ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So, starting from the legal end: the GPL covers the engine itself -- not the Lua scripts and audiovisual assets that make up an actual game. Blender's built-in game engine is the same way; the runtime is GPL, but .blend packages are not and can be sold under a different license. They can even be distributed in the same package, as long as all the notification rules are followed for the GPL portion. Long story short, TE4 can legally be used for a commercial game.

My question is whether that's an approved usage, in the sense of not pissing off anybody who's spent untold hard hours making this free software.

Yes, it's approved. I've discussed with DarkGod about commercialising some of my T-Engine-based games before and he's been very supportive.

Do be mindful of the distinction between ToME assets and the T-Engine though. ToME assets (graphics, sound, etc) are still copyright DarkGod or wherever he sourced them from.

Grey wrote:Yes, it's approved. I've discussed with DarkGod about commercialising some of my T-Engine-based games before and he's been very supportive.

Do be mindful of the distinction between ToME assets and the T-Engine though. ToME assets (graphics, sound, etc) are still copyright DarkGod or wherever he sourced them from.

Wow. That is very interesting. I had been wondering myself about what the OP is inquiring about.

So one could make a commercial roguelike using the TE4 system as long as one did not use the copyrighted media (graphics, sound and lore)...that is pretty great.
(In my case, I was more thinking of a full game/module that wasn't sold, but where I would accept donations to spend more time developing it, which is a bit different I suppose but would be allowed anyway)

Great to hear! I'd like to invent as few wheels as possible, and TE4 looks like it really covers the bases for roguelike development without forcing too many baked-in mechanics. Plus, Lua!

Tejon, look up Veins of the Earth in the Modules section. (I don't have any plans to commercialize, though)

Yeah, there's really no baked in mechanics for the T-Engine at all. Someone recently made a game where you can't fight except through powering up your pet pig with hastily brewed potions. I've made games about procedural music and monetising children, and a real-time action RPG where you fight endless waves of jam. Lots of flexibility!

You can see all my T-Engine games at www.gamesofgrey.com and http://darrengrey.itch.io/firetail - feel free to copy code from any of my projects.