LINUXGAMES

Name/Version: Childplay 0.81.7
Summary: Childsplay is a ‘suite’ of educational games for young children. This release adds support for the new game called letterFlashcard. It’s a game to teach the alphabet to very little children.
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ Childplay 0.81.7 ]

Name/Version: etvis Initial Release
Summary: etvis is a demo viewer/commenter for wolfenstein: enemy territory
Download [ etvis Initial Release ]

Name/Version: KnightFight Initial Release
Summary: KnightFight is a Java-based game in which you, the Bronze Knight, must take on the Black Knight in battle. Complete with goofy Pythonesque sound clips, it is intended as a parody of Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat-type games.
Download [ KnightFight Initial Release ]

Name/Version: Shipwreck 1.0 beta 4
Summary: Shipwreck is a game in which you and the computer both have 5 ships which must collect treasure without crashing into ships, islands, or going off of the screen. The wind may blow you off course, and some ships are more resistant to wind than others. The game ends when either all ships of one team are gone or all treasure is collected, after which the amount of treasure both teams have is counted and the player with the most treasure wins.
Download [ Shipwreck 1.0 beta 4 ]

TeleFragged has posted another set of some amazing shots from Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, which is being developed by Splash Damage. This collection includes concept art and some in-game screenshots.

The online Linux retailer Tux Games sent in the following news:

Tux Games now lets anyone list their Linux games on the site via ournew ‘Used and New’ system. You can sell duplicates, or old games youno longer play.

The release of Outgun version 1.0.3 has been announced, which adds features and fixes the bugs found in 1.0.2 while remaining compatible with the previous 1.0 versions. Upgrading is recommended for players and server admins. Changes:

• Changeable font. Some alternative fonts by Huntta are included.
• Resolutions down to 320×200 are allowed because smaller fonts make them usable.
• Some visual changes to the game screen: new scoreboard style and more room for the minimap in large resolutions.
• Support for a background image. One has been added to the Metal theme.
• New server options to delay the flag return, to require a minimum score difference to winning by captures, to limit the number of powerups that can be carried, and some others.
• Eight new maps by Huntta, :(, coiote, and Miague-DH; and a theme called Ice by Huntta.
• The Linux dedicated server no longer uses Allegro, which means it can be run without root access even on servers without X.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ Outgun 1.0.3 ]

Version 0.104 of xmame/xmess has been released. Changes in this release include:

• Everything from MAME 0.104 and MESS 0.104
• The “-Wdeclaration-after-statement” switch is no longer enabled by default in the makefile, since it’s only available in GCC 3.4 and later.
• Performing “make install” now installs tools such as romcmp and chdman.

Download: [ xmame and xmess 0.104 ]

id Software’s Timothee “TTimo” Besset updated his .plan file to announce that the id engine level editor GtkRadiant has been released under the GNU General Public License:

GtkRadiant is now available under GPL license, along with some Quake II tools which we never got a chance to put under GPL before. Head over to the qeradiant website for all the details.

I want to personally thank everyone who has been contributing to the project over the years, specially Randy Reddig ( ydnar ) and William Joseph ( spog ) for the many hours they’ve put into this. And thanks for sticking to my word that eventually we were going to be able to place radiant under a more “open” license.

The website update has some additional info:

A tarball of the initial release is available from our ftp server, and the development website now holds a subversion repository with the GPL code. We expect development on the editor to continue as usual, and hope that many new developers will join us :-)

Speaking of, version 0.9.8 of Wine, the ubiquitous open source Windows API implementation, has been released. Gaming-related changes include better Direct3D support; additional info can be found in the release announcement.

Download: [ Wine 0.9.8 ]

Version 5.1 of Cedega, the gaming-oriented implementation of the Windows API that grew out of the Wine project, has been released by TransGaming Technologies. Changes (from the release notes):

• TransGamers can now enjoy playing Sid Meier’s Civilization IV, FIFA 06, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted.
• Layout updates and improved internationalization support for the GUI.
• Improved system autotection.
• Improved Safedisk copy protection support.
• Support the full range of resolutions reported by X under Cedega. This is of particular interest to those with widescreen monitors.
• Sound playback improvements for both OSS and ALSA, as well as DirectSound voice capture fixes.
• Improved installer support.
• Variety of graphics improvements, bug fixes and updates.
• Added a virtual memory manager which eliminates the need for the MemoryLayoutOverride fix for World of Warcraft and Medal of Honor.
• Fix for the current version of the Steam Installer.
• Mouse fix for problems in Star Wars Galaxies after a recent update.
• Fixes for X-Wing Alliance and Planetside.
• Japanese and Belgian keyboard fixes, contributed by Aric Cyr and Stephane Bolland.
• Fix for inverted pallette monochrome bitmaps contributed by Oldrich Jedlicka
• Integration of the cabinet and powrprof DLLs from WineHQ.

Download (subscribers only): [ Cedega 5.1 ]

The TO: Crossfire site has been updated with screenshots of the Raging Bull pistol, video of the OBJ-CaspianSea.to2 map, and a link to a new webcomic. There’s also an English translation of an interview Macinplay.de conducted with the dev team.

TO: Crossfire is a tactical-themed FPS being developed by the Tactical Ops mod team with Unreal Tournament 2004.

Alientrap Software has released version 1.5 of Nexuiz, an open-source first-person-shooter based on the Quake 1 source. Changes:

• Many new gamemodes, new maps, new characters
• “Instant Action” button in menu
• Advanced Bot AI
• Redo of all the character skins (pant/shirt color like Quake1)
• Completely new menu
• Majority of sound effects redone
• Smoother netcode
• Engine optimizations

The developers also note that this is a major upgrade over previous releases, so try it out if you were put off by previous builds.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ Nexuiz 1.5 ]

After 2 years after the last release, the FreeSCI project has given us 2 releases: one stable and one unstable. Changes in the stable release include:

• GP32 port and WinCE port (Walter van Niftrik and Ismail Khatib, respectively)
• A game selection screen (by Hugues Valois)
• Per-resource shading, to allow manual fine-tuning of SCI game graphics
• Background image drawing optimisations
• Many, many bugfixes

The unstable release includes improvements to the new sound subsystem, a mark-and-sweep garbage collector for the virtual machine and the usual allotment of bug fixes.

Downloads: [ FreeSCI 0.3.5 ] [ FreeSCI 0.6.2 ]

A new version of the reverse engineered and vastly modified engine for Transport Tycoon Deluxe has been released recently.
Improved multi-player, newgrf, autoreplace and countless other fixes/features have been added to OpenTTD 0.4.5. Also included is a package of 16 new scenarios.

Screenshots: [ View ] Downloads: [ OpenTTD 0.4.5 ]

After ten months, a new version of The Ur-Quan Masters has been released. This project is improving the completely GPL’ed scifi adventure/arcade game Star Control II.
Featuring:

• A searchable starmap.
• A new scaler based on HQ2X.
• Many graphics replaced with the DOS counterparts which used richer palettes.
• Planets are shown more accurately to the original.
• Improved setup menu that also saves the changes now.
• Unicode is mostly supported.
• Onscreen keyboard for use with joystick.
• Bugfixes and internal changes, see WhatsNew.

Screenshots: [ View ] Downloads: [ The Ur-Quan Masters 0.5.0 ]

We have received this press release concerning Alien Arena 2006: Gold Edition

COR Entertainment officially announces the release of Alien Arena 2006: Gold Edition, the free online multiplayer FPS game at http://red.planetarena.org

The new version of the game features a host of new features and improvements, including 9 new maps, alt-fires for every weapon, a brand new vehicle(hovercraft), increased visibility, and improved bot AI. Alien Arena 2006 GE has five gamemodes, including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, All Out Assault, and Deathball, as well as five different mutators that can be applied.

The game now uses version 5.0 of the CRX engine, which has made dramatic advances since the last release. The list of improvements is extensive in regards to appearance, adjustment, and optimization. In addition to extensive shader support, detail textures, emboss filtering options, and adjustable bloom have been added. The new particle engine is not only more appealing to the eye, but more efficient, resulting in better framerates.

Players can play online against one another, or offline against bots in a tournament. Newcomers to the genre will be thrilled that the easy skill leveled bots are more suited to them, while veterans will be enthralled with the “Nightmare” bots that will rocket jump, strafe jump, dodge, and taunt them mercilessly. Included in the installation is the full source code, as well as a tool to configure custom bots. As always, in addition to the ingame server browser, we have also included the Galaxy external browser for windows.

Download: [ Alien Arena 2006: Gold Edition ]

A new beta version of KXmame , which is a KDE frontend for X-Mame, has been released. Changes and new features in this release include:

• Support xmess using the same simple kxmame-1.x interface. It’s as simple as selecting your game console, double-clicking your rom file to launch a game. Individually zipped roms are supported.
• Overhaul of kxmame navigation using joystick. Without touching keyboard or mouse, you can use your joystick to browse the game list, the filter list, launch a game, switching between xmame/xmess executables, launch alternative emulators. The joystick buttons used for these tasks can be customized in the menu. (The default button settings are for my PS2 pad, so it mightnot work with other joystick).
• Crudely support alternative emulators for xmess. See the file “alternative.dat” included in kxmame source for details (kxmame offers no controls over the video, audio or input settings of alternative emulators). Using this file, you can even trick kxmame into running emulators for systems that are not supported by xmess yet.
• Many other smaller provements: more meaningful error messages, slightly more efficient memory usage, better context menu, allow disabling video preview in “configure kxmame”.

Download: [ KXmame 2.0 beta ]

zborgerd let us know that Ryan ‘PorkLock’ Gordon announced that the Alpha test for the much anticipated “game” Second Life is now open to the public.

Linden Lab’s Second Life is an persistent world in where you get to make every object yourself with the help of an editor. There are a lot of crazy ideas realized in this world. And beware the furries.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ Second Life 1.8.3.9 ]

Version 8.22.5 of ATI’s display driver for 32-bit and 64-bit x86 Linux systems has been released. Changes in this release include:

• ATI Proprietary Linux Driver now supports Linux Kernel 2.6.15.
• Creating 22 or more display configuration mode lines in the X Server configuration file no longer results in a fatal server error.

As always, Phoronix went in more detail and has conducted a test.

Download: [ ATI Driver 8.22.5 ]

Name/Version: enemy lines 6 1.0
Summary: With visual systems malfunctioning all you have left for navigation is some particle detector. You have to reach your pickup zone before system failure. Basically you have to navigate through a 3d environment in first person view while the only thing you see are a few dots of the walls here and there. Don’t bump into the walls too often – you can’t take much more.
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ enemy lines 6 1.0 ]

Name/Version: NGStart 2.1.8
Summary: NGStar is a clone of a HP48 game called dstar. The goal is to catch all gifts in the level to get access to the next one. Use the ball to catch them, use the cube to stop the ball. The ball only move to the next obstacle (wall or cube).
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ NGStart 2.1.8 ]

Name/Version: Planetoids Initial Release
Summary: Planetoids is a game similar to bejeweled. The player must swap jewels to create combinations, including power and hyper jewels.
Download [ Planetoids Initial Release ]

Name/Version: ScummVM 0.8.2
Summary: ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. Changes in this release include a fix for a crash that was introduced shortly before 0.8.1
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ ScummVM 0.8.2 ]

Name/Version: Turnracer Build 1
Summary: Turnracer is an free (GPL) Turn-Based racer game for GNU/Linux and other UNIX look-alikes. Now includes a Level Editor in this release.
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ Turnracer Build 1 ]

Name/Version: XZero 0.0.0.4
Summary: A simple board- / logic-game. Its what we played at school using mathpaper
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ XZero 0.0.0.4 ]

Runesoft has released a demo for Northland, a strategy game developed by Funatics Software that features unit/structure management and adventure-style riddles. The full version has sixteen missions (eight of which are part of the main story campaign), which chronicle Bjarni the Viking’s quest to save his homeland.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ 3D Downloads ]

Another Worms clone has been brought to our attention this week, this one called Wörms of Prey.
New features and changes in this release include:

• re-established synchronicity when mixing different architectures
• improved command line help
• fixed wrong behaviour of client when connecting to Internet server
• new keys: fps display (default: F9) and toggle fps limiter (default: F8)

Screenshots: [ View ] Downloads: [ Wörms of Prey 0.4.1 ]