Wait...is this a game you buy or

#1

I’m confused! So, there is http://www.frogatto.com/download, which makes it look like the game must be bought.

But then there is http://frogatto.com/devbuilds/, which has the game in it for free, even if these versions are ‘bleeding edge’.

[tt]Wat?[/tt] :o

Btw, I can’t get Anura compiling (Because Boost refuses to compile. But I think I know how to fix it.), and that’s how I stumbled on the second link.

EDIT: Also, will a game made with the unstable Frogatto engine probably fail to work with the stable version?

#2

Hmm, that’s an odd holdover from the time we were transitioning from being a freeware game. And yeah, the engine’s seen some important changes across versions, so one should expect at least a small degree of problems when deploying a game for people with different versions of the engine; in such a case it’d be better to package the game+engine as a single thing.

#3

We’re definitely a for-pay game.

We have betas of the game up there, sure, but those are only for people who’ve paid for the game. We don’t believe in, nor have the time to implement copy-protection, so we haven’t bothered; we also expect that people would probably have a very unsatisfactory experience if they tried to “steal” a copy from there, as most of those copies have asserts that flat-out crash the game halfways in, or render it completely impossible to finish.

The point of having those there is mostly to have builds of anura (our engine) available. Once we get an actual website for Anura up, we’re probably going to move those to there, and not have frogatto in them.

#4

When you approach string freeze for the next version, will you have a setup so that translators can get a copy of the game? It is impossible to translate well without in-game testing.

#5

Yes, one way or another. I need to strategize with marcavis about this.

#6

Just an idea: Maybe you could give a free copy of the game to translators who bring their language up to 100%. Personally, I’ll be happy to buy the game (like I did with the first gold version), but it might help you get more translators on board. Attitudes might change a bit since Frogatto isn’t fully Open Source anymore. Of course, you would need to make sure somehow that the translators do know their stuff and won’t submit Googlemangles just to get the perk.

#7

Yeah, I think we can give you a copy once you hit some 20% (Though it’s hard to tell who’s doing the work, on Transifex). And then a couple more if you hit 100%. Yeah, there’s a risk that someone will just lazily autotranslate everything, but it’s a risk worth taking, I think.

#8

Ah, thanks for the replies. I’ve promptly uninstalled all the stuff from that I got from that page.

This makes me wonder, what will game-makers who haven’t bought Frogatto use as an example? I usually prefer to learn by both example and documentation. Will there be an old version of Frogatto available for free? Or will there be a simple game to go with the engine?

Also, I suppose that this question probably won’t get a decent answer, but…when will there be pre-compiled binaries for Anura? I can’t get Boost to compile for the life of me, so I can’t get Anura to compile, either… :’(

#9

If you’re on windows we now have an automated build system to generate binaries.


A little work required (mostly copying files around) to get anura running.

#10

The FFL code from frogatto is open-source (player code, monster code, physics, gui, etc). It’s only the game-resources (art, audio, levels) that aren’t, and quite a few of the more generic ones, we’ve actually gone ahead and made open-source too (the really reusable stuff, like explosion graphics and so forth).

The latest version of frogatto’s code will always be available on github, for precisely this reason.