LINUXGAMES

A few DOOM 3 modteams have requested help recently:

• derean of the competition mod team Orange Smoothie Productions posted arequestfor assistance on their forums:
  

  Since id software dumped their platform independant system along withQuake3, it’s ever so hard to develop for multiple platforms with id Gamessince we need to build each port on the targeted platforms (one for windows,one for linux, and one for mac if it were ever supported).

  I personnaly can only develop under Windows so I’m looking for someone who canbuild, debug and test the mod for Linux.

  If interested, contactOSP with references via e-mail. OSP’s mods for previousid Software titles were routinelyused in tournaments and such.
  
  

• A reader relayed a request for help from the Doom3Fortress team in a commentearlier this week; several positions (including coding, scripting, andmapping) are open, so hit their homepage if you’re interested in signingup.
  
  
• Finally, the Last Man Standing teamis looking for a full-time coder; interested parties can postin this forum.

As always, you can find documentation on DOOM 3′s SDK from id at their id.sdk site.

Fans of Tux Football will be pleased with the rebirth of their 2D football game which follows an old style of play. This, in my opinion, should be called Tux Soccer as I am an American and follow a true football team.

Download: [ Tux Football ]

Our fellow Telefragged-hosted siteLinuxEmu has noted thefollowing releases recently:

• Osmose version0.5, a SegaMaster System emulator.
• DOSBox version0.63, a DOSemulator.
• ARAnyM version0.8.11beta, anAtari ST/TT/Falcon OS emulator.
• RAINE version 0.42.0, a M680x0 arcadeemulator.

Epic Games has updated the officialUnreal Tournament 2004 sitewith a trailer for the Make SomethingUnreal contest’s 4thPhase; the overall grand final winners will be announced soon. The mods showcased are:

• Domain 2049 – future-themed teamcombat
• Deathball – sports-themed arenacombat
• Frag.Ops – team shooter with RTSelements
• Chaos UT – chaoticdeathmatch, just like the name implies
• Air Buccaneers -airborne pirate-themed combat
• Alien Swarm – top-downcooperative multiplayer against NPC aliens
• Clone Bandits – post-apocalyptic team combat
• Metaball – singleplayerpuzzle/action
• Red Orchestra – WWIIteam combat
• Unwheel – vehicle racing
• Uskaarj – a RTS game
• Lawdogs – Wild Westcombat
• Robostorm -transforming giant robots
• The Infiltrators -machinima
• Troopers – Star Wars-themedcombat

You can download the trailer here;although it has an .EXE extension, it’s a Bink movie that can be played withRAD Game Tools’ LinuxBinkPlayer.

Epic has also released a new UT2004 dedicatedserver package, which allows admins to run servers for the game withoutthe retail version. You’ll have togenerate aCD-key for your server for players to be able to find it in the browserlist.

UT2004 Dedicated Server Download: [ beyondunreal.com]

Other stuff:

• The Red Orchestra team made a forumpost to comment on the server lag some players have experienced withversion 3.1.
• The Frag.Ops team have released a version 2.15 patch;changes includethe addition of the RAH-66 Comanche assault helicopter.
• The UTXMP team hasannounced thattheir first public beta will be released on December 10; themod adapts the gameplay from Unreal 2′s Expanded Multiplayer addition.
• HamsterBash PR4 wasreleased last week (screenshots),which has players competing as hamsters in rolling spheres.

  [ Download ]

Thanks to BeyondUnreal for the above news items.

GamersInfo.net has posted a review of Lux, a Java-based strategy game inspired by Risk. The multitude of game boards and replayability are among the topics discussed.

A reader let us know that a new project, Hammer of Thyrion, has forked from Anvil of Thyrion to continue development on the Hexen II Linux port. Changes include new features, bugfixes, and documentation.

Hammer of Thyrion 1.2.1 Download: [ sourceforge.net ]

HLA Adventure version 2.32 has been released; HLA Adventure is an open source, public domain adventure game with over 220 rooms, 30+ items and monsters, and several distinct worlds to explore. Written in Randall Hyde’s High Level Assembly (HLA), the game runs under xterm, konsole, rxvt or other command line shells; the game was also mentioned at Slashdot earlier this year.

HLA Adventure 2.32 Download: [ tripod.com ]

id Software’s Timothee Besset updated his .plan file to announce the release of DOOM 3 version 1.1.1286 this afternoon:

There are new GNU/Linux binaries for Doom3 on the ftp and the BitTorrent tracker. This build is compatible with the previous release, brings a number of bug fixes and new sound code. Alsa and multichannel sound output are now supported.

No GUI changes were made in order to remain compatible with the first release, you will need to set some cvars on the command line to configure your sound:

set s_driver to best, alsa or oss. (best will just try alsa and fallback to OSS otherwise )
set s_numberOfSpeakers to 2 for stereo, 6 for multichannel sound ( whatever your actual number of speakers may be ).

For instance:
doom3 +set s_driver alsa +set s_numberOfSpeakers 6
will start doom3 using the Alsa sound backend in multichannel mode

notes about OSS:

The Linux kernel comes with the OSS/Free API, which works great in most cases but lacks multichannel support. You can download a binary OSS/Linux implementation from 4Front Technologies. To sum up, the drivers are ‘free for non commercial use’. You can use them to play Doom III. They have great multichannel support, and that’s the drivers I used to develop the OSS backend.

Thanks to everyone who helped testing this build .. and thanks for the positive Linux feedback emails we’ve been getting.

DOOM 3 v1.1.1286 Download: [ idsoftware.com | BitTorrent ]

Brendon Chung has released the first singleplayer DOOM 3 mod I’m aware of: Pathways Redux, which was inspired by the classic Bungie title Pathways Into Darkness. The mod is Linux-compatible and takes place during a special forces mission to the Yucatan, so check it out :)

Brendon has also released other content for DOOM 3 over the past few months: a singleplayer map called Barista 3, and Facer, which demonstrates NPC facial animation scripting. There’s a Doom3World discussion thread about Facer here.

Pathways Redux Download: [ 3D Downloads | FilePlanet | FileShack ]

Timothy Miller sent in the following concerning his Open Graphics project, which we first mentioned last month:

I noticed that someone had posted a news bite here pointing to my post on the linux kernel mailing list where I mentioned the idea of developing a graphics card which would have full open-source support. I just thought I would mention that this has turned into a full-blown project and it needs your support. Visit http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics, check out the mailing list, read the spec, and vote on the petition!

HomeLAN Fed has posted new information from the print magazine Computer Gaming World concerning the upcoming DOOM 3 expansion pack, Resurrection of Evil, which is being developed by Nerve Software (thanks Shacknews). Slated to debut are new weapons (the previously announced double-barrel shotgun and a grabber gun are among them), new monsters (including the classic DOOM 1-style flaming skulls), and a few new multiplayer maps. The singleplayer campaign is currently slated to have around 11 levels.

ATITD.net, a news site for the community-oriented MMORPG A Tale in the Desert, pointed out that the Fumeology skill was added in a recent update. You can see a screenshot of the Pharaoh smoking with players here.

Moreover, eGenesis is looking at releasing a 14-track CD of the music Heavy Melody produced for the game.

linuX-gamers.net pointed out that the latest newsletter from the Illarion’s developers mentions that a Linux client is planned. Illarion is a roleplay-heavy multiplayer fantasy RPG (screenshots).

This announcement came in this week:

ConsoleOS, a project hosted at Sourceforge, has started and is aiming to develop a user-friendly, simple Linux gaming platform. They are looking for developers and would appreciate any help. Check out the website @ http://consoleos.sourceforge.net/.

Lightkey pointed out that Wyrmkeep Entertainment has announced that they are developing a SDL-based port of Labyrinth of Time, a classic adventure title released in 1993 by Terra Nova Development. The port is in beta testing and should be released for Linux in early December.

Wyrmkeep also recently released Inherit the Earth for Linux.

Ryan “icculus” Gordon has announced the release of Unreal Tournament version 3339 for Linux:

An official 3339 patch for UT2004 is now available for all platforms.

The Mac version will install the Editors’ Choice Bonus Pack with the patch (it’s okay if you previously installed it, though).

The Linux version needs 3339 installed AFTER the Editors’ Choice Bonus Pack, since it fixes issues in the BP. If you install the Bonus Pack after 3339, you’ll break your installation…in such a case, just reinstall 3339 over top of it. You must apply 3339 after the Bonus Pack. The Editors’ Choice Edition disc (on sale now!) installs the Bonus Pack by default, so you can just drop 3339 on top of that without fussing.

UT2004 v3339 Download: [ icculus.org ]

UT2004 ECE Download (if you don’t already have it): [ icculus.org ]

A Slashdot article on Play By E-Mail gaming reminded me of Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, which was ported by the now defunct Loki Software to Linux years ago. I still play SMAC PBEM games semi-regularly, so I’ve posted a thread in our forums to gauge interest among LG regulars in getting a game started. Feel free to post in the thread to discuss game rules, setup (factions, etc.), and teams.

A reader let us know that KaPooka, a logic game that uses the SDL library, has been updated to version 0.2. Interface buttons for back, forward, and first/last levels are among the changes.

KaPooka 0.2 Download: [ sourceforge.net ]

Queasy Games let us know that they’ve released a new beta of their multiplayer action/RTS game, Gate 88 (screenshots). The update fixes many of the fatal errors found in the previous beta; moreover, the keyboard and gamepad controls are now customizable.

Gate 88 Beta 20041119 Beta Download: [ queasygames.com ]

Version 1.1.3 of Vendetta Online was released to subscribers of the space combat MMORPG this week; changes include a new mining system, which is described in this manual section. Other changes include:

• Damaged ships are now auto-repaired on docking
• License tests are now both free and automatic
• AI for bots and NPCs has been dramatically improved