I 99%-open-sourced Even the Ocean (2016)! But why?

I finally got around to releasing the source code and assets from my 2016 adventure platformer epic, Even the Ocean

Happy to announce that I’ve finished my second major 99%-open-sourcing project (after 2013’s Anodyne, 99%-open-sourced 2020) - this time, it’s for my 2016 adventure platformer, Even the Ocean (Steam Link). (It’s also 75% off as of writing on 2023/09/23!) It’s a story driven game about Aliph, a queer POC woman working as a power plant technician for Whiteforge City. She’s tasked with repairing a series of strange malfunctions around the world, before realizing that they’re a harbinger of potential ecological disaster…

And now it’s 99%-open-sourced! (Technically it is not “Open Source” because that would require me to give everything away for free. There’s a clause that prevents us from getting screwed by someone just selling the game as-is or copying it completely.)

Visit the Even the Ocean Code Repository Here!

Anyone is free to download and compile the game, even without owning Even the Ocean. We still prefer if you purchase the game before doing so as sales from the game help us out a lot, but I want the source code to be as free as possible. (I’ve also updated Anodyne’s 99%-open source license to not require owning the game.)

Even the Ocean is about 8-10 hours long, taking you between a number of character-filled towns and atmospheric or oppressive power plants. It’s a 2D platformer with a unique, physics-shifting energy bar mechanic, and a detailed and rich story with characters of all sorts - a solitary female scientist working in remote wilds, children living in the face of disaster, a man who manifests people’s dreams into reality - and settings of all kinds - a golden riverside town located along vast cornfields, a snowy village built on the inside of a giant sinkhole, treacherous caverns located in the body of walking megafauna…

It’s a unique game with a memorable atmosphere, one that seems to grow more interesting for co-developer Marina Kittaka and I each time we revisit it. Made over 3.5 years, it holds a special place for us as a game made right after our college years. A product of our thoughts and life experiences from that time period, growing awareness of the USA’s social turmoil from 2013-2016, as well as our interest and love for adventures, unique 2D platformers, and more. I suppose it never sold as well as I would have hoped, but it’s a fan-favorite for some and I still think it’s a unique offering in the long history of 2D platforming games.

So why 99%-open source it?

Well, I’ve always been worried about its future. While the toolchain to compile it is quite stable, it seems to be broken on Mac, and I can’t figure out how to compile it for Linux. Maybe someone else can? Either way, it’s not doing the world much good to just sit as dusty code on my hard drive. And the codebase used to build Even the Ocean - Haxe, OpenFL, and HaxeFlixel - is open source, so it’d be nice to give an example of what open source engines can do.

There’s a lot of lessons to be found in Even the Ocean. For one, it’s full of weird ways of building a game - strange metadata formats, python scripts, etc… things you take for granted when using a pre-made level editor. I don’t think making my own level editor to the extent of Even the Ocean is the right choice for me for any future game, but it was really informative to build so many tools from the ground-up, like cutscene playback, or a level editing tool that runs in-game - all concepts that have been helpful in the games I made afterwards. Inevitably every game seems to require some new tool or another, and it’s powerful when you can have the confidence to try and figure it out for yourself - to know that really, any game is just taking some input of data on a hard drive and rendering it in a certain way.

It’s also nice to have a (relatively) easy, documented way for people and fans to explore the game. There’s historical value in preserving our games ourselves, leaving it open for future players to dig in to if they’re ever curious. Traditionally many of my games tend to feature extensive postgame options with unused content, so 99%-open sourcing feels like going one step beyond.

So what’s in store for Even the Ocean in the future? Hopefully a Linux port if we can muster the resources. We have a mostly-future-proof console port thanks to Ratalaika Games, so nothing needs to be done there. I guess I’d love to do a fan zine at some point, or a ‘guide to Even the Ocean’ featuring its beautiful background art. At some point I’m planning to release the soundtrack’s bonus music on Spotify… but other than that, the game is definitely ‘still pretty much done!’

Anyways, till the next 99%-open sourcing project! I wonder which game it’ll be…?