The Game is NOW Open Sourced!
No this is not an late april fools joke, this game is now open source.
I have been working on The Colorful Creature on and off by myself for the past 6 years or so. This game is like a child to me and having the game handed out to people to see and improve it further sounds exciting.
I decided to open source the game as a thanks, and I want to continue to further support the game by giving the community a chance to contribute and improve the game.
For low attention span people, here's the official public repository! View all of it's secrets!
There's also documentation on how to contribute.
What does this mean?
'Open sourcing' any software/game means that the developer(s) are handing out source code entirely for free. It usually requires a license, there's many to choose from but I've chosen Apache 2.0, it means that you can contribute, modify, distribute, or even sell your own version of TCC. It's a legal procedure if I wanted to make the game available to people but I wanted to go on full lengths.
Why did you do this?
For the longest time, I was working on the game by myself, which isn't an issue, but some things took too long to add because of the systems I've implemented that I want to code-refactor, but that takes even longer!
Considering that the game got a full release, I decided to release the game then because I got all of things added that I wanted, but all of these things can be improved in some way.
With me working on other projects, it's difficult to balance TCC and have time for it, I can work on the game but I don't have as much time especially with college and bigger projects planned. So I decided to give the community a chance, with me working on the documentation and help resolve issues with contributors.
I'll be always with the community to help solve issues but now the community can solve the game for me! We can sort the game out together!
Is the game going to be free on steam?
No, the game won't be free on steam, it's just the source code that is becoming free. But you can take the source code and compile the game yourself for free even if you don't own TCC yourself.
There's examples of games that did this, like Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead where it's sold on steam for 20 euros, but it is free on github.
How can I help
If you don't know how to develop games, or use GameMaker, you don't have to! Head over to the issues tab where you can request bugs and features.
However, if you have any experience with GameMaker, or want to add/fix something, read the contributing.md file and follow instructions. The issues with "good first issue" are easy to add/fix and can get you on the right track.
Keep in mind that the documentation for contributing is work in progress, many things could change to improve workflow of the game, but it will get easier with time.
What is next?
From now on, you can see all plans publicly on github for each major release. I'll keep adding features but now with the community as well. If you need any help regarding to development of the game, join this discord server.
Thank you so much for your support!
Release 1.1.7.3 Features
- Resolved #18 - r_communitylvl8 is transferred to calendar
- Fixed typo in README.md
- Added new levels to the daily level pool
- Changed endless run
- Community challenge time increased from 183.2s to 240s
- Removed obsolete discord rich presence
- Close #11 - Splashtext is now loaded as a .txt file
- Resolved #23 - Feedback button goes to github issues page
- Development Form was changed into the repository of TCC