LINUXGAMES

The Heavy Gear News Network’s Nathaniel Kealen wrote in to announce the site has relaunched with a new format and several items of interest:

• The Letter From the Editor mentions Activision has Heavy Gear 3 in development.
• Nathaniel has conducted an interview with Loki’s Michael Vance, lead programmer for the Heavy Gear 2 project. The interview includes an overview of HG2′s porting process, system requirements, differences between the Linux port and the original Win32 version, map compatibility, and speculation on the future of the Linux gaming market.
• The site is also holding a contest where five winners can obtain the Linux version of Heavy Gear 2 for answering the rather open-ended question “What do you want the next Heavy Gear computer game to be?”. If interested, respond to contest@hg2nn.com.

Loki’s Sam Lantinga has released version 1.1.2 of his Simple DirectMedia Layer; SDL is utilized in many open source game projects and several of Loki’s retail Linux ports. Changes:

• SDL_WM_SetIcon() now uses the icon colorkey if no mask is used.
• Stephane Peter added support for multiple timers.
• Copy blits are now optimized using inline assembly on x86 Linux.
• Copy blit can now handle overlapping blits.
• John Fulmer fixed GL direct rendering on Utah GLX.
• The X11 VidMode extension is now enabled on remote displays.
• Load libGL.so.1 under X11 if an app isn’t linked with GL.
• Mattias Engdegård added multiple X11 visual support.

SDL 1.1.2 Source:
http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/release/SDL-1.1.2.tar.gz

Jess Haas has released version 1.4.3.1 of his SDL LxDoom port LSDlDoom (thanks Sam Lantinga). Changes:

• Merged lxdoom 1.4.3 changes
• Various portability fixes (cross compilers now work with no trouble, im working on getting it to compile for win32 hopefully will be doing the same for beos soon)
• Misc. other changes

LSDlDoom 1.4.3.1 Source:
http://lbjhs.net/~jessh/lsdldoom/lsdldoom-1.4.3.1.tgz

Miguel Angel Blanch Lardin wrote in to announcethe release of Arriane RPG version 0.3.0; alphascreenshots can be seen here.Changes in 0.3.0 include a new graphics engine and network support.

Arianne RPG 0.3.0 Source:
http://members.es.tripod.de/arianne_rpg/Source/Arianne_RPG-0_3_0.tar.gz

Andreas Umbach has released version 0.59 of his 3D light-cycle racing gamegltron. A screenshot is availablehere; changes include:

• rewrote computer player / added skill levels
• different arena sizes (menu item)
• different speeds (menu item)
• experimental speed oszillation
• configure players (human, computer, none)
• very cool new model from Charles Babbage
• levels-of-detail for the model
• configure keyboard controls (not saved between games yet)
• added volume settings for music / fx to Audio menu
• used wall & floor texture from Nicolas Zimmermann
• (optional) sound effects, SDL version only
• added trail decals on solid trails (option)
• added trail bow before cycle
• changed GUI background
• resized menu (dynamic size now)
• added screenshot function (F12 – disabled on MacOS)
• fixed lightcycle going backwards (if you liked the old way better, that’s an option now)
• added arena overview camera mode when dead
• GNU autoconf WOOO! WOOO!
• textures in png format

gltron 0.59 Source:
http://www.ards.net/Andreas/download.cgi?mirror=us&file=gltron-0.59.tar.gz

Wouter Wijngaards has made the initial release of his3D Crystal Space-based gameTunnel Fighter, which features a vesseldodging enemies and obstacles in a tunnel.

Tunnel Fighter Source:
ftp://ftp.linuxgames.com/crystal/tf/tfsrc.tgz

In yesterday’s segment(thanks Blue) ofPlanetStarsiege’sTribes 2 preview, a rather worryingstatement was made by Dynamix with regards to Linux support.Although it has been mentioned in thepast that the Tribes 2 engine has been ported to Linux, Dynamix now seems to be backing awayfrom committing to a client port in favor of releasing a dedicated server distributionsimilar to what Valve did for Half-Life. As the publisher for HL and Tribes 2 isSierra, it seems highly probable that the reticencetowards supporting Linux clients can be traced to them…

Earlier this week, Telefragged posted apreviewof the upcoming Quake 3: Arena modJailbreak, based on the Quake 2 mod inwhich two teams strove to capture and execute their opponents en masse. The previewincludes impressions of a beta version and several map screenshots. One new featureTeam Reaction plans to bring to the tableare security cameras, as the tactical benefits of remotely monitoring map areas arefairly obvious. A public beta of Jailbreak is expected within the next few weeks.

Version 0.3.0 of the GNOME-based puzzle gameAtomixhas been released. The current changelog includes:

• Added 6 new levels (using different themes).
• Documentation for Atomix and Atomixed.
• Atomixed supports now theme creation and modification.
• Minor bugfixes.

Atomix 0.3.0 Source:
http://www.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/~pearl/download/atomix-0.3.0.tar.gz

Neil Halelamien wrote in to announce the release ofClanMecha version 0.1.2; ClanMechais a 2D platform game featuring battling mechs. Changes:

• various improvements to collision detection and prop management,including an axis-sorting collision routine, resulting in a bigperformance boost
• added support for non-rectangular collisions, adding some sampleobjects to the test map
• tinkered with the weapon launch position, so mechs no longer fire fromtheir crotches — considering making this a future option ;)
• added some new weapon icons by James Barnard
• various bugfixes and tweaks

ClanMecha 0.1.2 Source:
http://download.sourceforge.net/clanmecha/clanmecha-0.1.2.tar.gz

Version 0.0.11 of Kwirk, a ClanLib-based RPG, has been released. Changes:

• randomwalk AI doesn’t keep on walking against wall’s anymore, but turns the creature (should implement this in follow-AI too…)
• fixed stand-still-without-reason bug in randomwalk AI
• added some extra sprites
• map centers now on the hero in the beginning
• creatures have a more 3d-like collision detection

Kwirk 0.0.11 Source:
http://www.kwirk.cx/src/kwirk-0.0.11.tar.gz

The Majik3d page has been updated to announce a new team member, a new web page in the works, and two new sketches. Mynex, the new team member will be using his healthy RPG background to work on the world design team. The web page in the works can be viewed at www.majik3d.org:9673. If you’ve got a chance, take a look at it quick because the Majik team is looking for input before it goes live. Finally, thumbnails of the new detailed race sketches can be found in the Majik3d art gallery, and the full-size images linked below:

• dwarf
• troll

Version 0.99.5 of the SDL-based Missile Command has been released. Changes:

• Tweaked missile frequency, number, and speed
• Fixed bug where you could destroy all the missiles by shooting the top of the screen
• Bases now regenerate
• Lined up missiles and cities in end of wave splash screen
• Added option to pause the game
• Made error messages a little more helpful
• Fixed bug in screen_shot which tried to free unallocted memory

Missile Command Source: missile-0.99.5.src.tar.gz

As part of their Developer Tour series, Gamespy’s David “Fargo” Kosak visited Loki Entertainment Software’s offices recently to give an overview of their efforts to bring software to the Linux gaming market. The article includes an overview of Loki’s past projects, shots of the Loki offices and employees, and a brief Q&A with president Scott Draeker.

• The Crystal Space project site updated today with two new shots of levels generated by the MazeD CS editor.

• [casManG's] site has posted eight shots (thanks Voodoo Extreme) from Vicarious Visions’ multi-platform space combat simulator Terminus, which will be released next month. Incidentally, Station Terminus was able to attain an image of the Terminus retail box (which will include binaries for all supported platforms); the box can be viewed here.

A map editor which supports all three Quake-series engines (and Heretic 2), Quest, has been released by Alexander Malmberg. Additional features can be found here; the editor supports both SVGAlib and X11 rendering.

Quest 2.4 Source:
http://w1.423.telia.com/~u42302929/alex/quest/quest24-src.tar.gz

Andy Ward has made version 0.3 of his Unreal Media Ripper available; the app rips music and sound class objects from Unreal Tournament .umx/.uax files.

Unreal Media Ripper 0.3 Source:
http://pages.cthome.net/chrismp/umr/umr-0.3.tar.gz

Version 0.9.9 of Corewars, a kind of natural selection game for processes, has been released. Changes and release notes are available here; new warriors can be submitted at http://corewars.sourceforge.net/hill-control.html

Corewars 0.9.9 Source:
http://download.sourceforge.net/corewars/corewars-0.9.9.tar.gz

Today’s entropy-derived items:

• Edward Rudd wrote in requesting information on the fate of Singularity Software’s 3D Linux RTS Fire and Darkness, which won last year’s Independent Game Awards’ Grand Prize. If anyone can shed some light on the title (and company’s) current situation, feel free to respond in the comments or fire in an e-mail.

• AMD announced yesterday they were releasing new Linux device drivers for their 10/100 PCnet-FAST ethernet card line; the drivers now support the 10/100 HD/LD function and LED reprogramming (thanks sCary).
• Bernard Sebastien wrote in to the Utah-GLX mailing list noting that NVIDIA has updated their Linux driver development kit and SDK, although their usefulness remains debatable.
• Rogue Entertainment’s Peter Mack updated his .plan to determine interest in ports of their upcoming title Alice to other platforms.
• Macmillan USA is looking for a Linux game coder to author “Sams Teach Yourself Linux Game Programming in 21 Days”; if interested, respond to Steve Anglin at Steve.Anglin@macmillanUSA.com.
• Mark Ballinger of the Wolfpack Empire dev team sent in the following:
  

  The official home page for empire, the internet-based strategy game, cannow be reached at “www.empire.cx“. Downloads for the server and forclients can be had at “ftp.empire.cx“.

• Dennis Payne wrote in to the LGDC mailing list to announce his Open Game Source column’s site has been redesigned; article submissions can be made here.

Brandon Reinhart of Epic Games fired off this preemptive .plan update this afternoon concerning the next Unreal Tournament patch:

I’ll be putting together a 413 for Linux really soon. I’ll starton it today.

Brandon has previously stated that the divergent source tree (which includes many additional sound and graphics rendering features) produced by the OpenUT project would be incorporated into the release following 413.