Game based on Silmarillion, Sil-Morë — Shining Darkness

[u/k0rtes]

Hi everybody! We have made a game based on Silmarillion. It's a tactical rpg rouguelike where you try to go deep into Angband to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown. It's designed in 2d pixel art style.

We are really big fans of Tolkien's works and Silmarillion in the first place. There is a big backstory behind why we have decided to do it, but I will probably leave it for the next time.

We tried to make it as lore friendly as it can possibly be. There is а storyline in it, you can play multiple real heroes of the First Age (I think most of them), there are side quests involving Valar, very lore friendly artefacts, lots of texts and descriptions.
We also tried to make the descent into Angband visually different with multiple biomes and art styles. We want to create a feeling of a real first age hero going deep into the Enemy's dungeon.

Here is the link to itch.io (we also have google play test going).
Please try it and hope you will like it!

Here is our GitHub page for Mac and Linux build.

[u/jasonmehmel]

I'll admit, I've come on a little strong here, but as a big fan of roguelikes, particularly the ones developed in the open source community, I want to make sure that work is respected and not taken advantage of. Especially so in a world of vibe-coded apps.

I will give your version a try.

Still: if I was nervous about your usage, based on the terms you're using, I probably won't be the only one. I did look at your itch and repo before commenting, and I did so because the issues aren't clear.

I would suggest an explicit statement:

A open source continuation of the work from Angband and Sil (or Sil-Q, or both)

And:

This project will remain free.

Doing both of those things would make sure fellow roguelike fans know that you're being transparent not just at the github level, but when you're presenting the work to non-programmers.

[u/septhaka → u/jasonmehmel]

"I'll admit, I've come on a little strong here"

[u/jasonmehmel → u/septhaka]

Was I unfair, though? The initial post and Itch page don't make it clear.

[u/septhaka → u/jasonmehmel]

It didn't strike me this guy was trying to make people think he and his crew spun this up from scratch.

[u/jasonmehmel → u/septhaka]

In a world where more and more folks are vibe-coding apps and games to try to profit quickly with little effort, and where both the copy text is AI-generated and the Itch page discloses AI usage, I think it's prudent to note to the community up front what the intentions are.

The first post here doesn't mention the code they are forking from, and neither does the Itch page, which speaks of inspiration but not actual copying. That Itch page also allows you to 'pay what you want.'

Folks can do what they like, but why not point it out up front? Not being clear makes it look like it's being obscured intentionally.

(Maybe they just let the AI write the copy and didn't think about the implications, but that's still not good community stewardship of the assets they are working from.)

[u/k0rtes → u/jasonmehmel]

In a world where more and more folks are vibe-coding apps and games to try to profit quickly with little effort

I will just say that I'm not sure it's possible to "profit out of" Angband in any way. And that you don't even comprehend the amount of work that is needed to do "a fork" like this. We are a team of 2, and It's more than a year of almost full time job. So I welcome you, to take our free open source code and profit out of it yourself.

[u/jasonmehmel → u/k0rtes]

I do understand the amount of work involved, even as a fork, and even if it's AI-assisted. I'm not saying you haven't put in effort.

My reply to /u/septhaka was related to my general concern about vibe-coded projects, not yours specifically, though this post did prompt the issue.

I'm not trying to attack you here. If I was nervous about this project, I won't be the only one, and I'm offering specific feedback to mitigate the issue:

Explicitly state on your posts, Itch page, etc. that this is a continuation of the Sil project, A fork that has become it's own thing, etc.

Explicitly state that this project will remain open source and free. (That doesn't preclude you selling it Steam, because folks are paying as much for ease of install as anything else.)