LINUXGAMES

TransGaming has done an update to the Kohan Series to fix some startup issues that users have been experiencing and added support for glibc 2.3.

Fans of Scorched Earth may find Scorched 3d of some interest. They have begone a port using SDL which will allow great flexible for them in the future. I can personally admit to wasting my childhood on the original game.

We received the news last week that Linux Game Publishing has released their version of Candy Cruncher, the addictive puzzle game from Pyrogon. The game comes in DVD packaging, and has a suggested retail price of £10.00, which inside sources tell me is around $15 USD.

You can pick it up from any of LGP’s resellers, including TuxGames and LGP’s online store.

James Hills has sent a press release announcing that A Tale in the Desert, a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) from eGenesis, will launch on 15 February 2003 with a native Linux client alongside the Windows client. It is reported to be the first MMORPG to launch with a native client for Linux, and is most certainly the first Linux game to feature hot polygonal chicks in what appears to be ancient Egyptian garb. Like other MMORPGs, ATitD allows you to control a character with stats and an inventory. Unlike the rest, however, there is no combat. Instead you complete tasks (called “tests”), manage a network of businesses, and become reknowned for creating great works. They compare this style to the gamplay of Illuminati and Diplomacy. The game involves a story, which is revealed as you play, and when the story ends, so does the game. The client will be downloadable before the launch of the service on the 15th, and provides a free trial period of 24 hours of online activity or a month of service (whichever comes first). After that time, you’ll have to pony up $13.95 per month to keep playing.

It is worth noting that the game will require a 3D accelerator. I’ve not seen anything yet on how well it works under Linux with the various cards available.

But wait, there’s more! The online service is provided by a cluster of nine commodity PCs running Red Hat 8 and the LGPLed library Cal3D was extended by eGenesis during the creation of ATitD to include tangent space calculations (for environment-mapped bump-mapping). Their new version is called eCal3D. Other Linux tools used for the port were The GIMP, zlib, libpng, and (unsurprisingly) gcc.

For our German readers, we’d also like to point out that there will be a German-language server provided by MDO Games. For more information, head on over to Kemet.

You’re still here? Well, perhaps you’d like some screenshots? How about the FAQ? Or this hot page of downloads?

Harjula pointed out a new source release for an existing commercial game, Enemy Engaged: RAH-66 Comanche Versus Ka-52 Hokum by Razorworks. Although I’ve never heard of this game, I have one data point indicating that is was a pretty decent game. You’ll find a link to the source code along with other resources at the download section of the page. The source release at least makes possible a Linux port by a flock of dedicated Linux combat sim fans.

Note that you should read the LICENSE.TXT file before throwing yourself into the code. My quick read over the license, which Marv extracted for me from the Windows-centric zip/exe package, makes it sound like you’re free to modify the source as long as you (a) do not distribute improvements without redistributing their license with it (b) do not profit, or allow anyone else to profit, from the source code, binaries, or improvements made to either, and (c) give any and all improvements back to Razorworks. I realize that most of you come to LinuxGames reguarly to obtain legal advice, and I thank you for that, but I’d like to remind you that IANAL^*; read the license yourself and then decide if you want to play by their rules.

Without a doubt, the original game is required for doing most anything useful with this, but it still appears to be for sale online. Perhaps check your local game store bargain bins before purchasing online.

And, should you wish to hook up with other people looking to work on the source you’ll find a “Now What?” thread on the SimHQ forums along with the original announcement.

^* IANAL means “I am not a lawyer”. That’s dirty enough. Don’t make it any worse.

GPL Arcade Volleyball version 0.7.1 has hit the street. This release fixes mainly collisions and AI behavior in multiplayer mod.
Download

X-Mame/X-Mess version 0.65.1 has been released. This contains MAME 0.65 and the latest CVS build of Mess, so this is not the final 0.65 release of Mess.Changes with this release include the following items:

Removed support for the ALSA 0.5 plugin.
The default path for data files in the example rc files, docs, and several scripts is now more FHS-compliant.
Disabled XScreenSaver support because it can cause the game window to not open when running in KDE.
Reworked makefile.unix with the intent of making it a bit clearer and easier to tweak.
hdcomp now builds via “make -f makefile.unix tools”.

According to this news update on the Soul Ride homepage, the engine for the snowboarding sim has been released under the GPL. A project has been setup for the engine on SourceForge.

Remember that even though the engine is GPL, the game’s data still remains proprietary.

There’s an interesting little bit of discussion on the DirectXDev mailing list about the usefulness of DirectPlay to developers given a world in which many servers run Linux. Especially worth noting is this post from Tim Johnson, on why they won’t be using DirectPlay in production. Tony Cox of Microsoft Sports (and former DirectX fame, if my memory serves me) responds here, and then a follow-up by Andrew Grant of Climax appears here.

A true geek goal in life is to get posted on SlashDot, which is the reasoning behind X-TuxX-Tux is a gaunlet style game featuring open-source mascots which will run on various platforms. New featuers/changes in this release include:

Fixed Denial of service attack on server.
Added mouse control (now you can use FPS-likecontrols)
Added Chainsaw weapon & Bill Gates baddie to cut upwith said weapon.
No longer requires server to be started as a separateprocess.

Nvidia tweakers should be happy about the new release of YanC(Yet another nV Configurator) This version has the following changes:

Fixed critical storage bug
modules.conf support included (Side Band Adressing, AGP Fast Writes etc.)
Simple NVClock integration included (available if NVClock is present onyour system)
added Dutch localization
added Turkish localization

IVAN, a graphical roguelike game, has been brought up to release 0.401. Changes with this release include:

added lightning effects
added several new artifact and regular weapons
added floating eye
it is now much easier to gather nutrition
many abuses prohibited
explosions are now stopped by walls
corrected a fatal bug in the door breaking code
corrected many non-fatal bugs
decreased IVAN’s RAM usage greatly
doubled IVAN’s compile speed

The weekly update of the NeverWinter Nights Linux Client has occured with a very long and detailed update:

Bugs. Dammit.

[Preorder NWN @ TuxGames]

Probably of one of my personal favorite games to play, Serious Sam: The First Encounter has been updated to Beta 2. Bugs that have been fixed in this release include the following.

- Rocket launcher reports ammunition correctly, instead of being stuck at 50 or 100. Fixes Bug #243.
- Mouse input now “grabs” correctly when going from full screen to windowed and back. Fixes Bug #382.
- Viewpoint shouldn’t “jump” when returning from console/menus/chat/etc anymore. Fixes Bug #282.
- Launcher script should respect symlinks better. Fixes Bug #280.
- Beta expirations updated for another month. Fixes Bug #361.

Pending bugs include “can’t kill last boss” and “fall through the floor” bugs are still there with work arounds stated in the README. You grab it VIA loki-update or download the following filesssamtfe-beta2.sh.bin

Version 0.2.0 of the turn-based strategy game FreeLords (screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3) has been released; changes include:

• updated to work with ParaGUI 1.0.3
• compiles fine with gcc-3.2
• uses standard autoconf/automake process now
• uses libsigc++ for signal handling now
• implemented loading/saving of games
• capitals (players first city) are evenly distributed on the map
• rewrote MapGenerator in C++ (at least 10 times faster)
• added a dialog to configure settings of random maps
• added gold report
• work started on multiplayer network mode again
• changed XML structure of armyset file
• all armytype pictures of an armyset are now combined into a single picture
• documentation updates
• bugfixes

FreeLords 0.2.0 source: freelords-0.2.0.tar.gz

Version 0.7.0 of the Arcade Volleyball remake GPL Arcade Volleyball (screenshots) has been released; changes include:

• networking game, in client/server mode
• modified collisions
• several themes
• selectable “larger” background
• adjustable frame rate and frame skip values
• configurable end score
• vintage monitor effect

GAV 0.7.0 downloads: gav.sf.net/download.php

Version 0.96r002 of the Open Source 3D Engine Crystal Space (screenshots) has been released. This version adds a significant optimization in the OpenGL renderer and includes various bugfixes.

Crystal Space 0.96r002 downloads: @ crystal.sf.net

Version 0.2 of the Quake 2 source port/enhancement Quake2Forge has been released; changes include:

• major refresher segfault fixed; video refreshers can now be switched in the game just like you expect
• RPM and Debian (CVS only) packaging support
• X11 key repeat bug fixed
• joystick support for Linux
• updated documentation.
• bugfixes

Quake2Forge 0.2 source: quake2-0.2.tar.bz2

News Source: The Linux Game Tome

Version 0.6.2 of the NVIDIA overclocking utility Nvclock (screenshot) has been released; changes include two bugfixes: one for miscalculated speeds and the other for broken multiple card support.

Nvclock 0.6.2 source: nvclock0.6.2.tar.gz

Version 0.90 of the racing robot programming game RARS (screenshots) has been released; changes include:

• KDE 3.0, 3.1 support
• new column in board with the CPU taken by the car
• bugfixes

RARS 0.90 source: rars090_2.zip