LINUXGAMES

Clone is “A clone of the realtime fantasty strategy game W*rCr*ft II.” It runs under UNIX and X. The latest unstable code snapshot is available here. This latest release comes with network and transport support available.

Ilkka Forsblom wrote in with good news regarding Blizzard’s premiere real-time strategy game, Starcraft. Until now, the only way to run Starcraft in wine was to run the executable from a previous installation on a Windows partition, as the installer would crash under a standard wine configuration. However, Forsblom has discovered that Starcraft can be installed from the cd using only a Linux system running wine with the proper wine settings and pseudo-Windows directory structure. Forsblom has posted a HOW-TO with relevant portions of his wine.conf at http://www.mbnet.fi/~hoppq/sc-howto.html

Patrick Lang has come up with an idea for a LAN Linux distribution. Essentially this is a distribution where anyone can plunk in a CD into an unused computer, and it will install everything needed for a LAN party. Programs such as DHCP, IP Masquerading, Quake/Quake2 dedicated servers (minus the data files).

“The main goal would be that anyone with decent computer experience would be able to install and completely set up a lan party server in an hour with internet support, quake, etc, all one one of their extra machines.”

Sounds like a plan! Feel free to e-mail Patrick with any of your comments or suggestions.

If you have not checked out Clone you really should. There has been a few improvements in the last few days including most importantly network support. Grab the lastest unstable version and enjoy. The Orcish Horde demands it. :)

TheGuild has released an update to their Beta Engine. These fixes include SVGALib Mode now configurable in theguild.rc, some graphic changes and some minor bug fixes. You can grab a new copy off their files page.

In case you’re wondering who Trilobyte, Inc. is, they have made games such as The 7th Guest, and The 11th Hour. As some people know, The 11th Hour was developed on NeXTSTEP. Since then, Trilobyte has been doing more and more developing on Win32 based systems.

However, there is a bright side to this tale. Lately, Trilobyte has been using more and more Linux boxes. (“But everyone here is still big fans of operating systems that you can rsh to” – Graeme Devine)

In 1999, expect to see native Linux clients for both The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, both released with their source code. (Note: to play these games, you will still need the CDs).

Development at Trilobyte has slowly been migrating from Win32 systems to Linux systems, which means that we can expect to see some more great games for Linux. (Screenshots of their latest project.) Take heart, Windows users, you will still have your beloved Win32 clients as well.

Editor’s Note: Yay! Another Linux victory!

Yes, folks. Its finally out. Its not completely out yet, but this prepatch ought to keep the natives happy until 2.2.0 final is out. Grab it from kernel.org, but I’m warning you, its very busy. I suggest you visit kernel.org’s mirrors page and find a mirror, otherwise you’ll be clicking the reload button from here to eternity.

Angel Cordero, a Senior PC Engineer has informed the LinuxGames team about some openings at Acclaim Entertainment. These positions are Network Software Engineers and Systems Software Engineers to help develop an Internet engine and associated components. If you are serious, I suggest you check out their Human Resources page for further details.

Great Nations is “a Civilization(tm)-style game with superior network-play & customizability”. Changes include:

• Linux version fixed (X Error of failed request: BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation) Major opcode of failed request: 1 (X_CreateWindow))
• Amiga version fixed and recompiled with optimization
• exiting towns in bottom of map redraws screen correctly
• doublesize 64*64 tiles (doubled from 32*32 tiles)
• smoothing between different terrain type tiles
• F9 toggles between windowed and fullscreen modes
• saves are incompatible with 1.3.0

Visit the Great Nations web site here, and pick up the GN Linux X11 demo. There are also demos available for Win32 and Amiga.

Yadex is a Doom/Doom II/Heretic level (wad) editor for X. It is available here. This latest release has:

• Fixed buglet in positioning of newly copied objects.
• Moved the source files to a subdirectory.
• Added reminder to build nodes after making changes.
• Added definitions for Boom’s things 5001 (point pusher) and 5002 (point puller).
• Added magic string in configuration file.
• A few additions in the user’s guide.

Universe is a game written completely in Java, so while this isn’t technically a Linux game, it will run on Linux (tested using the Java Development Kit version 1.1.7a). The Universe project strives for game play, rather than stunning graphics (although graphics aren’t totally forgotten). This version is mainly bug-fixes, and should still be considered alpha. Visit the Universe web site here and the ftp site

Hans de Goede, who has just turn 23 today (Happy Birthday) has released Xmame-0.34rc2.1 fix and new features include the following:

- Everything from dos rc 2

- Added mouse grabbing, press left-alt + page-down to grab the mouse under X, press it again to release it. Use -grabmouse to start with the mouse grabbed.

- Added invisible mousecursor for people using focus follows mouse, use -nocursor to make the cursor invisible, grabbing the mouse as above also makes it invisible. This was kindly contributed by:Dave Dribin

- Removed ROMPATH, SPOOLDIR etc defines from makefile.unix and replaced them with XMAMEROOT by Christian Groessler

- Fully intergrated openstep support, it now no longer needs the files in contrib, see README.unix

- Added sound synchronisation for streamed sound, this should fix the lag in pacman. This only works when throttle is enabled.

- Netbsd-i386 audiobuffer querying support by: Tom Spindler

One of the most popular linux games, FreeCiv has been update to version 1.72. There are some minor bug fixes and configure script should work on all platforms. Also for the the beginners, there is an easy mode for the AI. Get the gzip or the bzip2 or the patch for yourself now.

I was sent a screenshot of Myst running with Wine a couple days ago, but with the business of the holidays I’ve been falling behind on most everything except my daily intake of coffee and holiday treats. I apologize if it takes me a while to respond to your emails.

First I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. The second thing is that there is a new version of GtKali which was first reported on Freshmeat. GtKali is the linux client for Kali the gaming network that requires a one time fee. I remember many a night playing WarCraft II on Kali.

There is a new Ultima Online client for Linux available. Pick it up right here, and its README. Notes from the author include:

The good news:

• The UO Linux Client is back.

The bad news:

• Only one pre-built, non-patching binary is currently available

Some of the conditions that must be followed include already having an Ultima Online account.

According to Sean Burbidge, the StarCraft 1.04 patch kills any support under WINE. Sound appears to work perfectly, alas video is non-functional. The 1.04 patch tried out by Sean was applied to a fresh installation of StarCraft, and not to any other previously patched versions. Darn, and just when we seemed to be coming close.

On another note, I’m the new temporary updater around here. I will be helping out with the LinuxGames news this winter while others are busy visiting family and aren’t able to dedicate as much time as previously possible.

Prasanth Kumar notified us about a rec.games.computer.ultima.online posting by Raph Koster of Origin. Koster, lead designer for Ultima Online, reveals that Origin is “about to start testing with some players with the T2A Linuxclient”, although it “probably won’t be available til the New Year”. The release of Ultima Online: The Second Age broke the existing Ultima Online Linux port.

Nicholas Lee forwarded a posting to comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic by Brian Reynolds of Firaxis Games, in which Reynolds discusses a possible Linux port of their upcoming title Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. Reynolds states:

LINUX: Our lead engineer, Jason Coleman, is a big fan of Linux and really wants to try a Linux port, so no promises yet but it’s a strong possibility. The DirectX features we most depend on are the multiplayer/networking stuff, FYI.

On a side note, there is an open-source clone of one of Sid Meier’s earlier classics, Civilization, available for Linux. Freeciv supports TCP-IP netplay and the current stable source release (version 1.7.1) is available from here.

Crusader, my fellow LinuxGames News Pimp reported in a brief second on irc that Snes9x v1.16a has been released for Linux.There is too long of a list to mention what they have done to improve it, but this one caught my eye.

Pulled apart a real SNES using a crowbar (great fun), just to look at what speed the SPC700 is actually clocked at for more acturate relative emulation speed.

Grab your libc5 version. The libc6 version is not out yet.