Deamon
01-20-08, 11:52 AM
As one of the forum members suggested, here is a list with indi projects known to me. If I have overlooked any or a new one pops up somewhere drop me a note:
INDI SUBSIM PROJECTS
Danger from the deep
http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/
This is one of the most going and promising indi developments. A very ambitious project where we can surely expect a completion.
Mikes subsim project
http://home.att.net/%7Esubbase1/ (The website is down again but i know for a fact that the project still exists)
Don't know what the name of his current undertaking is. This sim is in the making for an eturnity already. A restless project that don't seem to come to an end. I much regret that Mike switched the project from the cold war era to WWII. WWII is such a saturated market.
Anyway it was his early demo that blew me out of the water and gave me the critical courage I needed to start my own development. I wish he would have sticked to the early cold war era ( Mike, do you hear me ? :) )
Community subsim
http://www.commanders-academy.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=86
This is a modern submarine simulatior development led by Dr.Sid. This is also a young project but I say watch this guy. This one seems to be definetely promesing. It will probably go open source at some point and there is already a playable pre-alpha version that can be downloaded here:
http://www.commanders-academy.com/comsubsim/index.php?title=Main_Page
Thumbs up to Dr.Sid!
Linux SSN
http://linuxssn.org/index.php
An hunter killer clone for linux. Wondering whether this one is still going. Site seem still to be there.
Buoyancy - USS Holland submarine simulator
http://www.purely-games.com/unusual_submarine_game.html (http://sub-log.com/buoyancy?PHPSESSID=8841f76294f6a7e108b16feed74cc2c bA)
A little online game, which is very entertaining, however. Try to beat my score: 38370 :D
Uboat-sim
Ektopil's own browser u-boat strategy game. It's like the subwolf project where you are playing from the perspective of the BDU, except that it plays in WWI(which is very appealing to me :)). It is very simplistic and arcade at that point but i played it for a while and i must say it has an addiction factor to it. I feel this genre has an underestimated potential. It's better than you might expect. Go and give it a try(if you are not afraid of java script, that is :haha:).
Ektopil, any chance to make a downloadable version of that game ?
Gosh i just wish subwolf wouldn't have got too ambitious. Cause even in the very simplistic form the genre is so good. I hope Ektopil will push the project further than that.
Imperial U Flotilla 1914 -1918
http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/heinrich/main.htm
Last but not least my own subsim project. :) Whereas it is not exclusively about u-boats but for some time it will give priority to u-boats.
This is a VERY ambitious long term undertaking for us. This project is done with love. We put our heart and soul into it. For me this is a life project, I fully commited my life to it. This one will take lots of time but I want to do it right. This is not a pure tactical simulator but it also includes the other side of the coin so to say. It has a strong emphasis on the first person experience and we are going into an unprecedented level of detail and authenticity on all levels of experience. Expect a complete experience and facettes you have never seen in a naval sim or even knew about.
I am confident that at the end we will push the experience on to a new level. I dare to say IUF is extremely innovative and is getting its very own unique flair but I am not going to reveal more than this, at this point. After I started to go into the details of this subject, I was just shocked how little the naval subject is exploited in the common games actually and how much it still has to offer. So here we go.
AXED AND MIA SUBSIM PROJECTS
The Type VIIC Project
http://web.telia.com/~u51008935/VIIC/The_VIIc_project.html (http://web.telia.com/%7Eu51008935/VIIC/The_VIIc_project.htmlAhh)
Ahh, this brings back memories. Leif's project was one of my biggest inspirations! This was one of the most interesting hobby projects, imo. But since years the developer is silent and as you can see the site is also gone. :cry:
Go figure. This is one of the projects I will never forget, alone for the inspiration it gave to me. I kept his inspiring videos. His game had its very own flair, imo. This is rare. If a game was made with love you can feel this. And this one was one of thous. To bad that it's gone. Anyway here is the memorial of this project:
http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/heinrich/Media/Videos/VIIc.avi
http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/heinrich/Media/Videos/viic2.avi
http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/heinrich/Media/Videos/viic3_small.avi
Rohr 1... Losss!!
http://www.mp-labs.com/r1l/news.php
Manuels own ambitious VIIC project that he has abandoned after the SHIII release. This project too was an inspiration for me, back then.
Deep Six
http://www.deepsix-online.com/site/?p=4
EAST and co's own indi development of a pure online sim that went missing now too.
Iron Coffins
http://www.chadmcrae.com/
Chad's own little but ambitious development that he ren for years and looks like he finally buried it.
3DNav
http://www.jhuapl.edu/websub/
A helm station demo of an SSN. Haven't tried this one yet.
REMAKES
'Red Storm Rising' remake
http://www.kennedyapproach.com/home?action=ShowRSRNews
The remake is in the makings, yey! :sunny:
Overall this is probably the best cold war subsim ever done. This is even more incredebly when you consider that the original version was made for the C-64! :o
This game is one of the most timeless master pieces ever done! I still play it and you have to experience the quality, immersion and addiction yourself to believe it.
'Carrier Command' remake
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/martingbell/projects/
This one was one of my all time favoured, during the amiga times. This game was a revolution back then. OTHER NAVAL PROJECTS
Global Conflict Blue
http://gcblue.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
That is another serious naval warfare project. It's in fleet command style but it goes beyond that. Usually the open source and indi projects take an eturnity to get finishied if ever they ever get finished at all but this seems to be one of the few exceptions. Here we can expect something in a reasonable time. In fact the project seems to be interesting even for at least one navy.
Red Pill
http://www.warfaresims.com/?cat=126
Another naval/air warfare project of heavy calibre run by the former Harpoon HQ guys. This one is very similar to Global Conflict Blue. Looks like this projects were developed at the same time by different groups.
This one can definitely be expected to be finished in forseeable future. This is surely a reincarnation of harpoon so all harpoon lovers should become happy with this one. It's great to see some indi projects making it through the finish line finally.
AXED NAVAL PROJECTS
I list here only projects that have progressed significantly before they got axed.
Force 85
That was another comprehensive cold war project that I was anticipating and following with great interest. But then came a long silence and with the famous last words "This project is NOT dead!" the project site disappeared and you do not hear from them anything anymore. :lol:
But I regret its disappearence.
Subwolves
www.subwolves.com (http://www.subwolves.com/)
Now that was a special one. It was basically a BDU simulator where you play from Dönitzs perspective and command the whole german u-boat fleet, it's production and training of the crews. This is somethig many have surely waited for. But this project depended on only guy who was doing it in his spare time. The project was in an advanced state when the young developer graduated from the university and started to work overtime which finally sealed the faith of the project.
The developer certainly had the stamina to complete the project but in the end couldn't spare time anymore.
CONCLUSION
The situation is rather sobering. There are only very few projects worth the waiting. Most attempts are hobby projects and do not make it in the end. But the indies have been around for a long time and only now it seems a few projects actually do emerging. A few projects seem to be of a heavy calibre, a few projects seem to have what it takes to push it through the finish line!
INDI SUBSIM PROJECTS
Danger from the deep
http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/
This is one of the most going and promising indi developments. A very ambitious project where we can surely expect a completion.
Mikes subsim project
http://home.att.net/%7Esubbase1/ (The website is down again but i know for a fact that the project still exists)
Don't know what the name of his current undertaking is. This sim is in the making for an eturnity already. A restless project that don't seem to come to an end. I much regret that Mike switched the project from the cold war era to WWII. WWII is such a saturated market.
Anyway it was his early demo that blew me out of the water and gave me the critical courage I needed to start my own development. I wish he would have sticked to the early cold war era ( Mike, do you hear me ? :) )
Community subsim
http://www.commanders-academy.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=86
This is a modern submarine simulatior development led by Dr.Sid. This is also a young project but I say watch this guy. This one seems to be definetely promesing. It will probably go open source at some point and there is already a playable pre-alpha version that can be downloaded here:
http://www.commanders-academy.com/comsubsim/index.php?title=Main_Page
Thumbs up to Dr.Sid!
Linux SSN
http://linuxssn.org/index.php
An hunter killer clone for linux. Wondering whether this one is still going. Site seem still to be there.
Buoyancy - USS Holland submarine simulator
http://www.purely-games.com/unusual_submarine_game.html (http://sub-log.com/buoyancy?PHPSESSID=8841f76294f6a7e108b16feed74cc2c bA)
A little online game, which is very entertaining, however. Try to beat my score: 38370 :D
Uboat-sim
Ektopil's own browser u-boat strategy game. It's like the subwolf project where you are playing from the perspective of the BDU, except that it plays in WWI(which is very appealing to me :)). It is very simplistic and arcade at that point but i played it for a while and i must say it has an addiction factor to it. I feel this genre has an underestimated potential. It's better than you might expect. Go and give it a try(if you are not afraid of java script, that is :haha:).
Ektopil, any chance to make a downloadable version of that game ?
Gosh i just wish subwolf wouldn't have got too ambitious. Cause even in the very simplistic form the genre is so good. I hope Ektopil will push the project further than that.
Imperial U Flotilla 1914 -1918
http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/heinrich/main.htm
Last but not least my own subsim project. :) Whereas it is not exclusively about u-boats but for some time it will give priority to u-boats.
This is a VERY ambitious long term undertaking for us. This project is done with love. We put our heart and soul into it. For me this is a life project, I fully commited my life to it. This one will take lots of time but I want to do it right. This is not a pure tactical simulator but it also includes the other side of the coin so to say. It has a strong emphasis on the first person experience and we are going into an unprecedented level of detail and authenticity on all levels of experience. Expect a complete experience and facettes you have never seen in a naval sim or even knew about.
I am confident that at the end we will push the experience on to a new level. I dare to say IUF is extremely innovative and is getting its very own unique flair but I am not going to reveal more than this, at this point. After I started to go into the details of this subject, I was just shocked how little the naval subject is exploited in the common games actually and how much it still has to offer. So here we go.
AXED AND MIA SUBSIM PROJECTS
The Type VIIC Project
http://web.telia.com/~u51008935/VIIC/The_VIIc_project.html (http://web.telia.com/%7Eu51008935/VIIC/The_VIIc_project.htmlAhh)
Ahh, this brings back memories. Leif's project was one of my biggest inspirations! This was one of the most interesting hobby projects, imo. But since years the developer is silent and as you can see the site is also gone. :cry:
Go figure. This is one of the projects I will never forget, alone for the inspiration it gave to me. I kept his inspiring videos. His game had its very own flair, imo. This is rare. If a game was made with love you can feel this. And this one was one of thous. To bad that it's gone. Anyway here is the memorial of this project:
http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/heinrich/Media/Videos/VIIc.avi
http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/heinrich/Media/Videos/viic2.avi
http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/heinrich/Media/Videos/viic3_small.avi
Rohr 1... Losss!!
http://www.mp-labs.com/r1l/news.php
Manuels own ambitious VIIC project that he has abandoned after the SHIII release. This project too was an inspiration for me, back then.
Deep Six
http://www.deepsix-online.com/site/?p=4
EAST and co's own indi development of a pure online sim that went missing now too.
Iron Coffins
http://www.chadmcrae.com/
Chad's own little but ambitious development that he ren for years and looks like he finally buried it.
3DNav
http://www.jhuapl.edu/websub/
A helm station demo of an SSN. Haven't tried this one yet.
REMAKES
'Red Storm Rising' remake
http://www.kennedyapproach.com/home?action=ShowRSRNews
The remake is in the makings, yey! :sunny:
Overall this is probably the best cold war subsim ever done. This is even more incredebly when you consider that the original version was made for the C-64! :o
This game is one of the most timeless master pieces ever done! I still play it and you have to experience the quality, immersion and addiction yourself to believe it.
'Carrier Command' remake
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/martingbell/projects/
This one was one of my all time favoured, during the amiga times. This game was a revolution back then. OTHER NAVAL PROJECTS
Global Conflict Blue
http://gcblue.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
That is another serious naval warfare project. It's in fleet command style but it goes beyond that. Usually the open source and indi projects take an eturnity to get finishied if ever they ever get finished at all but this seems to be one of the few exceptions. Here we can expect something in a reasonable time. In fact the project seems to be interesting even for at least one navy.
Red Pill
http://www.warfaresims.com/?cat=126
Another naval/air warfare project of heavy calibre run by the former Harpoon HQ guys. This one is very similar to Global Conflict Blue. Looks like this projects were developed at the same time by different groups.
This one can definitely be expected to be finished in forseeable future. This is surely a reincarnation of harpoon so all harpoon lovers should become happy with this one. It's great to see some indi projects making it through the finish line finally.
AXED NAVAL PROJECTS
I list here only projects that have progressed significantly before they got axed.
Force 85
That was another comprehensive cold war project that I was anticipating and following with great interest. But then came a long silence and with the famous last words "This project is NOT dead!" the project site disappeared and you do not hear from them anything anymore. :lol:
But I regret its disappearence.
Subwolves
www.subwolves.com (http://www.subwolves.com/)
Now that was a special one. It was basically a BDU simulator where you play from Dönitzs perspective and command the whole german u-boat fleet, it's production and training of the crews. This is somethig many have surely waited for. But this project depended on only guy who was doing it in his spare time. The project was in an advanced state when the young developer graduated from the university and started to work overtime which finally sealed the faith of the project.
The developer certainly had the stamina to complete the project but in the end couldn't spare time anymore.
CONCLUSION
The situation is rather sobering. There are only very few projects worth the waiting. Most attempts are hobby projects and do not make it in the end. But the indies have been around for a long time and only now it seems a few projects actually do emerging. A few projects seem to be of a heavy calibre, a few projects seem to have what it takes to push it through the finish line!