Back in the Stone Age there was a game from Microprose called UFO: Enemy Unknown. And quite brilliant it was too. UFO:AI is a from scratch open source ‘re-imagining’ of that game, and it’s brilliant as well.
Obviously it can take advantage in hardware developments to provide a much better visual experience, but still manages to retain that same one-more-go feeling as you intercept UFOs and manoeuvre troops around the terrain and buildings to hunt down the aliens. There’s only two problems.
The awkward navigation through screens in the management portion could do with a lot of rethink. If anything this was a problem with the original game but perhaps excusable given the technologies of the time but not so now. For instance to change the weapons a soldier carries requires the selection of a base (fair enough), selecting “Aircraft” (?), then “assign soldiers”, then a further click to reach the appropriate screen. Clunky, if authentic to the original.
The second problem is it’s not finished!! Perfectly playable but you reach later points in the game marked “TODO” and some features such as alien bases or attacks on your bases are not implemented. Ah, the joys of non-commercial “it’s done when it’s done”… though to be fair I’ve been playing the 2.2 version, the next 2.3 is nearing release and seems to address some issues and add features.
Overall, its impressive. Just needs to be finished. PS. note to self. must write essay on open source issues.