Extra Life is a video game marathon where gamers all around the world play games for 24h in order to raise money to support children’s hospitals. Last year we played a bunch of OpenXcom and raised a bunch of money and it was pretty cool, so I figured we’ll do it again this year!

However I am still terrible at planning things out, so take all of this with a grain of salt:

• I’ll be streaming this weekend (25th-26th October), starting at around 3-4PM GMT each day, taking breaks for sleeping/eating/etc.
• I’ll be playing DOS games, whatever takes people’s fancy, though it’ll probably end up being an X-COM game marathon since that’s what you guys expect from me. 😛
• I’ll have various online friends commentating with me, Warboy will show up as well when he’s available, so feel free to ask us about OpenXcom or whatever.

Here’s my Extra Life page where you can read more and donate at any time, and here’s my Twitch.tv page where I’ll be streaming. I recommend registering to Twitch so you can subscribe to be notified when I go live, and hang out in chat with all the cool kids (if you have trouble with the website, you can use their IRC).

Yes, we know the Mod Portal is down. No, it’s not just you, it’s down for everyone. You can stop telling us about it. There is literally nothing we can do about it. The mod site is unofficial, run by a third-party, is completely outside our jurisdiction and we can provide no support whatsoever. The same goes for mods in general.

In the meantime you can use the forums, all the cool kids hang around there, or so I hear.

Popular Twitch streamer Tornis is currently half way through his 9th season of Xcom, and for this season, he’s made the switch to OpenXcom. As a seasoned alien war veteran, he’s sure to enjoy all the enhancements and improvements. Watch along, have a chat, enjoy watching a master at work, and ask yourself why someone would submit themselves to this kind of torture?

Details of his self imposed rules can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/Season9Rules

By popular request, I’ve moved all the OpenXcom translations over to Transifex. Whether you’re an existing or new translator, you’ll need to sign up on the new website to be able to continue contributing translations to OpenXcom. I recommend starting out as Translators until your language team finds a need for the higher roles.

Note that the Git Builds don’t support the new translation system yet. Do not report bugs from trying to use the new language files with the Git Builds.

Some of the new features compared to the old site:

• User roles: For each language, there are Translators, which are allowed to suggest/vote/comment translations. Above them are the Reviewers, which can pick, edit and effectively “lock” translations, finalizing a given string. Finally at the top are the Coordinators, who accept/reject users, control their roles, etc. More info here.
• Looks shiny.
• Suggestion system instead of vote system so nobody unilaterally dominates a language.
• Search and filters that actually work.
• Better editor with support for plurals, comparing translations, string details, comparing languages, validating tags, etc.
• Notifications that don’t spam your inbox.
• Translators can download/upload files themselves.
• More features for translators to organize themselves like comments/forums/glossary/history/etc.
• And so on.

You can read more in the Transifex documentation. Feel free to use the built-in discussion systems or the Translation forum to work things out with other translators.

OpenXcom is old. It might not look it, after all, it’s only been around for like… 4-5 years? I didn’t remember to write down the exact date (protip: write down the date of all your projects in case they become smash hits). But boy, has technology progressed in those few years. When I started, there was no SDL2. No C++11. No GitHub. Managed pointers were a mere illusion (or I probably just didn’t know about them). A lot has changed in game development, to the point our codebase can look positively arcane to newcomers. I don’t blame you. Every decision at its time made perfect sense, but after a while you start questioning what 5-years-ago you was doing.

So a lot of people ask, how did it all begin? How did we get this far? How does a project like this just happen?

Continue reading →

New OSX build is up, this one should solve all the crashes. 🙂 Please let us know if it does (or doesn’t).

http://store.steampowered.com/app/7760/
what great timing!

why not pick up Terror From the Deep while you’re at it? 😉
http://store.steampowered.com/app/7650/

or heck, you can grab the entire series for under 10 bucks, because we all now how much you loved enforcer.
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/964/

if you were on the fence before, there’s no excuse now, go get it!

A lot of people have pointed out the fantastic music used in our trailer. Sadly, I can’t take any credit for it, as I stole borrowed it from the now defunct UFO: Cydonia’s Fall project, with soundtrack made by Lorcán.

So wait, is that it? You’ll never get to hear it again? Well don’t forget, you can use Custom Music with OpenXcom! So you can totally play it with the UFO:CF soundtrack! Or if nostalgia is more your thing, the PSX and Amiga soundtracks are also up for grabs! Just check the Download Extras for more details.

Edit: Freelanzer has very kindly given us the UFO Cydonia’s Fall soundtrack all packaged up and ready for OpenXcom! You can get it here.