A couple of minor things:
First, the Archived News is now fixed again. I was testing something and did not realize I broke it in the process of doing it.Second, the Wine screenshot repository will be worked on in the next few weeks again also. I think my schedule is going is to get a little less intensive.Thanks again for everyone who supports us here at LinuxGames.
On my usual FreshMeat rounds, I saw a new version of Dave Gnukem has been released. The usual bugfixes, improved menus, credits screen, and rudimentary Duke1-style lifts are now included.
Hans de Goede has completed another version of the X11 multi-machine arcade emulator, or X-Mame. Version 0.35b2.1 can be downloaded as source from http://xmame.retrogames.com/download/xmame-0.35b2.1.tgz; the ChangeLog is available from here.
Wine HQ has churned out another release of the venerable Windows Not-Emulator for Linux. The changelog includes:
- Tons of new OLE stuff.
- Several improvements to DirectDraw support.
- Better message queues.
- Many new functions and stubs.
- Lots of bug fixes.
The compressed source archive can be downloaded from Metalab’s Wine mirror at ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/ALPHA/wine/development/Wine-990131.tar.gz.
Holger Schemel wrote in with news of the release of his GPL’ed Boulderdash clone Rocks ‘n’ Diamonds. New features in this release include:
- network multiplayer games (upto 4 players)
- local multiplayer games (upto 4 players)
- soft scrolling with 50 frames per second
- freely customizable keyboard and joystick support
- contains levels to play Boulderdash, Emerald Mine and Sokoban
- distributed under the GNU General Public License
The source can be downloaded from http://www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds-1.2.0.tar.gz.
Creative Labs has officially recognized Linux. This is indeed great news. There will be binary releases for both OSS and the ALSA projects, without the hassle of independant developers working under the threatening terms of a NDA. Full story here
FreeCiv.Org, the home of the open-source Civilization II clone for Linux, has completed a massive upgrade of both its look and content. New additions include:
-Slps are now available.
-An awesome game anouncement page.
-Mailinglist signup changes.
-IRC server/channel list.
-Help for newbies (Quick startguide).
-Projects section.
-Suggestions/idears section.
-Tutorials section.
-The myth about Freeciv is back :-)
-About section.
-Todo list!
-Bugs section.
-New project: Freeciv Manual V. 0.2.1!
-FAQ improvement.
-Improved people’s page.
-Screenshots section.
For those of you intersted, but not on the Lithtech-Linux mailing list, this is the latest port status of Lithtech:
I saw on Jeremy .plan about a new Linux Port Mailing for Blood2 and Shogo.
To subscribe, send e-mail to: lt-linux-request@lists.lith.com with a subject of subscribe
He will be answering some questions later on when some more people get on the list so join if you are interested.
LinuxPower.org interviwed Scott Draeker and Sam Lantinga of Loki Entertainment Software, the company that just announced today that it will be doing the Linux port of the upcoming Civilization: Call to Power. It covers the basics of the company and how they plan to take on the task ahead of them.
And one more bit of information, in case you are interested in it, here is the official press release from Loki announcing the Civ port.
Yahoo! Finance is reporting that Loki Entertainment Software will be porting the upcoming Activision sequel to Sid Meier’s Civilization series, Civilization: Call to Power, to the Linux platform. The story states that “Loki also plans to launch the Linux version of the game in spring to coincide with Activision’s PC release” and that Civ 3 “will be the first game marketed for the open source Linux platform”. The open-source clone of the previous Civilization titles, FreeCiv, can be downloaded at http://www.freeciv.org.
Beta Bites concludes its 3 part Interview series with Jorrit Tyberghein, the developer of Crystal Space 3D game engine, today with the third part titled A Look at Engines of the Past, Present, & Future. With this announcement we’d also like to note that the first two interviews’ URLs have changed, so if you’d like to check those out, use the following links:
The first official Linux kernel in the 2.2.x series was released last night. This is the culmination of many months of testing in the 2.1.xxx development series, and a milestone for the Linux movement in general. The complete source is available in gzip compression or bzip2 compression format. A mirrors list for kernel.org is available here if the main site is busy (which has been the case for several hours now).
Natas was the first the point out about some info that Jermeny “Loki” BlackMan put in his .plan for the Linux community to drool over.
Time for another .plan file update of sorts…Most of my time of late has been going to the Blood 2 v2.0 patch… trying to fix AI quirks and generally make things smoother for the patch release. This has, unfortunately, meant a delay in the Linux porting efforts. However, I do have the Linux port ALMOST finished on the engine 25.5 build (I fell behind one internal build again), and will hopefully be able to sit down with Mike next week to merge the Linux stuff back in. As a side effect, this would mean that there would be not only a Linux server for Shogo (which will be moving to the same engine version for v2.2) but also one for Blood 2… and it should really only take a couple days after the patch stuff is done. I’m going to really try to allocate a couple days to finish that – since I know many people REALLY want it – before moving on to the Blood 2 mission pack add-on AI.
Additionally, if I get the ok from PR/marketing, I’m going to put up a mailing list for the Linux port, to answer questions and give status reports on how it’s going. :)
We want more games for Linux, and here’s another company thats willing to port if the demand is there. Lets show that the demand is there. Here is the message that I received earlier.
Wildcard Design, Inc. is considering porting their top selling game, Axia, a360-degree space shoot-em-up game, to Linux. Axia is currently #5 onBuyDirect’s top 10 games lists, and if there’s enough interest in it at asimilar price for Linux, we can justify doing the port. Please email meif you’d like to see it released for Linux.Thanks,
John Delamore
VP of Product Development
Andre Werthmann wrote in with news of Heretic for Linux version 0.9.2. This new release adds asynchronous sound support, and can be downloaded as source code or as various binary releases from here.
Version 1.3.2 of LxDoom is available for download. The added feature list is quite large so suffice it to say that if you use LxDoom you should definately upgrade.