LINUXGAMES

The OpenGL team wrote in with this announcement:

The GL2 Workgroup has approved the draft version (865KB pdf) of the OpenGL Shading Language (glslang).

The recent trend in graphics hardware has been to replace fixed functionality with programmability in areas that have grown exceedingly complex (e.g., vertex processing and fragment processing). The OpenGL Shading Language has been designed to allow application programmers to express the processing that occurs at those programmable points of the OpenGL pipeline. Independently compilable units that are written in this language are called shaders. A program is a set of shaders that are compiled and linked together.

This current (nearly complete) draft of glslang is being released for comment. Discussions are welcome at the forum Suggestions for the next release of OpenGL.

We typically don’t attempt to cover Linux game development here, but Matt from mattsscripts.co.uk wrote in to share the code that he’s submitting for the LGP from-scratch project, which he calls “code counter.” What makes this interesting is that the code is designed to help other people who plan to also make submissions by making sure that their code also fits within the 2048 character limit that LGP specified.

An update has occured to the NeverWinter Nights Linux Client with the following interesting information.

We are about ready to go for the Linux Client Public Beta, but we are waiting on some standard commercial issues to be completed. This is a normal, expected step in publicly releasing material. This does not add any new obstacles or complications to the mix. It’s about as ready to go as can be from our end and after these commercial issues are finished up we will get it out to you. Sorry, but we cannot give you an exact time estimate right now.

[Preorder NWN @ TuxGames]

Bernd from Holarse wrote in to announce that they interviewed (German) Tim Johansson and Euan MacGregor from the FreeCNC team.

Bill Kendrick wrote in to point out an article at LinuxDevices.comannouncing the release of Intrinsic Alchemy, a game platform/toolset for Linux devices.

The Bonez Team wrote in to announce the development of their project Bonez Adventures(screenshots), a 3D RPG/Adventure game that will be available forLinux. There is no release date set.

eGenesis has released a native Linux client for A Tale in the Desert(screenshots). ATITD is an MMORPG in which your goals are to”advance in the seven disciplines,” and manage your your financial empire.The client is free, but the cost of playing is $13.95/month. There is a 24-hour (over multiple sittings) trial available.

ATITD Client download: eClient-linux.run

Well, folks. It has been decided that we’re wasting too much time andnews-space on LG announcing new versions of this game and that game tool. So,rather than post them all individually, like we have been in the past, we’regoing to start a digest of sorts and post a group of them once there are a fewin the queue. So, without further ado, here’s our first list in our resurrectedurandom post:

• Attal 0.6.2:changelog,screenshots,download
• FreeCraft2 030210:changelog,screenshots,download
• GCompris 2.1:changelog,screenshots,download
• KOTH 0.8.0:screenshots,download
• Kulic :screenshot,download
• Mojotron 0.9995:changelog,download
• Qmamecat 0.44.b45:changelog,screenshots,download
• QUB 0.7.1:changelog,screenshots,download
• Raptor 1.0.0:screenshot,download
• StarShooter3 :screenshot,download
• Tower Toppler 0.99.1:changelog,screenshots,download
• Trackballs 0.6.0:changelog,screenshot,download
• XMame/XMess 0.65.1:changelog,download
• xu4 0.5:changelog,screenshot,download

Michael Simms of Linux Game Publishing sent us the following announcement.

Linux Game Publishing isexcited to announce our newest project to increase the appeal of Linuxgaming. We are sponsoring the development of a from-scratch Linux title!

We are looking for developers to work in a team to produce this game,and we will be publishing the game they make! If you are interested,please follow the link to our detailed announcement and within there you will find the rules, requirements, and application process.

If you have wanted to get into the gaming industry, if you love playinggames, and if you are a creative thinker, not afraid of a challenge anda bit of risk, then you need to take a look!

Illwinter Game Design wrote in with this announcement:

Version 1.15 of Dominions from Illwinter Game Design was recentlyreleased. This is a small patch that fixes two newly discoveredbugs. Hopefully this will be the last Dominions patch this year as we are currently putting all our effort into finishing Dominions II.

A complete change log for version 1.15 and a fully playable demo can be found on www.illwinter.com.

[Order Dominions from TuxGames]

Version 1.28 of Orbital Eunuchs Sniper has been released, bringing on a slew of new changes to the 2D sniping game.

Semi-working menus have been added. Music from Pajama Crisis has been added, along with Ogg Vorbis support. Difficulty levels have been implemented. The images have been replaced with PNGs. The OS X and Linux/PPC versions now work (mostly). The logoscreen has been changed again to differentiate between versions. The gameplay remains unchanged, except where difficulty levels intervene.

Michael Simms of LGP sent in an announcement regarding the release of the first Ballistics screenshot.

It is just the intro screen, but as with Majesty we will add newscreenshots further through the game as the development progresses.

[Preorder Ballistics @ TuxGames]

Version 1.0.0 of the Puzzle Bobble-inspired game Frozen Bubble (screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3) has been released; changes include:

• added level editor
• single player game now comes with 100 levels (instead of 50)
• re-designed graphics
• two player game features the chain reaction mechanism as an option

Frozen Bubble 1.0.0 downloads: @ www.frozen-bubble.org

Enigma, a puzzle game reminiscent of Oxyd and Marble Madness, has been updated to version 0.70. Changes in this release include:

More than 70 new levels
Greatly improved mouse controls
Better graphics
Interesing new game objects like rubber bands and worm holes
Support for Oxyd’s sound effects (see README for details)

Stella, a Atari 2600 VCS emulator has been updated to version 1.3. The changelog is too long to post here, but can be reviewed on their news page.Also KStella 0.8.0, a KDE3 frontend to Stella has been updated. Changes with this release include the following:

Stella 1.3 required for this release
Large speed improvement in this release. A cache file was introduced so that if the ROM’s directory hasn’t changed since you last ran KStella, then the cache file is used, speeding up ROM analysis.
Many UI changes that reflect new options in Stella 1.3.
Made viewing of the preview window optional. Relating to this, the buttons previously associated with the preview window have been removed and placed in a menu.
Preview window has been greatly improved. It can now be resized to any size, and previews are much faster if using opaque window resizing.

Couple of updates from GtkRadiant, the popular map editor. First is an update to version 1.2.12 with updates to the Soldier of Fortune II, Jedi Knight II:Jedi Outcast and Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force support, and a new versionof q3map2 (2.3.38). Also there is a new expertimental GtkRadiant 1.3 setup for Linux. This does not change the outer view of the application, but an upgrade to the internal architecture. This is not backward compatible with the 1.2.x releases.

A new release of WineX Game Manager, a graphical enviroment for Transgaming WineX. Using this tool, WineX users will be able to have their own registry/configuation files for each game.

The Unreal Tournament 2003 Patch 2199 is now offical. You can download the file from 3D Downloads. Changes with this release for Linux include the following:

DE bonus maps that took 20% server CPU when idle no longer do so.
Fixed botmatch benchmarking scripts.
Added a “umodunpack” commandlet to ucc, to extract ut2mod files.

[Buy UT2003 from TuxGames]

Ultimate Othello from iOS software has released a new beta with network play with chat and multiple enhanced AI. Ultimate Othello is a enhanced version of the reversi game.