Battle for Wesnoth: open-source, turn-based strategy game
wesnoth.org
wesnoth.org
He's been a developer on Wesnoth since 2012 but only graduated university in 2024. Unfortunately, it's been an absolutely brutal market for new graduates. Even if you're a maintainer on one of the most popular OSS C++ projects on GitHub.
I can't recommend him enough.
edit: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-dang-10994b1b4
Furthermore, more and more companies are looking for "professional" devs using AI tools such as Claude Code. By "professional" I mean proficient in using those AI tools, not actual knowledge. And they don't even specify this in the job offer and you learn this during the interview.
Unlimited token-based usage of Claude Code is not in the budget for many students and employees.
At the same time, companies are demanding experience with these tools.
This is stratifying the industry. I have many talented classmates that can only use free GitHub Copilot. They're likely being screened out in favour of rich classmates with $200/month Claude subs.
As a result, they'll be more likely to get low-paying jobs that don't provide access to top-tier AI tools and the effect will compound.
I think this'll be even worse as Claude phases out subsidies.
If $2000/month subscription to Claude for 4 years of university is the minimum required for a Big Tech job, this field is going to become law/finance levels of cliquey.
Nobody is talking about that because it's bad for both AI booster and skeptic narratives but it's happening.
students generally get specific subsidized/free tiers for all kinds of tech
I don't believe there's a general student discount for Claude.
Of course that makes this person’s skill all the more impressive.
This, had a friend whose clearance was held up because he knew a bunch of foreign people, people that he had met through a government job with a lower level of clearance.
What an absurd thing to say. As a Canuck, I may even spend some days wondering if I'll have to defend my country from the US, but I can clearly see that there are many governmental and military jobs that are incredibly valuable, ethical, beneficial.
Wikipedia says there are ~2M US governmental employees, and ~2M in the military. The military doesn't use such clearances. When it comes to securing data systems for the government, a clearance is required, even if it's about any number of domestic things, some of which, yes, are valuable and helpful, and needed.
It should be noted that there are all types of security clearances, including very simple ones. In Canada, we have (for example) 'enhanced reliability' and 'secret level II' for governmental work, the first being a simple background, criminal record check, with 10 year's history.
Selling services, even say... cloud based wordprocessing software as a service would require most employees to have such clearances. But of course, what is effectively selling paper and pens, eg wordpro software, is a morally bankrupt thing in your context?!
This is a governmental program: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R42353#_Ref471832706
Description: Provides supplemental, nutrient-rich foods; nutrition education and counseling; and breastfeeding promotion and support to low-income women, infants, and children.
But I guess, because this requires handling money, and therefore a security clearance, you'd be ethically challenged to seek clearance? Or to write software for this?
To paint every job which requires a clearance as morally bankrupt, to paint working for the government to be morally bankrupt, is frankly disgusting. You should literally be ashamed of yourself.
Get your head on straight. Please.
Don't let whatever weirdo US team politics-of-the-day exists, leave you making overreaching statements. The US, as a nation, needs GOOD people in such programs, not ones feeling shame.
I personally feel the US is on a terrible course currently, but it won't be fixed by tearing it down further. And if a time does come to change that course, the framework you have, needs to be filled with good people.
Do you not realise that by acting this way, you're working to ensure that only morally bankrupt people will apply for such jobs? If you make working for the government a badge of shame, it will become true in time? That even the most noblest of jobs, such as helping to feed poor children will only be filled by those with no scruples?
How is this attitude helping?
How is it any better than whatever other team the US has?
If not, it's all down to value judgements and your personal evaluation of the current power structures.
Personally, I would feel guilty if I did anything that empowered the Trump regime.
Regardless, absolutely, yes, I would take a job in Nazi Germany which required clearance, if that job was to feed poor children. What the hell? I literally used feeding babies as an example, please provide some context in where innocent babies should be left to starve. Children are literally the absolute concept of innocence, and a baby is beyond culpability!
That is... unless you're advocating some form of weird let babies starve, because of the crimes of their parents?! Which is effectively along the lines of suggesting ethnic cleansing???
Any form of ideological stance which is this extreme, is realistically actually inline with fascism, for it puts politics before people.
True. Though to be frank, before typing my longer response I did consider just telling you the same about the “but forget everything else and think of the children” line of reasoning.
Nobody said Trump is literally Hitler. But literal Hitler did exist, so it all becomes a question of where do you personally draw the line?. For you, it seems to be somewhere between Trump and Hitler. For me, it's somewhere before Trump. I'm not establishing equivalency, I'm establishing subjectivity.
Along those lines, who said anything about crimes of parents?
Let me be more concrete: Would you feed children on camera so the propaganda apparatus can film a movie about a concentration camp titled "The Führer gifts a City to the Jews"? [0]
Everything you do can and will be instrumentalized by the regime. The innocents, too, are just a medium for their machinations.
There is a treshold at which even nominally good acts become morally reprehensible because they serve to sustain a harmful system. The only question is which system do you consider harmful enough to pass that treshold?
You're presenting your moral line as if it's objectively correct. I’m pointing out it's a judgment call with no easy absolutes.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresienstadt_(1944_film)
None of that is relevant. Why? My statements have been quite clear; the government is not the party in power. And further, that there may be portions of the government that may offend, that saying "all parts" is obscene and inane.
Recall the original conversation. It's not the mess you've made of it now. Recall my objection was to someone saying that any government job was bad.
I cited a government department with a specific outcome. Feeding children. The counter with the Nazis, therefore, is inline with that statement of mine. Yes, in Nazi Germany, I would work for the government to feed children.
The sensible inference is that my statement is akin to the same for the current US government feeding children. You've now changed that condition to, instead, being some sort of actor for films about feeding children.
This is not what we were discussing. For the record, no, I would not star in a propaganda film willingly.
In as this entire conversation has revolved around how the US government has a myriad of programs which are ethical and moral, and how it therefore would not be untoward to seek clearance and work in those jobs, yes I stand my ground.
I have also indicated that if one found the job questionable, then don't take it! And naturally one can quit if the job changes.
It's such an enormous stretch to try to claim that every single possible job the US government has is reprehensible. The notion is absurd, see my other post about how some of these departments have been unchanged for decades. Lived through both parties.
So yes, there is an easy absolute here. That currently (because, no one can claim to know the future), there are government jobs which are moral and ethical. Period. Hands down. Absolute certainty.
You wonder about the "crimes of the parent". Well, if you refuse to feed children because their parents are in Nazi Germany, then presumably part of that has to do with their parents. For example, would you feed the children of dissenters? If the answer is "yes", yet when asked "would you feed the hungry children of Nazi zealots" you say "no", then you are indeed punishing babies for the crimes of their parents.
A child is a child is a child, and to feed that child is noble. To feed the children of your enemy is noble. To feed the children of someone who murdered your children is noble. To feed the children of those who wish you harm is noble.
There is no ground where not feeding children is reasonable. None. Nada. Ziltch.
Children are not a political game. Children are not something you use to do battle. Children are not something cease helping, because you worry about it helping the enemy.
You. Feed. Children.
Period.
To do so reinforces and legitimizes the power structure, and that is what I take issues with. Children are not enemies, I am fully with you on that.
The enemy is power structures and me not supporting a particularly harmful one might save more children than the concrete act of me feeding them personally.
You wave your hands about, and cite far flung examples of how it could be, then there is not here, but then is not now, the future is not now, and we are speaking of the current.
If your concern is that it "could be" at some point, well I hate to break it to you, but that also covers every type of job you might imagine. "Could be" covers a lot of change and time. "Could be" is a wide brush to paint with, especially considering the object isn't even before us, but a misty, intangible, not yet formed thing.
Sometimes you don't know the exact nature of the task until after you've gone through the rigmarole of applying, getting clearance, etc. In that case if you consider some of the jobs to be morally bankrupt, you consider all of them to potentially be morally bankrupt. You could go through all the hassle then turn it down, or leave during a probationary period when you discover the details, but that is a significant wasted time risk to take.
> You should literally be ashamed of yourself.
Many people state-side are ashamed of their government, and don't want to feel their reputation is tarnished by working directly for it, and quite frankly I don't blame them right now nor would I have at all at numerous points over recent years. And that is before considering those who want “conscientious objector” status with regard to anything military related.
> If you make working for the government a badge of shame, it will become true in time?
For some, it has become true. That time is now or before.
As much as “join and fight the corruption from within” is a laudable goal, I entirely understand people not thinking that they've got the nerve for that. Especially given that the first thing a bad administration does to someone raising concerns is to sack and blacklist them in a way that will affect future employment opportunities.
> such as helping to feed poor children
The “but think of the children” argument cuts both ways: many governments have, directly or indirectly, done and continue to do, terrible things to children. It may not be possible in the short/medium term to do anything truly useful about that (you go try tell the current administration over there to refund the good works that have been gutted recently and see how seriously they take you!) and dealing with the crap until things stear back towards the good is too much for some.
Not everyone has the fortunate needed to fight a bad system from within, or the desire to, no matter how many heartstrings you pull to try shame them into reconsidering the good within the bad.
Sometimes you don't know the exact nature of the task until after you've gone through the rigmarole of applying, getting clearance, etc.
I literally said "every job". You're saying "sometimes" they might be. What is your point? It certainly doesn't counter or answer the point I raise.
> You should literally be ashamed of yourself.
Many people state-side are ashamed of their government, and don't want to feel their reputation is tarnished by working directly for it, and quite frankly I don't blame them
Well I do blame them. And I specifically excluded the military. As I mentioned, the government is a vast and immense entity. Further, my response was to someone saying that to get a clearance would be morally bankrupt. I provided examples as to why that may not be the case. What you are doing, is painting all government as bad, because a specific team is in play right now.
This is literally what is wrong with the US currently. 90% of the issues are due to team politics on both sides. Politics before people. Politics before sensibility. Politics, instead of examining the moral and ethical considerations of each action one takes.
> If you make working for the government a badge of shame, it will become true in time?
As much as “join and fight the corruption from within” is a laudable goal,
You do not have to fight corruption to take a job feeding babies. Or the large amount of good that the government does. You can simply take and do that job. That's my point here. You're doing what the poster upstream did, painting the entire body of the US government as a single entity.
It's OK to say "I don't think this part of government is ethical, I won't work for that part of government", but to say that any government job is morally repugnant is disgusting.
> such as helping to feed poor children
The “but think of the children” argument
It's not a "think of the children" argument in any traditionally way. That argument is typically defined by taking rights away from someone, to "protect kids". This is simply feeding the poor, and babies. No comparison.
Not everyone has the fortunate needed to fight a bad system from within, or the desire to, no matter how many heartstrings you pull to try shame them into reconsidering the good within the bad.
The government is not bad. A tiny part (the current administration) is the problem.
To give context, you'd need a string of "one team" government for decades to turn the course of the entire government. Programs enacted by both US teams are currently in play. Some programs are decades old, and supported by both parties.
Anyone who thinks that a certain team gets into power, and then "all government bad" is not thinking clearly. What you need to do, is look at what each department and each program does. Determine if they are good. It absolutely does not matter which administration passed it, or when. All that matters is "is this thing good?".
The government should be viewed as series of literally tens of thousands of companies. Each has its own task, provides specific services, and so on. To paint them all bad is nutty.
You are completely ignoring the “you don't always know the full nature of the task until after clearance” part. If you don't know it isn't one that will be a problem for you, it could be one that is. My point there is that bit.
> And I specifically excluded the military.
So did I. Hence I explicitly said afterwards “And that is before considering those who want “conscientious objector” status with regard to anything military related."
I stopped reading at this point because if you didn't bother properly reading my previous before blurting out a response, then explaining more, giving you more to not fully read, will likely achieve nothing beyond consuming my time.
Half of what actually makes money in tech these days involves active spying on consumers or manipulation of base human desires at scale. Not exactly the paragon of morality.
That it doesn't get him instant hired is the sad part, what are we coming to.
So, uh, I'm now one of the leads of Frogatto and boy howdy could I use a job too after a recent mass staff reduction at my day job.
Thank you for your work on Wesnoth, I spent many hours playing back in the day. There's also a good android port.
> I know you can kinda cheese it by reducing a monster to 1-2 HP
In practice, I've found it difficult to get monsters to 1-2 HP since it often means not using your most powerful attacks. On harder difficulties I usually can't afford the opportunity cost.
Edit: Now that I think about it, most turn-based games have this mechanic. It's almost an idiomatic balance/design decision in gaming.
Compare to Dota where support heroes have acquired more and more opportunities for assist gold/XP, it does in some sense make the game "easier" for the support players, but then the game is harder in other ways because now the supports are all way more farmed and dangerous than in older versions. It's the difference between controlling an army of many units and having to manage them all, versus controlling one unit and needing to work together within a team.
Only thing I’m good at carrying is wards.
> 7. Healing/leadership should give experience
> It is felt that allowing units to gain experience without risk would make leveling-up of such units inevitable. Further, one of the motivating examples of this is so that units such as shaman can have a hope to level up in multiplayer. It is pointed out that if the experience gains were high enough to allow shaman to level up in a single multiplayer game, then it would be trivial to gain the best type of healing unit in a campaign very quickly.
https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=34904#w0fpi7 (2011)
> I know you can kinda cheese it by reducing a monster to 1-2 HP and then getting them to attack, but it feels like going against their role.
This is a problem with the XP-per-kill system. Wesnoth could use a variant instead. I use the above strategy all the time to level the healers up.
Note that elven units have slow (their healers), which is very powerful in its own right for getting a kill on a unit. First slow, then deal damage with other units.
This fork[0] of a fork of the original allegedly works with 1.18. I haven't tested it, because these days I play with the built-in predictable RNG and it suffices for me.
What's that?
(There's an add-on for that too btw)
If that's your jam then there's also a (non-open-source) "Hero's Hour" which tickles the old Heroes of Might and Magic stylings, works reasonably well on Xbox, where I've been doing most of my gaming lately.
As far as Open Source gaming success stories, I'd put this up there in the Top 5 for "Original IP and Concept" (if that makes sense). Just a stellar labor of love, worth giving it a shot to play!
I do wonder how realistic it would be to maybe crowdfund the dev team with 3 weeks of Claude Code in order to achieve a working WASM port?
(Subjective interpretation, but something like, "I couldn't believe it's free, I would have paid for it anyway.")
My lizard is the lizard of website: https://rainwarrior.ca/lizard/
My lizard is the lizard of source: https://github.com/bbbradsmith/lizard_src_demo/
Just like its cousing OpenTTD which is a reimplementation of Chris Sawyer's Transport Tycoon.
- Supertux2, it got recently revamped, the quality skyrocketed. Much better controls and artwork.
- Supetux Advance, this is really great too.
- Retux (More Wariolike than Mario)
- Nethack/Slashem. A Roguelike more bound to interaction/exploration/mechanics than combat, but Slashem makes combat crazy with the Doppleganger Monk, which is basically a Shonen Manga, the role. (Dragon Ball/Naruto depending on your age).
- DCSS. Basically, not Nethack/Slashem, much more combat oriented than the Slashem combinatorics playing with the Monk a la Jackie Chan, this is more like an ARPG made a Rogue.
- Frotz/Lectrote/Winfrotz/whatver Z Machine interpreter and "All Things Devour". Spiritwrak, too. Great libre text adventures and still enganing because of weird mechanics.
- Frozen Bubble
- OpenArena.
- FreeDoom, better compiled with Deutex on daily builds.
- FreeCiv.
- OpenTTD today can be standalone enough.
- Frozen Bubble
- Minetest+tons of subgames such as Glitch, Nodecore...
- OOlite
- Speed Dreams. If the controls are hard, try the arcade mode. If the controls are still hard, get SupertuxKart, pick some real life car from the addons and get all the SD tracks from the inline downloader, they are several.
Heads up: they recently changed name to Luanti to get away from the "it's Minecraft but worse" perception. They also un-bundled the built-in game and are trying to be a game engine these days.
I recommend looking into Age of Mending. It's still in alpha, but if it's ever finished it'll give Minecraft a good run for its money, especially among the builder-minded players.
I wonder why that isn't in the Debian repos?
Widelands as a settler clone
My first reaction was exactly that; I can't believe it's free!
0 A.D. is like a free Age of Empires and is lovely to play!
I'd probably also put Luanti up there, and maybe OpenTTD (despite the niche UI).
Edited to add:
If you like RTS then Beyond All Reason is fantastic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_All_Reason
Wait, on second thought if I did that I wouldn't get anything done.
- Trackmania Nations Forever (e.g. via Steam) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj2u2OrZ2vI
- Starcraft Brood War - though I have not tested it via the battlenet.exe, played it when it still was payware.
- Gemcraft Labyrinth - played it when flash was a thing, but now it is again, e.g. on Armorgames
And, I got games like Portal 1 & 2, Outer Wilds, Osmos, Manifold Garden, Planet Crafter and many more for under ten, some for under five Euros each when they were on special offer on Steam. I once got Just Cause 3 for three Euros.
https://www.beyondallreason.info/
The amount of care they put into the little quality of life ui stuff is impressive. Something about how you can tell when the developers enjoy playing their game.
ttps://github.com/pardeike/Harmony
https://github.com/00-Evan/shattered-pixel-dungeon
EDIT: forgot to refresh comments, already mentioned
Doom RL (drl) is also amazing
In the meantime so many other favorite games have disappeared or become obsolete.
There's no absolute reason great games can't be as immortal as chess. Maybe Wesnoth can be.
Ditto with Oolite, tons of community content.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon it's a fork and still has tons of contents and it might be the most playable FLOSS game in Android among Unciv. Oh, and it can be run on potatos.
Sometimes you don't need AAA graphics.
The best part is being able to pin locations on the map for your teammates, so we were able to plot the adventures and battlegrounds of a goated unit by naming the pins "Ronant's Triumph," "Ronant's Revenge," "Ronant's Folly," and ultimately "Ronant's Last Stand." Great times with a few beers and the lads.
RIP Ronant, Wesnoth will never see another hero of your like again.
I only wish they added more campaigns into the official lore.
I'm not sure how I'd balance the game. You want the feeling of progression, but its too "slippery", the game gets easier if the player feeds their units and lets them grow. But it feels like the player could get "trapped" if they had unfortunate or unlucky losses at the incorrect time.
On the other hand, I always thought the "single map" or "scenario maps" of Wesnoth were excellent. I mean, I like the campaigns its just... tough to figure out the proper design scope there.
I would love to see a Nintendo Switch port of this game, if anyone is interested in making one!
I think many would be, but AIUI it's illegal. It would require modifying the source to use Nintendo's SDK which is under NDA. The GPL would require releasing the modified source, which would be prohibited by the NDA. So it's legally impossible without special permission from every single Wesnoth contributor ever.
Unless you mean a homebrew port, in which case it's doable.
I personally never did multiplayer but last I checked the multiplayer community was pretty healthy.
Oh, and I'd really like them to be in the original style of Heir to the Throne. I'm a sucker for the old anime style of 1.10.
Thanks for that.
My first distro was a live cd with Knoppix.
It had this game, I played so much. This, and Kobo deluxe.
So many good memories
Open source licenses shouldn't be viewed as a marketing strategy; it's a gift.
You don't. Giving people the right to do this is the whole point of open source.
If that possibility is not acceptable then don't open source your game.
If that sounds at all interesting, I suggest giving it a shot.
The Zone of Control mechanic kind of simulates this. If you're not careful about unit placement, you may find your units ganged up on by more enemies then they can handle. On the other hand, if you keep a good formation, you can pretty much hold a solid line with a fairly modest number of troops. Unless of course the enemy soldiers have "skirmisher", in which case they'll waltz right past your ZoC.
Actually, Wesnoth's ZoC is the reason I never could get into Fire Emblem. I couldn't get used to not being able to protect my injured units without completely surrounding them.