LINUXGAMES

Stendhal, a MMORPG which takes advantage of Marauroa, a multiplayer online engine server, has released a new version. Changes in version 0.56 of Stendhal includes:

• Adds Ados City with new people
• Non-offensive creatures have been implemented (like deer and elephants).
• Work on Marauroa 2.0 has begun in CVS. This release requires branch MARAUROA_VERSION_01_MAINTENANCE. Before updating a server to 0.56, you have to remove your data/script folder.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ Stendhal 0.56 ]

Version 0.2.1 of Mars, Land of No Mercy, a turn-based strategy game that takes places on Mars, has been released. This version has the following new features/changes:

• Now it’s possible to save screenshots in PNG (F4)
• Installation via scons
• Improved VFLIP (now it works during unit movements too)
• Improved the GraphicTracker (saving a lot of memory)
• Improved FOV system for diagonal views
• Improved data management for elements using XML files
• XML config files
• several fixes
• Santa-Mech (look for it around the scene…)
• X-MArS tileset

Download: [ Mars, Land of No Mercy 0.2.1]

DAGII, an reimplementation of Sierra’s Adventure Game Interpreter that will allow you to play games such as King’s Quest and Space Quest on modern computer systems, has been updated to version 0.3 Change and fixes in this release include:

• Large number of emulation bugs fixed
• More games added to detection database
• Game search paths are configurable and useful
• Inventory items are selectable and viewable
• Autoconf script is smarter
• Miscellaneous stability fixes

Download: [ DAGII 0.3 ]

SNES fans such as myself are thrilled about a new release of the popular SNES emulator, ZSNES This latest version, 1.50, has a huge changes list that can be found on their news page.

Download: [ ZSNES 1.50]

Version 1.7 of Super Mario War, a game where you stomp on as many “Marios” as you possible can to win the game, has been released. A selection of screenshots or downloads can be found with the provided links, for people who wish to give this interesting twist on Mario a try.

Mednafen, a command-line-driven multi-system emulator that supports Atari Lynx, GameBoy, GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance, NES, PC Engine(TurboGrafx 16), SuperGrafx, Neo Geo Pocket, and Neo Geo Pocket Color, has been updated to release 0.7.1 Changes in this release include:

• Began work on an experimental stdio interface, see drivers/remote.cpp if you are a frontend author and can read C code, though it is disabled for now. Documentation for it will be written when it is closer to completion.
• Switched to trio_snprintf() from snprintf() in the input configuration code, this should fix problems under Windows(and any other OS with a lame snprintf() implementation) with joystick button configurations not saving properly.
• Fixed parsing of the “sounddevice” setting(it was erroneously being compared to the long, descriptive name of the driver instead of the short name).
• PC-FX: More changes.

Download: [ Mednafen 0.7.1 ]

Wah!Cade, a front end for the M.A.M.E. arcade game emulator has been updated to release 0.16. Changes in this release include

• Default startup to fullscreen mode (this matches MameWAH behaviour)
• Better checks for image and movie files
• Layout Alignment, Transparency and Background colours are now supported
• History Viewer now has its own layout / skin (and it’s supported in the Layout Editor)
• Better keyboard support (many shortcuts added)
• Tons of bugs squashed

Download: [ Wah!Cade 0.16 ]

The ever prolific Avenger has made a new release of the Open Source clone of the Infinity Engine that is used in Planescape: Torment, the Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale series’. He and wjp are still hacking away for GemRB on Christmas Day.
There will be no pre-compiled builds anymore but user-made builds will be gladly accepted and put up for download.
GemRB 0.2.8 introduces:

• Equipment rendered both on paperdoll and avatar.
• Weather (snow/rain).
• Improved action menus.
• Improved game scripting (actions/triggers).

Download: [ GemRB 0.2.8 ]

RuneSoft announced the 3D adventure game Ankh to be in final testing stages and ready for shipment in 2006^H7, thanks to the successfull pre-order campaign.

The system requirements were announced as well:
Linux x86 with X11 installed and glibc 2.2 or better.
Minimum: 1 GHz processor, nVIDIA GeForce 4 series or Radeon 8×00/9×00, 256 MB RAM, 900 MB HDD.
Recommended: 2 GHz processor, nVIDIA GeForce FX series or better, Radeon 9500 or better, 512 MB RAM, 900 MB HDD.

Ankh is now also available for international pre-orders at Tux Games.

*Update*
Well what do you know? According to comments over at Holarse Ankh shipped already on December 22. Although quite buggy.

Phoronix already put together reviews on the new ATI driver release 8.32.05 and the newly supported X1950 Pro graphics card before the driver was released.

They also made a first look at the current state of Nouveau, the reverse engineered Open Source 3D drivers for nVidia graphic cards that will be integrated soon in X.Org 7.3 and the next Fedora Core release.

Several readers wrote in to let us know about ATI releasing version 8.32.5 (release notes) of their Linux display drivers. Release highlights:

• X.Org 7.2 Release Candidate 2 Support, 7.2RC3+ will not work out of the box.
• ATI Radeon X1650/X1950 Support.
• The ATI Mobility Radeon X2300 is now being properly identified when viewing the OpenGL renderer string. Further details can be found in topic number 737-24428.
• Switching between X Server and text console mode no longer results in a system failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-24421.
• Corruption is no longer noticed when setting the texture sampler’s filter to GL_NEAREST. Further details can be found in topic number 737-24429
• The Extended Display Identification Data is now displayed for Display Data Channel display devices in the X Server log. Further details can be found in topic number 737-24422.
• The ati directory is now removed from /usr/share when uninstalling the graphics driver using the fglrx-uninstall.sh uninstall script. Further details can be found in topic number 737-24423.
• Installing the graphics driver and configure the driver for dual-head mode no longer results in the operating system failing to respond when hot-unplugging the display device and restarting the X Server. Further details can be found in topic number 737-24424.
• Starting the X Server in dual-head mode no longer requires the DRM kernel module to be present. Further details can be found in topic number 737-24425.
• Catalyst Linux 8.32.5 provides improvements in the Tripos SYBYL performance. Further details can be found in topic number 737-24426.

Download: [x86 | x86_64]

Phoronix wrote in to let us know about their year in review articles for nvidia and ATi graphics cards.

When he isn’t filthying my picnic chow, Ant writes in to let us know about the newest releases of the nvidia linux driver release, version 1.0-9746 (x86 README / x86-64 README). This release adds support for the GeForce 8800 GTS and GeForce 8800 GTX boards.

NVIDIA Driver 1.0-9746 Download: [ x86 | x86-64 ]

To bring in some extra Christmas spirit, someone has point out Pinch ol’ Santa to us. Game description is as follows:

Pinch ol’ Santa 2 is a small Christmas game made by SwordLord - the coding crew. It is Christmas Eve and the time is nearing 9 o’ clock in the evening. There can only be seconds until Santa starts to deliver his parcels to the chimneys of your town.

You look through your window, out of your room at the roofs of a town somewhere in Switzerland. As you admire the lamps and the scenery in general, you see Santa. And there he is, running across that roof on the left of your window.

Looking at Santa you get an idea: Maybe if you pinch him now, he will lose a parcel or two which you then can take for yourself. You open the window and start to Pinch ol’ Santa.

Download: [ Pinch ol' Santa ]

Version 6.02 of Alien Arena 2007 has been released An enormous amount of new features, optimizations and functionality have been added to the game. Some of the more notable changes include:

• Real time lighting on models(both world and dynamic).
• Huge client side optimizations that increase framerates.
• UT style reward system(killing sprees, etc).
• Tons of server enhancements, such as warmup periods, improved anti-camp, frag countdowns and much more.
• Joust mode option(similar to Q3 excessive jousting).
• Splash damage on plasma weapons, allowing for insane trick jumping, and faster rockets!
• Security/anti-cheating improvements.
• Much improved team joining mode, as well as an autoteam feature.

Download: [ Alien Arena 2007 ver 6.02]

From the frozen tundra of Wisconsin, I have received news of a new version of Wine, the famous free implementation of Windows on Unix. Changes in this release:

• OpenGL in child windows should work again.
• Better mouse support in games.
• Beginnings of new state management in Direct3D.
• Improved audio and font support on Mac OS.
• Lots of bug fixes.

Download: [ Wine 0.9.28 ]

Making use of the Stratagus engine 2.2.1, a new release of Battle of Survival has been announced. New features include Guichan menus, improved UI, image-based map system, new units and new set elements.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ Battle of Survival 2.0.1 ]

TuxGames is now offering gaming computers preloaded with Linux Game Publishing games:

Tux Games has now started stocking the Tux Games Games Machine. This is a computer preloaded with all of the LGP games, and coming in four different flavours ranging from the modestly priced and specced Vanilla flavour, to the extremely tasty chocolate flavour.Loaded with Fedora Core 6, and twelve full games, this is the ideal next computer!

An announcement for Nuts& Scrap, aplatform arcade game aimed at the casual gamer, reached our inbox. The game includes elements of a graphical adventure title, and features 3D pre-rendered graphics, a soundtrack, and a story about two robots whose mission is tosave the human race.

The game is by the Spanish indie game-making companyDevilishGames, and wonone of the jury’s mention awards in the Spanish “ArtFutura” video game creationcontest, sponsored by Sony. Due to the success of the Win32 andZetaOS versions, they are now releasing “Nuts & Scrap” for Linux on Intel 32-bitprocessors.

You can download a free (as in beer) demo, or purchase the full game for$12.45 US.

Download: [ devilishgames.com ]

A reader alerted us to two chess project revisions: glChess is now at version 1.0 andhas become part of the GNOME desktopenvironment. Also, PyChessversion 0.6.0 beta 2 is available, which adds a tabbed interface.