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Red Eclipse: A Lightweight, Open-source, Highly-engaging FPS

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Red Eclipse ranks among my top five FPS games of all time, which is surprising given how light-weight and feature-less it is when compared to AAA titles (and even other more well-known indie titles). It is open-source and built on top of the Cube Engine 2. It is available for BSD, Linux, Mac, and Windows.

The game has several scenarios, from capture-the-flag, bomber-ball, last-man-standing, general team vs. team, and a myriad of others. Within these scenarios one can also enable or disable several options, such as jet packs, melee weapons only, vampire (gain life when you attack another player), bombs only, and a great deal more. There is also a wide variety of weapons, though keeping with the tone of an FPS the vast majority of these are guns. Maps are in abundance, with a handful being the most popular (such as Ghost and Deli). To keep teams even, bots are usually included to fill gaps (though this can be disabled).

This sounds like most FPS games. What, then, makes Red Eclipse different? Two aspects stand out for me: its simplicity and parkour. The game does not have heavy graphics, complicated missions, or a steep learning curve. One can figure everything out in less than 20 minutes with one or two bot matches. This also allows the game to run smoothly even on lower-end machines. The parkour aspect is what hooked me, however. Players can jump on walls, do flying kicks, slide landings, and escape from what would be certain death in a normal FPS. This is what keeps me coming back. While I have not played every FPS there is, I will say that this is the only one I have found that has both of these aspects (though if there are others, please let me know in the comments!).

I first found Red Eclipse on Desura back around 2012, before Steam came out for Linux (the newest version is not available on Desura; click here for an explanation, that's not even getting into the fact that Desura is basically dead and Bankrupt now), and found the community another positive aspect of the game (though there is the occasional person who likes to trash talk). Though there are not always many people playing online, a match with even just two or three others is very enjoyable, and helps one to hone those necessary skills for bigger matches.

Click here to go to the homepage of Red Eclipse and join the fun! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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14 comments
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Furor Oct 5, 2015
I liked this game since long time ago, but it's difficult to overcome the overcrowded fps gaming market. If they ported their game to Tesseract engine (a modern implementation of Cube engine) and keep on improving scenery assets, them they could gain more points.

Edit: Ohhh Fundraiser 2015 I think I will donate again!, they intend to do that, and Tesseract its a awesome Open Source engine. Please consider donate!


Last edited by Furor on 5 October 2015 at 12:08 pm UTC
commodore256 Oct 5, 2015
Graphics in open source games are 10 years behind. I'm also not too big into the gameplay from Quake clones because I already have my Quake fix, I have Quake 1-3 and Openarena, we don't need anymore Quake clones.
rudeboyskunk Oct 5, 2015
Quoting: FurorI liked this game since long time ago, but it's difficult to overcome the overcrowded fps gaming market. If they ported their game to Tesseract engine (a modern implementation of Cube engine) and keep on improving scenery assets, them they could gain more points.

Edit: Ohhh Fundraiser 2015 I think I will donate again!, they intend to do that, and Tesseract its a awesome Open Source engine. Please consider donate!

I didn't even notice this before! Will definitely donate to this when I get my next paycheck!
Julius Oct 5, 2015
That fundraiser page is outdated, see: http://redeclipse.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=476
Sadly the only one right now who could do the port relatively easily is the Tesseract creator (and Red Eclipse supporter) and he seems unavailable for the time being. Really a pity, but maybe someone else will give it a try in the future... after all the game is fully FOSS and the Tesseract engine is really awesome :)


Last edited by Julius on 5 October 2015 at 2:44 pm UTC
1mHfoksd1Z Oct 5, 2015
There are sooo many Quake clones out there... they are all almost identical.... out of all, I only liked and kept playing OpenArena.
And as someone else already mentioned: Open-source graphics are like 10 years behind
Superuser Oct 5, 2015
Quoting: HoriThere are sooo many Quake clones out there... they are all almost identical.... out of all, I only liked and kept playing OpenArena.
And as someone else already mentioned: Open-source graphics are like 10 years behind
Except that this is NOT a Quake clone. The opposite, in fact -- it was in part borne out of a frustration of Quake's market dominance. This has no bunnyhops, is low gravity, and the movement physics are completely different to Quake. Finally, the weapons are largely inspired by Unreal Tournament. However, the parkour is wholly unique to Red Eclipse and is a key element of the game.

I'm biased as it's probably my all-time favourite shooter, together with Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory and Halo 3. But by any measure, Red Eclipse is not only not a Quake clone, it's not even Quake-like!


Last edited by Superuser on 5 October 2015 at 4:18 pm UTC
loggfreak Oct 5, 2015
too bad it gives an error on my PC:
libpng warning: Interlace handling should be turned on when using png_read_image

Fatal signal 11 (Segmentation Violation)



Last edited by loggfreak on 5 October 2015 at 6:55 pm UTC
nifker Oct 5, 2015
sorry for correcting but it be "free and open source" instead of just "open source" these are two different things.
badber Oct 5, 2015
Quoting: FurorI liked this game since long time ago, but it's difficult to overcome the overcrowded fps gaming market.

Well, the arena shooter market is definitely not overcrowded but there isn't really any market to speak of. The whole genre has pretty much died, even though there are some interesting titles in development such as Reflex, the new UT and 2GD's Reborn project which might be called Diabotic, not sure.
tadzik Oct 5, 2015
> Graphics in open source games are 10 years behind

Like in the new Unreal Tournament?
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