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[Retropunch]

So, in the unlikely event this is ever finished, and in the even less likely event that it becomes popular, Meandering Marquis could hypothetically point to their tireless work copying someone else's design and hope an employer considers it relevant, and could hope that by open sourcing it other people would work on it contemporaneously and thereby make it marginally more impressive.

That is, indeed, just "something to think about." As opposed to "a realistic possibility."

It's worth making open source just so there's a slim chance someone else will pick it up after he gets bored with it rather than no chance, but let's not pretend this is anything other than a hobby project.

It's certainly a hobby project, and Meandering Marquis definitely shouldn't view it as anything other than that, however depending on where s/he is in their career it may of use.  I've hired for tech jobs before and I've been interested about any and all projects the prospective candidates have been part of, regardless of how minor.

The main thing is, most programming/tech jobs will ask for a portfolio and having something that's been worked on by other people, forked and all the rest looks way better than a dead github page with zero commits and no interest. There's a slim chance this might happen if MM puts in the effort, just due to how popular CM was, but as you say, it's really just something to think about.
 

[Egan_BW]

More importantly, if you open source there's a larger chance that eventually someone else with finish the game and you'll get to play it!

[Meandering Marquis]

Hello,

I started this project because I was playing Chapter Master and more than a bit bummed out that development had stopped (UNLOAD ALL BUTTON FFS). It seemed like a simple enough project so I decided to start on it, expecting the bare bones project would take me a day. It took me closer to a week to get the barest essentials down.

I do not want to be associated with this project at all in person (I'm using Tor to access this) due to previous difficulties experienced by previous developers. So onto the next topic...

Source Code

It was never my intention to spend more than a day on it and my goal was to simply create the groundwork. Thus, I originally intended to release the source. However, since I've spent more time than I expected on it, I've created a couple of nifty functions I'd like to C+P. I like reusing functions (I've reused a couple of old functions for this already) and I will be reusing significant portions of my code in the future. My code is a bit distinct given that I'm using this as a learning project. So no, I will not be releasing my source code.

I will however be amenable to offering a "recipe" for it, written in plain English talking about how I implemented all of the parts (i.e. what classes I have, who owns what, a general sense of how the thing works). I'm hurting as well; due to the nature of this project, I can't grow my code portfolio with this.

If someone with more balls wants to follow my "recipe", and/or writes their own (high quality, clean, self-documenting) code, I'd be glad to step back and help contribute to that project instead. If someone's interested in taking this up and has coding abilities in an OOP language, email/PM/post ASAP and I'll drop coding and start writing.

Update Schedule
Whenever I feel like it (Anything less than once a week is probably bad for my health and sanity). Burnout is always a risk. I hope to remain motivated enough to tell you I'm quitting when I do decide to quit.

Blog planned. In the meantime, here's an update which adds equipment. Don't expect any more updates this soon/work done this fast; it's probably best for my health/sanity/cleanliness of code that I work slower on this. I promise to myself that I won't include an update within the next week. Because this was a rush job and because I originally intended to release it, the code is both messier and convoluted than planned. Cleaning is underway.

Email me for questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

[Trekkin]

I will not be releasing my source code.

You could have saved yourself typing the rest of the post, you know. This was all we needed to know.

Incidentally, anyone with the skill to make a credible attempt at this will have no use for a "recipe" (or what might in more technical circles be called a design document) written by someone else, let alone one that demands self-documenting code rather than documented code written by someone who's unwilling to be associated with the project.

[George_Chickens]

Yeah, nah. That's my interest dashed. There have been multiple closed source attempts to remake Chapter Master and more secretive, closed off attempts to revive it via the existing code, and all of them seemed to have succumbed to the same fate; the developer(s) losing interest and never actually inviting new people in to complete the project. I see little that prevents this project from ending the same way.

[Retropunch]

I do not want to be associated with this project at all in person (I'm using Tor to access this) due to previous difficulties experienced by previous developers. So onto the next topic...

Not this bullshit again...THERE IS NOTHING TO BE WORRIED ABOUT. Seriously, if you make Dude Director no one can stop you - if GW can stop you for doing that, then they could stop every game having elves, massive armour or fucking SPACE. You may as well be worried about how it's similar to GalCiv2 or any other 4x game ever made - but how would any of the several hundred 4x games manage to exist if they had copyright issues? You're just making a 4x game - end of. If you start using their assets then you'll have issues, but as we've said a million times over, just don't use them. I don't know how many different ways I can put this, and I don't mean to be belligerent or rude, but it's just nonsense and it needs to stop.

Whilst there's no need to release it open source - and I dislike pressuring people to do so - your reasons don't make sense. Nothing stops you reusing functions if they're in an open source project, and unless you've come up with literally new maths, you can't really C+P a function.

Lastly, as Trekkin has said, no one will need a 'recipe' if they can already put it together, and more than that the 'recipe' is already out there in the form of Chapter Master. If you want to make something actually useful, make a super bare bones version and make it open source - literally just enough to do the basics and comment it all well. You'd be able to continue on your own close source version but still have contributed something of real value.

[Trekkin]

I've never actually played Chapter Master, but honestly the recent nonsense has me irritated enough to be curious about what it would take to supplant the super secret C+P recipe effort.

What would you all say the minimal feature set for a Chapter Master clone would be?

[Retropunch]

I've never actually played Chapter Master, but honestly the recent nonsense has me irritated enough to be curious about what it would take to supplant the super secret C+P recipe effort.

What would you all say the minimal feature set for a Chapter Master clone would be?

I think it boils down to just a couple of things:

You first need a rndom star map with lanes between planets/stars, and a few different types of enemies that infest planets, then you have the following loop:
1 Move guys around star map in ships
2 light RPG elements on each guy (equipment, stats)
3 Once you move to planet, have a fight which is all worked out automatically (with a text readout)
4 win loot
5 re-equip guys
6 repeat 

After that you'd have things like different enemies encroaching into areas of space, raids by enemy ships, fleet logistics etc. etc. but in terms of a 'minimum viable product' I'd say it's as above.

[nenjin]

The biggest challenge is the flavor, not the programming, IMO. I think when people get to a framework skeleton of a game they realize that's the one thing they can't reliably recreate, and the sheer effort of creating all that flavor from scratch kills the project.

Duke kind of spoiled us all when he went full on asset use. It inserted the idea of what CM should look like, but it's the one line people now can't cross.

[LoSboccacc]

let alone one that demands self-documenting code rather than documented code written by someone who's unwilling to be associated with the project.

it takes 3x effort from a prototype to a product. and it takes 3x more if the product is a solution involving more than one people collaborating.

that's why you won't see people collaborating, this is actually a very small project and making it a collaborative effort would kick it out of the "hobby-sized" magic zone where stuff actually happens 

[Retropunch]

The challenge biggest challenge is the flavor, not the programming, IMO. I think when people get to a framework skeleton of a game they realize that's the one thing they can't reliably recreate, and the sheer effort of creating all that flavor from scratch kills the project.

Duke kind of spoiled us all when he went full on asset use. It inserted the idea of what CM should look like, but it's the one line people now can't cross.

Agreed, but if you made the code super accessible and modular, it'd be easy for someone more creative and less techy to mod to get the flavour right. Looking at all the amazing mods on moddb there's a lot of people who can do that, but getting the initial 'engine' running is hard work.

Whoever picked it up would need to make sure all the textures, images and models were all easily accessible and all text was drawn from plain text. All your items would need to be JSON (or similar) and you'd need to comment your code heavily - certainly not impossible but not easy.

[Tack]

Fair enough. I’d be keen to see a remake.

[nenjin]

The challenge biggest challenge is the flavor, not the programming, IMO. I think when people get to a framework skeleton of a game they realize that's the one thing they can't reliably recreate, and the sheer effort of creating all that flavor from scratch kills the project.

Duke kind of spoiled us all when he went full on asset use. It inserted the idea of what CM should look like, but it's the one line people now can't cross.

Agreed, but if you made the code super accessible and modular, it'd be easy for someone more creative and less techy to mod to get the flavour right. Looking at all the amazing mods on moddb there's a lot of people who can do that, but getting the initial 'engine' running is hard work.

Whoever picked it up would need to make sure all the textures, images and models were all easily accessible and all text was drawn from plain text. All your items would need to be JSON (or similar) and you'd need to comment your code heavily - certainly not impossible but not easy.

That's the dream, innit? Someone does all the hard work and makes a fully functional but visually bare skeleton of the game, and then others come in and dress it up.

See, Duke had a lot of previous help and ideas from a ton of contributors before he even put out the first version of CM. It was a project that was easy? to get passionate about because there was already so much fan love and work vested in it. Were I programmer, I'd be a hell of a lot more motivated seeing a lot of this (non-functional but amazing) flavor ready to be bolted to whatever framework I could create as soon I made it.

I think it's harder to work toward that vision from a grey screen with a couple nodes on it and classes of stuff generically named because they need to be generic. I'm not a programmer so I won't claim to actually think like one. But it's a huge burden to carry. One that even Duke didn't truly carry on his shoulders alone. So many parts of what made CM what it was came from various sources, and to date no one trying to do a remake has had that support network in place, and I'm sure it can be really demoralizing. Especially since just about anyone trying to do CM is also using it as a learning experience. Trying to replicate a "full game" while you're still learning a lot can be one of the most demoralizing parts, because you're constantly faced with way more work than you're actually capable of doing.

It's like when someone plays a really amazing 2d action game and they're like "I wanna make something like this!" and they start, only to realize that the ideal of a full fledged game that makes them feel good is leagues more work than they anticipated.

[Trekkin]

Yeah, everything's more of a hassle than it looks. I started a bit after my post just out of boredom, and I just got it to let me fly a single ship around a 3d galaxy with named stars color-coded by enemy presence -- and that's with Matplotlib doing most of the heavy lifting.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Behold the wonderous graphics!

Now, the actual combat engine would, you would think, be easy -- but the UI to let the player make any kind of changes to equipment and so forth is a drag.

[nenjin]

It certainly was in actual CM.