A History of FreeCol's Development
FreeCol evolved from a pure C/C++ project into a pure Java project.
The first official release of FreeCol was, however, already using Java for the client.
FreeCol has been fully Java-based since early 2003.
The game has been developed incrementally without any formal design document. Developers
have been working on the features they have chosen for themselves, but major changes
have been discussed on the mailing lists first. Naturally, the discussions on the
mailing lists have been exceedingly important in order to coordinate our efforts in a
common direction.
The graph above depicts the number of lines of code from the start of the project and until some time beyond the release of version 0.7.3. Notice the period of time spent on the first major restructuring of the codebase. We are currently restructuring the codebase for the second time. This time we are working towards making the game more modifiable.
Old Releases
FreeCol 0.1.0 - Server written in C++ and the client in Java.FreeCol 0.2.0 - Entire application written in Java
FreeCol 0.3.0 - Codebase heavily restructured. Multiplayer games winnable.
FreeCol 0.4.0 - AI for Indian players, GUI improments and other new features.
FreeCol 0.5.0 - Singleplayer games winnable. Lots of new features.
FreeCol 0.5.1 - Bugfixes.
FreeCol 0.5.2 - Fixing savegame related problems.
FreeCol 0.5.3 - FreeCol finally reached a level of stability enabling lasting games.
FreeCol 0.6.0 - Added more ingame reports. Gameplay and visual improvements.
FreeCol 0.6.1 - Bugsfixes.
FreeCol 0.7.0 - Map editor, trade and negotiations and a map of the Americas.
FreeCol 0.7.1 - Migration from CVS to Subversion.
FreeCol 0.1.0
Objective: First release of FreeCol Released: January 2nd, 2003
This release made it possible to explore the map with a ship and a free
colonist.
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FreeCol 0.2.0
Objective: Port the server to Java Released: March 26th, 2003 This was the first release completely written in Java. Aside from that a first implementation of 'Europe', some GUI improvements and more performant screen drawing were added. |
FreeCol 0.3.0
Objective: Making code modifications simpler Released: September 30th, 2004
The code had been redesigned and restructured in order to make the ongoing
development easier. Prior to this, the codebase bore clear markings of
originally having been seperated in client and server implementations
programmed in Java and C++ respectively. New features were added more
frequently after the restructuring, as evident by the Lines of Code graph
displayed on this page.
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FreeCol 0.4.0
Objective: Adding more features Released: June 23rd, 2005
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FreeCol 0.5.0
Objective: Possible to win a singleplayer game Released: July 23rd, 2006 In this release we added Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the computer players, and thereby enabled single player games. The framework for the AI-code was added, but the computer players were not very advanced.
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FreeCol 0.5.1
Objective: Making the game more stable Released: September 22nd, 2006
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FreeCol 0.5.2
Objective: Fixing savegame related problems Released: November 26th, 2006
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FreeCol 0.5.3
Objective: Making the game more stable Released: December 5th, 2006
FreeCol finally reached a level of stability enabling lasting games with
this release. This was also the release when people really started playing
the game and when we were chosen for SourceForge.net's:
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FreeCol 0.6.0
Objective: Improve gameplay and visual appearance. Released: April 16th, 2007
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FreeCol 0.6.1
Objective: Making the game more stable Released: April 30th, 2007
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FreeCol 0.7.0
Objective: Map editor, trade and negotiations Released: July 13th, 2007
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FreeCol 0.7.1
Objective: Bugfixes Released: August 13th, 2007 We migrated from CVS to Subversion immediately after making this release. |
FreeCol 0.7.2
Objective: GUI improvements, bug fixes Released: September 19th, 2007 New Feautures and Improvements
Bug Fixes: |