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Flexible Isometric Free Engine (FIFE) is a multi-platform isometric game engine written in C++. It comes with python bindings allowing users to create games using python as well as C++. The engine is designed to be flexible to allow you to extend it and add any feature you can imagine to your project.

1. [Features] (#1-features)
2. [License] (#2-license)
3. [FIFE Clients] (#3-fife-clients)
4. [Known Issues] (#4-known-issues)
5. [Troubleshooting] (#5-troubleshooting)
6. [Feedback] (#6-feedback)
7. [Closing Notes] (#7-closing-notes)

1. Features

A complete list of the features that FIFE offers can be found at the project wiki:

• https://github.com/fifengine/fifengine/wiki/Features

2. License

The source code (*.cpp, *.h & *.py) is licensed under LGPL 2.1 or newer:

• http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html

Content was taken from a lot a lot of different 3rd party sources. Therefore each client directory comes with a separate LICENSE file that states the origin of the content, the author and the actual license it was published under.

3. FIFE Clients

The editor tool can be found within the <FIFE>/tools/editor directory. You can launch it by running run.py. It is used to edit map files for the tech demo (rio do hola). Other clients extend it and use it to edit their maps.

Rio de hola is a technology demo showing off many of the FIFE features. It is located in the <FIFE>/demos/rio_de_hola directory and can be launched by running run.py. It was at one time meant to be an example game but we have moved away from that idea and it is now more of a technology demo and a playground for developers to test their code. It does serve as a good starting point for people wishing to play around with FIFE or base your game off of.

The Shooter demo was an attempt to show the versatility and flexibility of FIFE. It is a simple side scrolling shooter that has a main menu, one level and an end boss. Try your luck and see if you can defeat the boss!

Last but not least there is an example client residing in <FIFE>/demos/pychan_demo that shows how the pychan GUI library works. Start the GUI demo application by running pychan_demo.py.

The engine utilizes special settings files for configuring FIFE. This file is called settings.xml and resides in the ~/.fife directory (in <User>\Application Data\fife for Windows users). The Shooter Demo and the PyChan demo are exceptions. They both store their settings.xml file in their root directories.

NOTE that the settings.xml file is auto generated and wont be there until you run the demos for the first time. FIFE automatically fills the settings file with default values. For more information on FIFE settings please see the wiki page: https://github.com/fifengine/fifengine/wiki/Engine-settings

4. Known issues

• Bug in dep_analyzer.py which prevents graphs from being generated (#554)
• Atlas Creator needs to be documented (#559)

• No fallback solution for special characters (#302)
• Cameras must be attached to layers (#305)
• Loaders have a circular import (#478)
• Unit-tests are broken (#423)
• Mouse gets stuck in top left corner after alt+tab in fullscreen modes (#593)

• No UTF8 support using vanilla guichan source (#432)
• Pychan dropdown menus crash FIFE-based client on win32 (#508)
• Button doesn't react to click when drawn below mouse pointer (#387)
• Pychan dropdowns refuse to open if there is no space below (#445)
• Borders are not rendered on edges of widgets that touch their parent container's edge. (#522)
• GuiImage unable to find loader for JPEG in ImagePool (#548)
• Some strings are cut short in some widgets (#585)
• applyOnlySuitable fails on functools.partial (#638)
• Default style will sometimes override custom style (#656)
• adjustSize() sometimes sets width to invalid values (#666)
• Guichan adds hardcoded value to user setting of base_color attribute (#678)

• Uninstaller doesn't remove fife module (#526)
• Improve build system shared library support on linux (#575)
• Cannot build a usable debug version of _fife_d.pyd with mingw
• _fife.so linked with absurd rpath (#620)
• Unable to make distclean (#622)

• Editor code does not match coding standards (#371)
• Map editor clobbers custom attributes (#379)
• History bugs (#452)
• Placing an instance on top of another then undoing resets the original instances properties (#459)
• Should be able to set the default zoom level for a camera (#467)
• Misc FIFE Editor crashes (user input validation/exception handling missing) (#537)
• Editor file dialog uses botched relative paths (#616)

5. Troubleshooting

There are some known driver/card combinations that exhibit some problems with FIFE. Users have reported seeing blank screens or fuzzy images. If this is happening to you please report it on our forums in the Help and troubleshooting section here: http://forums.fifengine.net/index.php?board=4.0

Please include your Card/Driver/OS information in your post. Currently the fix is to modify your settings.xml file and set both GLUseFramebuffer and GLUseNPOT to False (they are True by default).

Win32 users tend to suffer from problems with the OpenAL drivers. If you don't hear sound while running a FIFE client, run oalinst.exe that ships with the Win32 FIFE Development Kit. This is the latest OpenAL driver for Win32.

6. Feedback

We appreciate every kind of feedback concerning the release, the project in general and the bundled techdemo. Feedback is a great way to help us to improve FIFE. If you would like to get in contact with us and provide feedback you can either visit our IRC channel or our forums:

• #fife on freenode.net
• http://forums.fifengine.net/index.php?board=5.0

7. Closing Notes

Have fun with the release and let us know what you think about it! -- The FIFE team.

http://www.fifengine.net/

2013/04/09