Virtual grew in popularity over the last few years as recession drove people further afield in the search for work, Virtual tabletop gaming allowed gamers to stay in contact with, and still play in, their regular group. It has also proved very handy for gamers who have kids. Allowing them to indulge in their pastime and keep an eye on their younglings simultaneously.
A number of new software packages have been released to meet this perceived need, such as Roll 20 or Fantasy grounds. However, the Granddaddy of these programs was Map Tool.
Map Tool allows the games master to set up a game map and players can be invited from across the Net to draw up characters and play on that map. It’s open source and free to use.
However, some users felt it had become stagnant with new builds becoming a rarity and a freeze put on new features. Enter a group of IT professionals with time on their hands and a desire to prove that the original Virtual Table Top environment could still be the best.
They formed Idle ideas inc and began work on Mote: “Our aim is to leverage all the rich content created over the years using MapTool, enhance the tool to modern standards, create a user community comprised of framework makers, players, GMs, and content creators (i.e. animations, sound and images). Apart from the funding we’re asking for to support our development phases, the products of our work will be open-sourced and forever free.”
Their Kickstarter is to raise funds to cover their development costs as they said above, the final product will be free, to clarify that includes all features. These guys want to make something great and then give it to everyone for free.
The Kickstarter launched on February 14th, show it some love…
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
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