pak144.Excentrique for Simutrans

For those not used to the terminology, a pak set for Simutrans is both, game graphics and a definition of the world to play in, with all goods, industries and other features.

Most of the other pak sets focus on regional specialties, British vehicles, Czech, Japanese, German and others.

I wanted to make something different and started a set called pak48.Excentrique. The 48 indicating the tile size. Colorful, surreal, fantastic and geared towards being easy to play.

Now 10 years have passed, high resolution screens are common and 48 pixel vehicles are just tiny. Very tiny in fact, because few can use the full 48 pixel size. So I started a renovation project, basically doing it all again, but with triple size.

Cities are made of crystals, inhabited by sparks and the world is colorful. The industries and goods are a bit surreal. The first, and so far only industry chain makes music. Melodies, fanfares, beats and rhythms are being produced and assembled into songs and tunes, to play for the city people. The next chain will be be about weather. Yes, in this pak you’ll be able to mix your own weather.

More images and the full history so far can be found here:

https://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/topic,22076.0.html

For those actually playing Simutrans, downloads are available for manual install:

https://github.com/Varkalandar/pak144.Excentrique/releases

Only one release there at the moment, the earlier verions have been offered through the Simutrans forum, but Github will be the official home.

The Interview

January last year a request reached me, for an interview about Simutrans. This came quite surprising, because about 10 years before I had been banned from the Simutrans forum in the aftermath of a failed attempt to return to development.

I decided to take the chance, figuring I can still cancel publication if it should go wrong. But it went surprisingly well, and now can be found online here:

https://blog.simutrans.com/?p=2430

Roboron, the interviewer helped me to get back to the forum and so I could become active around Simutrans again. I started with a UI theme, because the wish to make Simutrans look better always was with me, even during he time of the ban. A second theme followed, then updates to an old graphic set of mine, some patches for the program itself, and then the start of a new graphics set, all with the focus to give Simutrans better looks, be it UI, or in game graphics. And that’s what I’m doing now, and which the next articles will be about.

Auf ein Neues – A new Start

Nach langer Pause möchte ich wieder als Blogger aktiv werden. Krankheit, persönliche Problem und auch ein Mangel an Themen, über die ich schreiben wollte, waren der Grund für die Auszeit. Aber zumindest der letzte Punkt hat sich geändert.

Es geht um ein altes Software Projekt names Simutrans. Ich hatte das vor Ewigkeiten begonnen, dann an andere Leute abgegeben, und später einen Neueinstieg versucht, der grandios missglückt ist.

Inzwischen bin ich wieder dabei, und möchte auch darüber berichten. Und das ist jetzt auch schon die Überleitung zum nächsten Punkt – da Simutrans ein ziemlich internationales Projekt geworden ist, werde ich in Zukunft Englisch schreiben. Ich glaube mein Englisch ist dafür gut genug, und viele der Entwickler und Fans verstehen nur Englisch.