Hello,

I've been coding a game called 'FreeShoppa' for a few months now. It's going to be a kind of Worms Armageddon / Worms World Party clone. It's been engineered for people who have a large roping skils. With FreeShoppa you can play Shoppa, FlyShoppa, WxW, Proper and RopeRace (All of those modes are known from WormNet).

The game is an Open Source project, so it's free and I willingly encourage everyone to help me creating it. I hope you'll try it and send me some information about your opinions about the game. I wonder if Team17 members like my game ;)

Visit FreeShoppa homepage at:
http://chomzee.ethernet.pl/freeshoppa/

One of the latest screenshot is here: http://chomzee.ethernet.pl/freeshoppa/screenshots/0.16/screen1.png

There are versions both for Windows and Linux operating system. Hope you enjoy.

I'd also like to encourage you to direct other valuable worms players to try FreeShoppa.

I am waiting forward to hearing from professionals who tried FreeShoppa.

Thanks in advance, best regards

Very promising, I'm keep my eye on this one.

In what way is it an evolution of roping as known on WA?

The physics in FreeShoppa was designed to be similar to physics as we know from WA. If people like the game, I'd like to create a community around it. I hope that more experienced players will give me a lot of hints which will make the game better and better for professional gamers.

And you can play it under Linux ;)

What about Mac?

What about Mac?

Good question! I haven't tried to run it under MacOSX, but I don't think it would be hard challenge. Game uses SDL and as far as I renember, SDL-based applications work well with Macs.

Great job. I tried some of the earlier betas and it's improved a lot since then. It's obviously not as advanced as worms but it specializes in roping and the game enforces certain rules, so you don't have to rely on the players to follow them. I love that it's open source and uses SDL. I'll try porting it to some other systems sometime.

Linux? :oI may consider porting this to my 2X if I have time this Christmas.

It's being a bit of a pain to compile, due to the lack of configure script, but I'm managing. I'll hopefully be able to compile it into a .deb package.

It's being a bit of a pain to compile, due to the lack of configure script, but I'm managing. I'll hopefully be able to compile it into a .deb package.

It would be great :) Dependencies are described in FAQ section (http://chomzee.ethernet.pl/freeshoppa/index.php?page=faq) on the FreeShoppa website.

I will soon try to compile and run it under FreeBSD.

Yeah, I figured it out afterwards :p

I have the package now, I can't get the program to run on my system but that's due to a driver problem that I know of, so it should work on other people's systems.
Can someone test it and make sure it works? It's for Debian-based Linux on x86.
Oh yeah, and I put the liscence as Copyright 2007, and the maintainer as you etc etc.

I have it uploaded on my tiscali webspace at http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/digitaltv/freeshoppa_20071224-1_i386.deb ATM, could you upload it to your site? Or are you gonna wait for someone to test it properly first?

I will test it and afterwards upload it to fs website :) Thanks a lot!

EDIT: It is working well. :D

The first version of FreeShoppa Map Editor, is done! You may design any map you want with easy-in-use WYSIWYG editor.

More info at http://chomzee.ethernet.pl/freeshoppa/
Download FSME at: http://chomzee.ethernet.pl/freeshoppa/index.php?page=download

Y'know, this should oddly be in FanArt, where Team Alpha 2 and Worms! games are right now.

(I don't know why)

Also it would probably get more hits there. Can anyone be bothered to PM thomasp?

Oh yeah, and is it just me, or is thomasp the only mod who tends to actually do stuff (as opposed to AT). You see thomasp do things like locking threads, infracting, moving, renaming etc etc a lot more than AT. Is this because thomasp is less lazy than AT or because he goes online for more hours?

I would be glad if moderator would move this thread in the right place. TIA. :)

Oh yeah, and is it just me, or is thomasp the only mod who tends to actually do stuff (as opposed to AT). You see thomasp do things like locking threads, infracting, moving, renaming etc etc a lot more than AT. Is this because thomasp is less lazy than AT or because he goes online for more hours?

Bit of both. Also I sometimes do stuff and don't announce it.

Oh yeah, and is it just me, or is thomasp the only mod who tends to actually do stuff (as opposed to AT). You see thomasp do things like locking threads, infracting, moving, renaming etc etc a lot more than AT. Is this because thomasp is less lazy than AT or because he goes online for more hours?

Also, AT has his own worms art whereas thomasp doesn't.

so.... AT is more of the normal-member type, and thomasp is more of the mod-type.

Wonder who'll get that :p

Oops double post :p

It works under MacOSX as well, I hope the package for this system will be prepared soon. :)

I havn't tried it yet, but it looks hard to see the map. I think the walls need to be thicker..

I havn't tried it yet, but it looks hard to see the map. I think the walls need to be thicker..

The rope doesnt bend round the walls at the moment, looks like a lot of things still need fixing before it can compare to worm roping

The rope doesnt bend round the walls at the moment
We decided not to make the rope bending around the corners.

looks like a lot of things still need fixing before it can compare to worm roping
What other things do you suggest to change? I am currently working over new weapons and looking for new ideas :)

I havn't tried it yet, but it looks hard to see the map. I think the walls need to be thicker..

I believe that thickness of walls will be configurable since 0.17 version. Thanks for the hint!

What other things do you suggest to change? I am currently working over new weapons and looking for new ideas :)

I dont know precisely, but roping in worms I can do whereas in this it seems almost impossible. It seems like general gameplay needs to be tweaked.

Also: when you move in close you can get very fast in worms (like vibrating in a small space) but here you dont speed up so it is difficult to get any speed.

FreeShoppa 0.17

New version has been released after over two months of break. Some important changes has been made, such as:

* ABL rule, automatic turn skipping if someone COWs (there are still some issues with this feature, everything will be fixed in 0.18)
* Waving water
* You can switch water and background with cl_water and cl_background commands
* You can make lines thicker with cl_linewidth
* Remote Console for server administrators
* You can use SHIFT key to see where the weapon is
* Cool new sounds: moo.wav and oneandonly.wav
* Some bug fixes

I hope you like the changes. The next version (0.18) will probably include new textures, weapons, maps and some new features. Please be patient. :)

Will make deb later

I just had a go on it, and I found it very good! First, I tried the RR. Horrible. I crashed before I got onto dry land! (and I've been roping for a YEAR :mad:)
Then I tried the shoppa. It was better. I liked the floating crates idea. :) Now, there are only 3 things I found wrong with it.
1. No fullscreen mode!
2. How do you get the Weapons Menu up?
3. No caps in your name.
I think that with a bit of practice, this could become extremly popular.
Just try to put it on more popular sites.
Here are 2 to help you:
http://www.blamethepixel.com
and
http://theultimatetourney.sup.fr/
Keep on going, and if you're (very) lucky, This program could become even more popular then W:A! :D I have full confidence on this game becoming a success. :) Keep it up! ;)

1. No fullscreen mode!

There *IS* fullscreen mode. Go to options, choose your resolution, and set "fullscreen" field to "1". Then click "Apply changes".


2. How do you get the Weapons Menu up?


There is no weapons menu. I found it useless, you just have to use weapon you picked up in your turn.


3. No caps in your name.


Whad do you mean "caps"? You can use all signs available on the U.S. keyboard and... colours :> Use colours with ^ sign like in q3, for example:
^1red colour
^2green colour


I think that with a bit of practice, this could become extremly popular.
Just try to put it on more popular sites.
Here are 2 to help you:
http://www.blamethepixel.com
and
http://theultimatetourney.sup.fr/
Keep on going, and if you're (very) lucky, This program could become even more popular then W:A! :D I have full confidence on this game becoming a success. :) Keep it up! ;)


I've put a note in news and forum on blamethepixel.com, but there still is no crowd on my online dedicated servers. I will soon check out the other link you gave me.

I think that there is 3 groups of people:
1) pro-gamers, who has got used to WA and don't like FreeShoppa physics
2) n00bs, who don't know how to play, so they don't like it
3) people who like FreeShoppa :)

I am developing this game at free time when I only have some. There is a lot of things to do to make this game stable. :) I'm glad that somebody's like it.

Actually, I am (pretty much) both 1 and 3.
WoW. I've just thought of a mega idea. Why not try making FreeShoppa compatiable with W:A png maps?

WoW. I've just thought of a mega idea. Why not try making FreeShoppa compatiable with W:A png maps?

It's not possible because PNG files are raster graphics and maps in FreeShoppa are made from one-colour segments (vector graphics).

I played this when it came out and gave it a shot yesterday, I have to say that it has improved a lot, the rope works almost like in WA and it's a fun little program.
There's a pair of things things that I noted though:
-You can never stand on a slope no matter what you do.
-Hitting the ground no matter the distance will alway end your turn
These things might be intended but I'm sure the game would be better if they worked in a different way.
Either way, keep it up.

Since having ago on this after you posted it on btp, its been improved alot. As it stands the physics feel as if everything is made of plastic. That should probably be improved. I sort of expected the little round guys to be little more...rollable? Bouncier? However, I did like the hamster weapon and the little "I am the one and only" gimmick as soon as your the last one standing.

Good stuff.

-Hitting the ground no matter the distance will always end your turn

Yeah, it's really hard because this always happens.:(

Great game you got there anyway.:)

As it stands the physics feel as if everything is made of plastic. That should probably be improved. I sort of expected the little round guys to be little more...rollable? Bouncier?

Yeah, it's really difficult to make the game physics realistic. I'll try to improve it, but first I'll add some more weapons, convince artist to improve graphics and user-interface.