not a team player...

Labor Day is the perfect day to spend searching for new titles to expose to readers of this column - no matter where they happen to come from. This week's list is a nice blend of open-source, freeware and commercial releases from all around the internet. I've been searching Sourceforge for years and the one thing I have noticed is that there are just too many projects that are just too lofty to be ever realistically completed. A good example might be an attempt to create an online world based on Bethesda's Oblivion game for PC (a real project, by the way, which I won't name for the sake of keeping them out of trouble on several fronts - not the least of which is their liberal use of copyrighted material). It's a good example because it will never be finished. Some in the open-source community just aim too sometimes and the end result is lots of hype and no product.

Open source is a lot like the mod community because it usually relies on the talents of multiple team members - and there's another part of the problem. Everyone is an enthusiastic team member when the project starts but most of the time that inspired and excited team of 3 - 5 members ends up being a team of one or two by the time the project even manages to gain some momentum. To those team leaders out there working on a mod or an open-sourced project I have two simple bits of advice: Ask yourself is this project too lofty, too big of an idea to realistically handle ? The other important question you need to ask of yourself is does this team have what it takes to deliver the goods ? If you can answer those questions to your own satisfaction then chances are something great will come out of your efforts.

A good project will produce progress reports and results in the form of playable code. A bad team will make excuses, which inevitably leads to those famous last words: " We're not dead.. " But we all know that the truth is those words are usually followed by months and months of silence..

And now, onto some projects that you can play!

Exit Fate is the latest role-playing game project from Origami, who some will recognize as creator of Last Scenario.

While this first release is just a demo of the project offering a few battles and a boss fight, the thing to note is the story. Exit Fate is about war and one character's opposition to it, while staying loyal to the army he serves. It proves to be a real parallel to what is going on in the world right now, no matter what side of the equation you fall on. What's really interesting is how thoughtfully both the pro and anti war sides in the game are portrayed - at least what little of the story I have seen thus far. Exit Fate looks to be a solid RPG endeavor with some interesting ideas. But don't take my word for it, try the demo and see what you think.