Recently, instead of paying attention in Constitutional Law class I sloppily slapped together a simple game in order to reacquaint myself with the LibGDX framework. The result is a game of dodging and shooting relatively slow-moving asteroids.

I threw the game up (as a free app) on the Google Play Store and the Amazon App Store (the latter is an affiliate link, FYI). One of the draws of LibGDX is that it supports various platforms, one of which is Javascript/HTML5 using Google Web Toolkit. Because of this, you can also play “Asteroid Belt” online (left and right arrows move; spacebar shoots).

The “Asteroid Belt” game was preliminary practice in anticipation of a more ambitious project. This new project is a western-style computer RPG in the tradition of “Ultima” and “Wizardry.” The current plan is for the game itself, called “Casus,” to be available as a free download on Google Play and Amazon, but with the twist that it will be in Latin. An English version (perhaps eventually localized with other languages) will be available for a small price.

I’m a huge fan of free (in the GNU sense) software, so I would like to eventually provide Casus under the GPL. Nonetheless, I would like app store exclusivity for my games for at least a certain amount of time. I’m trying to figure out the best way to work this out. One option is an initial release as a proprietary app, and a later GPL release. Another is releasing the source code under the GPL from the start, but using a restrictive license for the assets (graphics, sound, possibly story line), at least initially.

For now, expect some upcoming blog posts discussing the development of the forthcoming game…