts, sound, and music assets to make it a 100%, and actual playable experience. OpenTTD started like that too but from the very beginning it was a goal to "detach" the game from the original as quickly as possible. It was released in 2004, the actual graphics replacement project started in 2007 and by 2009 100% of the sprites were finished so the original game files were not needed anymore [1]

And actually there are now 5 different basesets on top of the original TTD one [2]

It also made possible things like releasing the game on Steam and GOG.

0, https://github.com/radek-sprta/awesome-game-remakes

1, https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Archive/Community/Graphics%20Rep...

2, https://bananas.openttd.org/package/base-graphics

replies(4): >>42315560 #>>42315642 #>>42316090 #>>42318242 #
1. mtlynch ◴[04 Dec 24 15:15 UTC] No.42318242[source]▶
I was curious how this worked without violating the copyright of the originals. I was imagining something akin to tracing over the original game assets and calling it a libre replacement, but it seems like they actually did it in a reasonable way:

>New art is being drawn in the style of the original game, using the original 8bpp palette. The graphics should be a similar but distinct version of the object in question - no graphics may be copied at all from the original. The new sprites do not have to be the same size as the original, but need to be similar so as to fit into the game as expected.

https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Archive/Community/Graphics%20Rep...