Releasing Incursion Sources

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Journeyman

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Mar 15, 2014, 4:51:29 PM3/15/14
to incu...@googlegroups.com
  Hi, everyone,

  It's been a long time. I haven't been on this group in ages. Google
also has a totally new Groups interface, so I apologize if the format
of this message is all wonky.

  I've been approached by someone in e-mail about fixing the bugs
in Incursion, and I've put a lot of thought into things recently. I have
been working on a tabletop RPG of my own recently, that has nothing
to do with Incursion. I'm realizing at this point that I've left it for a
negligently long time, so I'm going to open-source the last stable
version. (The actual current version, with 1.5+ years extra development,
is still in its infancy and not a functional game. Because it has a lot of
new RPG-design ideas I'm using elsewhere, I'm keeping it for now. I may
try to sort out the source-code portion and give it to the community if
people want; honestly I don't think it is very useful.)

  This is not an effort to undercut the "Veins of the Earth" clone-project
being discussed here -- it looks really interesting, and under the hood
the source is probably more stable than Incursion. So, to Zireael and his
or her fellow contributors, you have my blessing to take whatever you want
from Incursion's design, aesthetic and/or code in your own project. Some
people just want to try to do a truly stable (original) Incursion, so that
is why I'm releasing it -- I discussed this in e-mail before coming back to
the group and seeing your clone-project, and I apologize for the timing.

  I will be releasing the source code under the Creative Commons Attribution
license, with a polite and non-legally-binding request not to use copyleft
or anti-commercial licenses for derivative works composed primarily of Incursion
unless licensing conflicts make your project unworkable otherwise.

  I hope to get the source code up this weekend. That may not happen, depending
on how busy I get. I have to get it to compile (into 0.6.9I) again on my own
computer first, to make sure I'm even releasing the right version.

  There are complications, however. The Incursion compile process is very complicated
with a lot of moving parts. There's a custom scripting language involved using an old
compiler-generator tool which I hacked to change it's output slightly. There's also a
third-party graphics library, and a plugin for a specific version of Visual Studio,
and other stuff. It's really tangled because I never expected anyone but me to work
with it. I don't have the tools to compile it on my current computer. I may have to
get a different computer out of cold storage to get you all the parts you'll need to
make it work, and there will be some extensive instructions in terms of settings and
such just to get it to compile. You will need to use Visual Studio 2008 if you want
to work with this sources as they are -- it may get more platform-independent in the
hands of later developers.

  Fair warning: Released Incursion's sources are very, very tangled. There's a reason
I eventually gave up and moved to a partial rewrite. I'm not sure what others will be
able to do that I wasn't about crash-bugs, but some other things can probably be fixed.

  I will not be renewing the web hosting for Incursion when it comes up, but I
am happy to transfer the website and domain name to anyone interested in
maintaining it in the next few months. I will be deleting the private "Incursion-L"
mailing list in the next few months as well.

  I want to thank everyone who took an interest in Incursion over the years, and
apologize for never finishing the revised version. Up until a few weeks ago, I
really thought I was always going to get back to it... someday. Now, I have one --
possibly more -- programmers interested in fixing the bugs, I realize I'm done
with it and it would be selfish to keep it to myself any longer. So I'm doing
this. I hope this works out well for the tiny community that's stayed interested
so long.

  Getting the source releasable is actually fairly complicated, because there's
so many strange hacks. I may get it out this weekend, two weeks from now or four
weeks from now, but it is at least coming soon.  Hi, everyone,

  It's been a long time. I haven't been on this group in ages. Google
also has a totally new Groups interface, so I apologize if the format
of this message is all wonky.

  I've been approached by someone in e-mail about fixing the bugs
in Incursion, and I've put a lot of thought into things recently. I have
been working on a tabletop RPG of my own recently, that has nothing
to do with Incursion. I'm realizing at this point that I've left it for a
negligently long time, so I'm going to open-source the last stable
version. (The actual current version, with 1.5+ years extra development,
is still in its infancy and not a functional game. Because it has a lot of
new RPG-design ideas I'm using elsewhere, I'm keeping it for now. I may
try to sort out the source-code portion and give it to the community if
people want; honestly I don't think it is very useful.)

  This is not an effort to undercut the "Veins of the Earth" clone-project
being discussed here -- it looks really interesting, and under the hood
the source is probably more stable than Incursion. So, to Zireael and his
or her fellow contributors, you have my blessing to take whatever you want
from Incursion's design, aesthetic and/or code in your own project. Some
people just want to try to do a truly stable (original) Incursion, so that
is why I'm releasing it -- I discussed this in e-mail before coming back to
the group and seeing your clone-project, and I apologize for the timing.

  I will be releasing the source code under the Creative Commons Attribution
license, with a polite and non-legally-binding request not to use copyleft
or anti-commercial licences for derivative works composed primarily of Incursion
unless licensing conflicts make your project unworkable otherwise.

  I hope to get the source code up this weekend. That may not happen, depending
on how busy I get. I have to get it to compile (into 0.6.9I) again on my own
computer first, to make sure I'm even releasing the right version.

  There are complications, however. The Incursion compile process is very complicated
with a lot of moving parts. There's a custom scripting language involved using an old
compiler-generator tool which I hacked to change it's output slightly. There's also a
third-party graphics library, and a plugin for a specific version of Visual Studio,
and other stuff. It's really tangled because I never expected anyone but me to work
with it. I don't have the tools to compile it on my current computer. I may have to
get a different computer out of cold storage to get you all the parts you'll need to
make it work, and there will be some extensive instructions in terms of settings and
such just to get it to compile. You will need to use Visual Studio 2008 if you want
to work with this sources as they are -- it may get more platform-independent in the
hands of later developers.

  Fair warning: Released Incursion's sources are very, very tangled. There's a reason
I eventually gave up and moved to a partial rewrite. I'm not sure what others will be
able to do that I wasn't about crash-bugs, but some other things can probably be fixed.

  I will not be renewing the web hosting for Incursion when it comes up, but I
am happy to transfer the website and domain name to anyone interested in
maintaining it in the next few months. I will be deleting the private "Incursion-L"
mailing list in the next few months as well.

  I want to thank everyone who took an interest in Incursion over the years, and
apologize for never finishing the revised version. Up until a few weeks ago, I
really thought I was always going to get back to it... someday. Now, I have one --
possibly more -- programmers interested in fixing the bugs, I realize I'm done
with it and it would be selfish to keep it to myself any longer. So I'm doing
this. I hope this works out well for the tiny community that's stayed interested
so long.

  Getting the source releasable is actually fairly complicated, because there's
so many strange hacks. I may get it out this weekend, two weeks from now or four
weeks from now, but it is at least coming soon.

Frumple

unread,
Mar 16, 2014, 2:48:51 PM3/16/14
to incu...@googlegroups.com
Possibly a somewhat selfish request to make, but is there anything you can do on your end to provide an archive of some sort for the Inc-l group's messages? Didn't notice anything useful when I popped over to check, but there might be something for the group's creator...


... if there isn't, would there be any objection on your end for someone to manually go through and do so, or anything in particular you wouldn't want kept for posterity? S'definitely a few ideas or conversations sprinkled about the discussions over there that I wouldn't mind keeping on hand for the future, personally, but I wouldn't want to step on toes.

---

In any case, it's good to hear this, though I'm sad to hear you're fully dropping the project. There's probably going to be some folks quite interested in the work you did for Inc, heh, though what'll come of it remains to be seen.


Journeyman

unread,
Mar 16, 2014, 3:49:44 PM3/16/14
to incu...@googlegroups.com
  I have no skill with the new Google interface at all. None the less,
I will take a look. I also won't delete anything without your okay. If I
can transfer ownership of the group, that's great.

  It's remotely possible I'll come back to Incursion some day -- but
I decided people shouldn't have to wait for "some day" to get new
versions of the game. Put it this way: releasing the source doesn't
make new work from me any LESS likely, but I'm decisively on
other things right now.

  There's nothing I want purged from there, no. I'm increasingly
untrusting of Google regarding privacy, and would like to delete
the account I have under my real name. I have no real desire to
delete the group, and I do remember all the long helpful discussions
you were involved in. That part might not have been thought through
very well. :)

Journeyman

unread,
Mar 16, 2014, 3:54:52 PM3/16/14
to incu...@googlegroups.com
  Okay, I can transfer ownership of the private incursion-l group
to any reasonably long-time fan that wants it, and Adral is
already a co-owner. I think it can probably be made public if
people wanted that as well.

  The group isn't my first priority, though -- I'm going to try to
get code out ASAP.

Journeyman

unread,
Mar 16, 2014, 4:24:34 PM3/16/14
to incu...@googlegroups.com
  Interesting computer history tidbit: before free online backup
services were ubiquitous, many closed-source developers backed
up their work by burning it to CD-ROMs. They then put these CDs
in boxes, on shelves, in their storage rooms and bookcases. Circa
2008, CDs didn't always retain data perfectly, and sometimes just
got lost when managed by people, like myself, who are abysmally
bad as self-organization.

  Anyway, I do have some source code to release. We're going to
start with two files: one of them is just the source needed to build
Incursion 0.6.9H3, as sent to the Mac porter way back when.
Another is a patch raising it to H4. A third is a more comprehensive
archive for Incursion 0.6.5 that has things like the Visual Studio
language service for Incursion's custom script language and the
hacked version of the ACCENT compiler-compiler needed to rebuild
the bytecode compiler.

  How would people prefer I share these? I'm not going to be taking
on any kind of project-management role here; I don't have time and
need to get back to my current projects. Google groups no longer
host binaries, and I'd prefer not to put the archives somewhere
transient like Rapidshare. I can get them on the website if that's the
best way, but it's very slow and irritating to update.

  Is anyone other than the one volunteer I have in e-mail interested
in dev-work with Incursion sources?

Richard Tew

unread,
Mar 16, 2014, 5:12:12 PM3/16/14
to incu...@googlegroups.com
On Monday, March 17, 2014 9:24:34 AM UTC+13, Journeyman wrote:
  Anyway, I do have some source code to release. We're going to
start with two files: one of them is just the source needed to build
Incursion 0.6.9H3, as sent to the Mac porter way back when.
Another is a patch raising it to H4. A third is a more comprehensive
archive for Incursion 0.6.5 that has things like the Visual Studio
language service for Incursion's custom script language and the
hacked version of the ACCENT compiler-compiler needed to rebuild
the bytecode compiler.

  How would people prefer I share these? I'm not going to be taking
on any kind of project-management role here; I don't have time and
need to get back to my current projects. Google groups no longer
host binaries, and I'd prefer not to put the archives somewhere
transient like Rapidshare. I can get them on the website if that's the
best way, but it's very slow and irritating to update.

  Is anyone other than the one volunteer I have in e-mail interested
in dev-work with Incursion sources?

Hi Julian,

I just realised I only get the digests once a day.

I can host them on my website disinterest.org, where I already host old programming and game development related stuff.  Just put them somewhere I can download them, on your own incursion site for the meantime might be better than my original mega.co.nz suggestion.

The multiple versions of the code sound good.  I can check these all into a github repo, and it'll give some original version history.

Cheers,
Richard.

Journeyman

unread,
Mar 16, 2014, 5:41:43 PM3/16/14
to incu...@googlegroups.com
  Hi,

  Okay, I've got some source archives up on the website. Thank you
for your offer to set up GitHub -- I think it will be a lot better in the long
run if any collab-tools are configured by people who want to be involved
in this in the near future.

  Here are links to the source-archives:

http://www.incursion-roguelike.org/Incursion-0.6.9H3s.rar
http://www.incursion-roguelike.org/0.6.9H4-Patch.rar
http://www.incursion-roguelike.org/Incursion-0.6.5Bs.rar

  You're probably going to need some other things to get going.
Incursion uses Allegro 4.2.1; get it here:

  https://www.allegro.cc/

  Incursion uses a hacked ACCENT compiler-compiler. Since
this is GNU, I can't release the EXE without the source, and I'm
still trying to find that. Hopefully sometime in the next 2 or 4
weeks. You can build without this, you just can't modify the
syntax of IncursionScript. Find out about ACCENT here:

  http://accent.compilertools.net/

  If you want to modify (and possibly even use) the Visual Studio
2008 IncursionScript language service, you need the VS2008
SDK, available for free from Microsoft here:

  http://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/details.aspx?id=21827

  Incursion's project files and build actions have hardcoded
directories to "d:\incursion", so installing it there will help you
get it to build. You can probably change that up in VS however
you want, though.

  There may be things you need to compile that aren't here. I'm
not sure of everything; it's been a long time. Please e-mail me if
anything important is missing, and I'll try to get it added as soon
as I can find it.

Journeyman

unread,
Mar 16, 2014, 5:55:36 PM3/16/14
to incu...@googlegroups.com
  Already there are missing files! Here are the VS project files
and other odds and ends:

http://www.incursion-roguelike.org/More-0.6.5B.rar



Richard Tew

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Mar 16, 2014, 6:11:45 PM3/16/14
to incu...@googlegroups.com
Thanks Julian,

I've mirrored them all here for now:


If you want to archive up your website, I can mirror that as well under a subdomain or subdirectory, but I'm not too concerned about preserving the domain name.

I'll try and find a way to compile it in the next day or so.

Cheers,
Richard.

Richard Tew

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Mar 16, 2014, 11:16:04 PM3/16/14
to incu...@googlegroups.com
I've put my interim compilation instructions on the roguetemple thread.  You can see a screenshot there too.

Once I'm sure I've got the right mod for the right source and so forth, which hopefully Julian can clarify, I'll create a github repository with formalised build instructions.


On Monday, March 17, 2014 10:55:36 AM UTC+13, Journeyman wrote:
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