LINUXGAMES

Version 0.12.1 of Tux Racer has been relaeased. This release fixes a bug that caused the RPM version to fail on its first run, and it also adds a new course.

Tux Racer downloads: tuxracer.sourceforge.net/index.html#Download

Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer wrote in to announce that version 4.10 of the solitaire collection PySol has been released. Changes in this version are a completely new Mahjongg game driver and a fix for a bad memory leak.

PySol source: pysol-4.10-src.tar.gz

The Loki support page has been updated to include links to four newsgroups recently formed for Loki‘s works in progress. As with the other newsgoups, these are provided for people looking to discuss tips, support, or general troubleshooting topics. The new groups are:

• Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri: news.lokigames.com/loki.games.smac
• Sim City 3000: news.lokigames.com/loki.games.sc3k
• Soldier of Fortune: news.lokigames.com/loki.games.sof

Version 0.9.18 of The Urgent Decision has been released. Changes:

• generate new landscape if generation of start positions fails
• right mouse click on units which can’t drive now sets a way-point and doesn’t set follow mode
• fixed very tricky bug in ground-checking and sprite-lib code which caused roads to be buggy just because of their color
• now only one unit is built at a time, objects still are built until you stop it in the future there will be a build list
• jeep can look further
• fortress gets destroyed faster, drives slower, min. vertical degree of canons inc.
• Powerboat now faster
• Small ammo more explosive TUD source: tud-0.9.18.tar.gz

Version0.8beta2 of the SMP-aware version of Mesa PMesa has been released. Changes in this version are that it works with DRI and fixes all bugs with xscreensavers apps.

PMesa source: PMesa-0.8beta2.tar.gz
Other PMesa downloads: www.lri.fr/~alex/PMesa/#distri

Jorrit Tyberghein updated the Crystal Space engine site to note that documentation for the open source 3D engine is now available online at

http://crystal.sourceforge.net/docs/online/manual/

If you don’t feel like browsing through it online, it’s also available for download from

http://crystal.sourceforge.net/docs/download/

Loki’s Bernd Kreimeier has produced another article for Gamasutra; this piece focuses on game design as viewed from this year’s Game Developer’s Conference. Bernd analyzes the various design viewpoints espoused at conference workshops, including a rather interesting section titled “Ethics in Game Design”. Bernd’s previous article on ranking in multiplayer gaming can be perused here.

A developer with Sector 14 (the company which picked up the Babylon 5: Into the Fire game after it was cancelled by Sierra) posted a comment on the FirstOnes.com discussion forums in regards to a query about the possibility of a Linux port:

Evaluating potential ports is on our “to do” list.

Thanks to Frank Ramsay for the head’s up.

As stated earlier today, Epic’s Brandon Reinhart updated the Unreal Technology page to announce the release of Unreal Tournament version 413a to fix network issues with yesterday’s release. If you already downloaded 413 on Sunday, the fixed shared library is also avaiable as a separate download:

Unreal Tournament 413a Download:
3D Downloads Mirror

Unreal Tournament IpDrv.so Download:
3D Downloads Mirror

• As most of you know, this weekend’s Linux Unreal Tournament Linux 413 patch release appears to have broken networking (inability to contact the master server, list servers, or connect to a network game). This will likely be addressed fairly shortly (however, Brandon Reinhart has been rather busy with the project described below); in the meantime, you can still download 402B from here, or play solo games with 413 until networking is fixed.
• Furthermore, Brandon updated the Rocket Arena: UT site to announce all further releases are suspended until it can be considered relatively stable and UI issues are addressed.

UPDATE: Brandon Reinhart just sent in the following to the OpenUT mailing list:

This was my bad. I compiled and linked to the Playstation 2 IP driver whichis just an interface. I`ve attached a fixed .so to this message. Put it inyour System directory to fix the problem.

In addition, I`ll make a new release that covers the problem.

This has _not_ been a good weekend. :)

In other words, expect a fix Real Soon Now(tm).

Bob Zimbinski from the Linux Game Tome (yes, it’s down) wrote in with a message regarding the downtime of happypenguin.org over the last couple days. He writes:

The server that the Linux Game Tome lives on has been unavailable sinceearly Friday morning. I am told that this is due to some sort of poweroutage that affected all the machines on the server’s network. Someone wasgoing to try to look at the happypenguin server this weekend. This isall the information I have. Since the server resides in a different statethan I do, and because server space and bandwidth are donated to me on anunofficial basis, I have very little recourse except to wait and hope theserver comes up soon.

To prevent unpleasantness like this in the future, I’m considering newhosting. If you think you could host happypenguin.org, or know of someonewho might, I would love to hear from you. I’m most interested in anad-free, noncommercial environment, but I’ll consider anything, sincebeggars can’t be choosers. The site consists of a bunch of perl scripts,a mySQL database and some cron jobs. The code requires the mod_perlApache module. Email me at bobz@mr.net if you think you can help.

Thanks to everyone who is emailing me to tell me they can’t get to thesite. Please stop now. :)

Epic‘s Brandon Reinhart has updated his .plan to announce that the highly anticipated Unreal Tournament 413 for Linux is now available. This patch includes all of the game related fixes from theWindows 413 version as well as changes from the OpenUT team including:

• Music! If you have libmikmod you can now play music inside of UT
• SDL input! SDL adds a lot finer control over the game
• SDL mesa GL support! Mesa support now in very good condition

Visit the Unreal announcements page for a list of mirrors, or snag it from our LinuxGames/3dDownloads site:

• ut-patch413-linux.tar.gz (4.48 Mb): http://www.3ddownloads.com/showfile.php3?file_id=67833

Joseph Carter updated the QuakeForge project site with a new State of the Code address; included is a SITREP on conformance to a draft standards document drawn up by the Quake Standards Group, and more on the QuakeLives fiasco. QuakeForge is a GPL’ed Quake 1 engine modification project; more details on their efforts can be read here.

Sean Middleditch sent in a release announcement for AweMUD version 0.1-8:

AweMUD is a pre-alpha (currently) MUD server for Linux systems. I wantto make it a very powerful MUD server capable of worlds such as those ofan old favorite of mine, G*mSt*ne III. Features WILL include multiplecharacter per account, a LARGE world, intelligent NPC’s, a dynamicworld, GM controlled quests, advanced character states (such as severedlimbs), really nifty combat (like targeted attacks, ambushes, and more).

Sean also notes that anyone interested in joining the project is welcome, particularly for the development of specialized clients.

AweMUD 0.1-8 Source:
http://download.sourceforge.net/AweMUD/AweMUD-0.1-8.tar.gz

Version 0.0.16 of Kwirk’s Quest has been released. This version includes the first pieces of working dialog support, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done on it.

Kwirk’s Quest source: kwirk-0.0.16.tar.gz

Version 2.17 of OpenGUI has been released. Changes include:

• added new type of event: CURSOROUTEVENT
• added new great example: ‘rootwnd’
• fixed minor bug in gpm mouse driver – bad coor calculations in some cases
• some speedup changes to methods Window::WindowRect();
• added MenuWindow::AddLabel(char *name, int key, ControlCall cb);
• added functions and methods
• added new globals: extern Pattern PatternDot, PatternSlashDot, PatternSlashDotSlash, PatternSlash;
• some fixes in examples compiling (namely for Mesa 3.2 in RH 6.2)
• fixed cosmetic bug in ColorDialog class

OpenGUI source OpenGUI.tgz

Version 0.9.5 of Kali clone GTKali has been released. Changes:

• Fixed a small memory leak
• Added Channel List under the Nick List which updates every 10 seconds
• The nick list will (usually) show you whos on the same channel as you now as it updates every 16 seconds so its not 100%
• All lists are “click sortable” now, and cleaned up the Server windows click sorts too
• Added right click popup menu to the nick list, enjoy the commands there
• Clicking on a highlighted url in chat now correctly launches the userdefined browser
• Highlighted url’s in server/tracker/action messages wern’t clickable, fixed

Also, note that the official GTKali page has now been moved to Sourceforge and can be found at gtkali.sourceforge.net

GTKali source: gtkali-0.9.5.tar.gz
Binary RPM: gtkali-0.9.5-1.i386.rpm
Source RPM: gtkali-0.9.5-1.src.rpm

Hans de Goede wrote in to announce the version 0.37b1.2 release of xmame/xmess, the UNIX multi-arcade/console machine emulator. Changes include:

• (Re)added mess 0.37b1, including everything that’s new.
• Made sound update synchronious with video update,this should improve sound quality.
• Fixed a crash when running with -nosound -fakesound.
• Slightly changed the fragsize calculation in the oss dsp plugin, again, it now uses slightly smaller frags, which should increase sound quality a bit.
• Changed the default soundbufsize to 3.0, this is still smalleras before the default bufsize before the sound rewrite, and it seems that the 2.0 was a bit to optimistic.

xmame/xmess 0.37b1.2 Source:
http://x.mame.net/download/xmame-0.37b1.2.tgz

Version0.3.5 of the OpenGL table tennis simulator Cannon Smash has been released. Changes in this version include level selection, bugfixes, and compressed data files.

Cannon Smash source: csmash-0.3.5.tar.gz

• AgentGrey of the Heavy Gear News Network wrote in to announce that the site has added a Linux Heavy Gear 2 forum.

• The Battlemasters HG2 League is continuing play; unit standings are available for viewing, and new Gear pilots can register in the league here.
• Duane Morin wrote in to note that Electronics Boutique has stated that Linux HG2 will be in stock starting April 30th, and Software Etc. gave the rather vague availability date of “May”. If you don’t feel like waiting on the brick-and-mortar stores to catch up, you can still order HG2 direct from Loki.