OpenHV

OpenHV is a mod of OpenRA that takes the Hard Vacuum sprite artwork and loosely recreates the never released original. It is a real-time strategy game which uses supply lines for resources. The first stable version was released in April 2021. It supports single-player, LAN, online multiplayer as well as map editing.

Techniques
The game makes use of the Hard Vacuum sprites and a rough game design concept. The sprites have been licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 US terms. Instead of using proprietary formats from the OpenRA engine, everything is stored in standardized .png which can then be edited libre tools like GrafX2, GIMP and Aseprite. Additional artwork has been harvested from Tyrian and Iron Plague which is covered under the same permissive license or created from scratch by modelling in MagicaVoxel, then rendering each direction and over painting for details and outline.

The tileset mostly consists of 1x1 tiles with connections between terrain types. For easier mapping the editor has a button called Auto Tile which adds connecting tiles automatically. In-game terrain like forest can also be burned and run over by heavy tanks allowing for a dynamic and destructible battlefield. The game features lighting effects and units that can spawn shootable missiles or drones, features that are actually reminiscent later eras of RTS games. The soundtrack was composed by Tim Beek and like every other asset it is licensed under Creative Commons terms.

Weblinks

 * https://www.moddb.com/mods/openhv
 * https://openhv.readthedocs.io/
 * https://openhv.itch.io/openhv
 * https://www.openhub.net/p/OpenHV