Slune v1.0.15

By kiaaze

What is Slune?

Slune is an educational racing game with a story.

According to its creator, Jean-Baptiste Lamy, alias Jiba, “Slune has been made for personal research. The goals were to reply to the questions:

• Is it possible to realize a 3D game with “correct” graphics fully in a scripting language (like Python) ?
• Is it possible to realize a game that, without being an educative game in the common sens of it, is a “civic / documentary game” that can spread a message, more intelligent than the ones of commercial games.”

The answer to both questions seems to be “yes”.

The story of the game is interesting in that it makes reference to real facts about the many negative effects of pharmaceutical patents. The big pharmaceutical industries don’t care about marketing drugs in developing countries because there isn’t much money to be made there. However, they care about their patent protection and won’t allow the production of cheaper copies in those countries.

The credits and readme of the game include some references. Those are unfortunately not clickable, so here they are as standard links for your convenience:
ActUp (french)
Essential drugs
A solution ? Traditionnal medicine !
Informations about AIDS in Africa
(Some of the dead links have been updated or replaced.)
Here’s one more related article in English: Pharmaceutical Patents and Developing Countries

But despite treating a serious subject, there are quite a few funny moments in the game.

The goal of the game is to deliver pharmaceuticals to Africa and to escape from an evil shark and its supporters.
The game features 15 missions, which are very varied and, despite being in a vehicle all the time, are never about racing against an opponent. Mission types include exploration, pursuits, “stealth” missions, stunts, duels, collecting medicine, distributing medecine, bowling, etc. Yes, there is bowling and this is another of the most innovative features of this game: a “racing game” with bowling! (Basically, the goal is to push objects into the pins with your car to make them fall.)
Concerning the “stealth” missions, there is actually only one of them and it only means that you must reach a point without letting the enemy catch you. From what I’ve seen, it looks like the enemy always knows where you are and just goes towards you. But since it takes place in a city, you can try to take advantage of driving on the rooftops to evade him.

There are 3 difficulty levels: “newbie”, “hacker” and “guru”.
-The newbie level is very easy: enemies you’re supposed to pursue will wait for you and never jump or use speed boosts.
-The hacker level is a little bit harder: enemies move faster and jump more.
-The guru level is very hard: For example in the second mission, when you are supposed to pursue an enemy, if you don’t use a speed boost right away, you lose almost immediately.

The missions vary in length, but are generally pretty short. The complete game can be finished in one or two hours on the default level (newbie). If you find any mission too difficult, you can just skip it, since all missions are unlocked right away. Basically, you can jump directly to the last mission if you want.

Apart from the campaign/story mode, the game also offers various maps to play on against bots. There are 6 map types:
-race: race against others
-bowling: bring down all pins by pushing a ball into them
-duel: destroy the enemy
-arena: deathmatch game with cars
-shoot: “Bring down the ball by throwing trunks.” (seems to be an incomplete game mode)
-clock: finish a track as fast as possible

In “non-story mode”, you can choose between 4 characters (Tux, Gnu, Shark and Python) and 5 vehicles. The vehicles seem to differ mostly in speed, resistance, mass (affects jump height and inertia) and look. But one vehicle (which you also get to play in story mode) is particularly interesting: the scooter/motorbike.
It is the only vehicle which can climb walls and is therefore necessary for the rollercoaster track in the game. All vehicles have a nitro/speed boost which uses a self-reloading energy bar. Careful: Driving into walls too fast damages your vehicle!

The non-campaign maps are ok, but not very entertaining, especially since network multiplayer has been removed for security reasons in the latest release. Multiplayer on the same PC is unfortunately not available.

The graphics of the game are pretty good and use cell-shading. The music itself is also good, but has been badly implemented. The volume varies greatly depending on where you are on the map and is sometimes alsmost inaudible. While 3D sound makes sense for sounds coming from a specific point in the game environment, it does not make sense for ambient music. The sound effects in the game are not very good: Car collisions sound like billiard ball collisions.

The game also suffers from several other issues:
-It crashes a lot.
-The levels aren’t “secure”: you can fall off the map or through the map at some points
-The camera, while generally good throughout the game, starts to spin enlessly while on the rollercoater track, making it almost impossible to stay on it.

Other minor issues include:
-Some spelling mistakes and incomplete translations in the english version.
-Undocumented keyboard controls. While not that hard to figure out, they are only documented in the source tarball.

For those wanting to know the keyboard (and mouse) controls:
Mouse position / arrow keys : left / right to turn; top to go faster; down to go slower
Left-click / Ctrl : long jump
Middle-click / Shift : high jump
Right-click / Alt : nitro or shooting if you have the plasma weapon
When jumping: Mouse wheel up-down / Ctrl-shift: look up-down
q/escape: quit

Up’s and Down’s:

Good graphics and music.
Interesting subject, educational
Single-player gameplay with story
Funny
Varied mission types, including some pretty epic ones. Original gameplay ideas.

Crashes a lot, possibility to fall through the ground or of the level.
Keyboard controls only documented in source tarball.
Spinning camera makes using the rollercoaster track impossible
Short. Maybe 1 hour to finish the campaign.
Music volume varies with position. Bad sound effects.

1 GHz CPU, 256MB RAM, 57MB hard disk, OpenGL-capable graphics card

Please, help us to keep this free project updated and alive. THANKYOU!

Slune v1.0.15!
Article created by: kiaaze.

What is Slune?

Slune is an educational racing game with a story.

According to its creator, Jean-Baptiste Lamy, alias Jiba, “Slune has been made for personal research. The goals were to reply to the questions:

• Is it possible to realize a 3D game with “correct” graphics fully in a scripting language (like Python) ?
• Is it possible to realize a game that, without being an educative game in the common sens of it, is a “civic / documentary game” that can spread a message, more intelligent than the ones of commercial games.”

The answer to both questions seems to be “yes”.

The story of the game is interesting in that it makes reference to real facts about the many negative effects of pharmaceutical patents. The big pharmaceutical industries don’t care about marketing drugs in developing countries because there isn’t much money to be made there. However, they care about their patent protection and won’t allow the production of cheaper copies in those countries.

The credits and readme of the game include some references. Those are unfortunately not clickable, so here they are as standard links for your convenience:
ActUp (french)
Essential drugs
A solution ? Traditionnal medicine !
Informations about AIDS in Africa
(Some of the dead links have been updated or replaced.)
Here’s one more related article in English: Pharmaceutical Patents and Developing Countries

But despite treating a serious subject, there are quite a few funny moments in the game.

The goal of the game is to deliver pharmaceuticals to Africa and to escape from an evil shark and its supporters.
The game features 15 missions, which are very varied and, despite being in a vehicle all the time, are never about racing against an opponent. Mission types include exploration, pursuits, “stealth” missions, stunts, duels, collecting medicine, distributing medecine, bowling, etc. Yes, there is bowling and this is another of the most innovative features of this game: a “racing game” with bowling! (Basically, the goal is to push objects into the pins with your car to make them fall.)
Concerning the “stealth” missions, there is actually only one of them and it only means that you must reach a point without letting the enemy catch you. From what I’ve seen, it looks like the enemy always knows where you are and just goes towards you. But since it takes place in a city, you can try to take advantage of driving on the rooftops to evade him.

There are 3 difficulty levels: “newbie”, “hacker” and “guru”.
-The newbie level is very easy: enemies you’re supposed to pursue will wait for you and never jump or use speed boosts.
-The hacker level is a little bit harder: enemies move faster and jump more.
-The guru level is very hard: For example in the second mission, when you are supposed to pursue an enemy, if you don’t use a speed boost right away, you lose almost immediately.

The missions vary in length, but are generally pretty short. The complete game can be finished in one or two hours on the default level (newbie). If you find any mission too difficult, you can just skip it, since all missions are unlocked right away. Basically, you can jump directly to the last mission if you want.

Apart from the campaign/story mode, the game also offers various maps to play on against bots. There are 6 map types:
-race: race against others
-bowling: bring down all pins by pushing a ball into them
-duel: destroy the enemy
-arena: deathmatch game with cars
-shoot: “Bring down the ball by throwing trunks.” (seems to be an incomplete game mode)
-clock: finish a track as fast as possible

In “non-story mode”, you can choose between 4 characters (Tux, Gnu, Shark and Python) and 5 vehicles. The vehicles seem to differ mostly in speed, resistance, mass (affects jump height and inertia) and look. But one vehicle (which you also get to play in story mode) is particularly interesting: the scooter/motorbike.
It is the only vehicle which can climb walls and is therefore necessary for the rollercoaster track in the game. All vehicles have a nitro/speed boost which uses a self-reloading energy bar. Careful: Driving into walls too fast damages your vehicle!

The non-campaign maps are ok, but not very entertaining, especially since network multiplayer has been removed for security reasons in the latest release. Multiplayer on the same PC is unfortunately not available.

The graphics of the game are pretty good and use cell-shading. The music itself is also good, but has been badly implemented. The volume varies greatly depending on where you are on the map and is sometimes alsmost inaudible. While 3D sound makes sense for sounds coming from a specific point in the game environment, it does not make sense for ambient music. The sound effects in the game are not very good: Car collisions sound like billiard ball collisions.

The game also suffers from several other issues:
-It crashes a lot.
-The levels aren’t “secure”: you can fall off the map or through the map at some points
-The camera, while generally good throughout the game, starts to spin enlessly while on the rollercoater track, making it almost impossible to stay on it.

Other minor issues include:
-Some spelling mistakes and incomplete translations in the english version.
-Undocumented keyboard controls. While not that hard to figure out, they are only documented in the source tarball.

For those wanting to know the keyboard (and mouse) controls:
Mouse position / arrow keys : left / right to turn; top to go faster; down to go slower
Left-click / Ctrl : long jump
Middle-click / Shift : high jump
Right-click / Alt : nitro or shooting if you have the plasma weapon
When jumping: Mouse wheel up-down / Ctrl-shift: look up-down
q/escape: quit

---

What are those big balls?

Bowling against pharmaceutical patents!

Learn more about the consequences of pharmaceutical patents.

"Nothing mentioned in Slune is a joke !": The credits include references for the curious.

One of the most epic missions: Fighting off assassins on top of a flying plane!

What do you do when you're stuck in the desert?

Drive to save!

Not nice: You can see the edge of the map and fall off it.

All 15 missions are available right away.

Fly cheap to deliver cheap medecine.

One of the many racing tracks.

The "plasma gun". It doesn't look nice, but it hurts your enemies.

The only "stealth" mission in the game. Just don't let the enemy get near you.

Use the rooftops to evade your enemies.

The rollercoaster is almost impossible due to the spinning camera. Requires the scooter.

---

Up’s and Down’s:

Good graphics and music.
Interesting subject, educational
Single-player gameplay with story
Funny
Varied mission types, including some pretty epic ones. Original gameplay ideas.

Crashes a lot, possibility to fall through the ground or of the level.
Keyboard controls only documented in source tarball.
Spinning camera makes using the rollercoaster track impossible
Short. Maybe 1 hour to finish the campaign.
Music volume varies with position. Bad sound effects.

---

1 GHz CPU, 256MB RAM, 57MB hard disk, OpenGL-capable graphics card

---

FILE:	LINKS:	USERS SCORE:
Size: 57 Mb Singleplayer: Yes Multiplayer: No, but bots available. Network Play: No, not anymore. Ubuntu Native: Yes File Extension: .tar.bz2, .tar.gz, .deb, .rpm Licence/Price: €0 / $0 / £0 Source available: Yes, under the GPLv2	Homepage: Link Download: Link	VN:F [1.2.0_562] Graphics: Gameplay: Sound: Difficulty: Overall: 5.5/10 (Votes: 41) Saving... Move your cursor over the stars to vote

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Please, help us to keep this free project updated and alive. THANKYOU!

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