A new roguelike project, Tactical Rogue, was brought to our attention. Tactical Rogue aims to have autogenerated content with an emphasis on strategy, and will be developed withSDL. There are dev screenshots available, and you can download the current source tree (for testing, as there hasn’t been an initial release yet) via svn.
There’s been a few developments on the PlayStation 3 front:
BeyondUnreal posted news that Midway Games and Epic Games have announced Unreal Tournament 2007 will now be released as Unreal Tournament 3 (presumably UT2003 and UT2004 are counted together as “UT2″). BeyondUnreal also has a hands-on preview with impressions from a recent Midway press event.
UT3 utilizes Unreal Engine 3; favorable comments by Epic’s Mark Rein during E3 2005 (in the context of PS3 development) imply that Epic will be continuing it’s historical support for Linux with this title.
Alien Arena 2007 version 6.03 has been released by COR Entertainment. Alien Arena is a stand-alone freeware deathmatch game which now features 35 maps, 11 characters, 8 weapons each with an alternate firing mode, 5 modes of gameplay, mutators, and a retro sci-fi theme. Changes include:
An accessories pack with 95 maps and 123 skins created by the Alien Arena community has also been made available. Alien Arena utilizes the CRX engine, which is based on id Software’s various GPL’ed engine releases.
Download: [ planetarena.org ]
Linux.com let us know that the desktop-oriented Linux distributor Linspire has announced plans described as a new “CNR for all” warehouse. Click ‘N Run is Linspire’s one-click installation program that downloads software, resolves dependencies, and installs and removes applications. While CNR is currently available to users of its commercial distribution, Linspire, and its free cousin, Freespire, the company plans to release an open source plugin that will allow users of both Red Hat and Debian-based distributions to install software uniformly.
The press release elaborates a bit:
The new multi-distribution CNR technology standardizes the installation process for the user without requiring a new or altered packaging system. CNR uses standard .deb and .rpm files, while shielding the user from the complexity of these packaging systems. This allows developers to continue using their same packaging methods, and the different distributions can continue with their normal release management practices. By building CNR around existing packaging systems, it also brings the silos of tens of thousands of quality Linux applications immediately into the CNR system. CNR adds server and client side intelligence to overcome any dependency challenges presented by the current packaging systems, but without the need for altering these ubiquitous systems.
CNR.com will also bring more choices for users to purchase premium products and services, such as legally licensed DVD Players, Sun’s StarOffice, Win4Lin Pro, CodeWeavers’ CrossoverOffice, TransGaming’s Cedega, as well as numerous other commercial software applications from various categories including, media playback, personal and business productivity, finances, virtualization, development tools and games. CNR will also allow users quick access to multimedia codecs and hardware drivers, bringing one-click support for MP3, Windows Media, Quick Time, Java, Flash, ATI and nVidia graphics, and so on.
Linux.com also has some quotes from the Debian project about this news.
Gamix, which was established to provide an open game platform, has announced the availability of Basesystem Beta 3, a Mandriva-based Linux build that facilitates the creation of boot CDs so developers may create Gamix versions of their original software. There are also specifications available for the proposed system.
Download: [ tradebit.com ]
A reader pointed out this Linux.com review of Super Gamer:
I was intrigued when I heard about SuperGamer, a beta live DVD based on PCLinuxOS. The DVD includes, in demo version for the most part, 3-D shooters America’s Army, Doom 3, Postal 2, Cube, Enemy Territory, Nexuiz, Quake 4, Soldier of Fortune, UFO: Alien Invasion, and Wesnoth. Unfortunately, my SuperGamer/PCLinuxOS experience was as bad a Linux experience as I can remember having.
A remake of the classic DOS-games stunts, Ultimate Stunts, has been updated to version 0.7.0. This release now has a track editor that can be used to modify existing tracks.
Download: [ Ultimate Stunts 0.7.0]
Version 1.5.1 of ZSNES , a Super Nintendo emulator, has been released. The massive changelog can be found on their news page.
Download: [ ZSNES 1.51]
Version 0.9.30 of everyone’s favorite free implementation of Windows on Unix, Wine has been released. Changes in this release include:
Download: [ Wine 0.9.30 ]
Fellow LG poster, Lightkey, has mentioned the new release of his favorite game currently, Help Hannah’s Horse In this arcade style game, you collect pills and carrots while avoiding ghosts in a pac-man style game.
Download: [ Help Hannah's Horse 0.2b ]
Crimson Fields, a tactical war game in the tradition of Battle Isle, has been updated to release 0.5.1. Changes in this release include
Download: [ Crimson Fields 0.5.1]
The WorldForge project has announced that Cyphesis version 0.5.11 has been released; Cyphesis is a small to medium scale server for WorldForge games, with built-in AI. This version includes the demo game Mason which is currently in development. This release is intended for server administrators wishing to run a Mason server and World developers developing new worlds or game systems. Changes include:
Download: [ worldforge.org ]
A new release of Tribal Trouble has been announced. This version 1.6 focuses on making the reactions and behavior of the units a lot better. The changes in this release include:
Download: [ Tribal Trouble v1.6 ]
We have received this press release on Blood Toll Beta, a game based on the open source Cube engine.
Blood Toll Beta is an innovative new first person shooter that allows players to compete online for real money. The game works by having each player buy in to enter a level, then for each player that you eliminate you get their buy in fee. The game uses the innovative open source Cube engine allowing for a download size below 15MB. It is completely free to download and users can either play for “play money” or make a deposit with their credit card and play for “real money”
Download: [ Blood Toll Beta ]
A reader pointed out the puzzle-platformer game “and yet it moves“, which was developed as a game concept for a mediainformatics course held by the Institute for Design & Assessment of Technology at the Vienna University of Technology. The download page states the Linux version is coming soon; in the meantime, screenshots can be found here.
Alex Mac notified us about his Python-based game Lander:
Because its all done in SVG level designing is easy, just fire up inkscape and start drawing!
Help with the artwork is greatly needed, you can tell it’s “programmer art” from the screenshots.
Screenshot: [ View ] Download: [ alexmac.cc ]
We have received this press release on the Thousand Parsec announcement of an AI Programming Competition
Would you like to take a shot at game programming and win some cool prizes? Thousand Parsec, an open source game project aiming to create 4X space empire building strategy games (similar to Stars! and Galactic Civilizations), is running an AI Programming Competition. Code in C++, Python and Ruby is preferred, but you can use any other language.
Interested programmers who have spare time may wish to get involved in this as the prizes including the grand prize of the following: $AUD 300 in cold hard cash, “Artwork of Thousand Parsec” Wall Calender, Signed Thousand Parsec T-Shirt and Custom Thousand Parsec Mug.
The second place winner of the “Really Awesome game competition” of Fantasy Land – Medieval Village Manager has been ported over to Linux. You can check out this thread to see more information and few some screenshots of this game. Summary of the game:
You have been raised to the rank of baron in the Kingdom. Therefor you have been given a medieval village to manage. Within the boundaries of the village you can build buildings and adjust some parameters on how people behave within the village. You job as Baron of the village is to keep everyone happy and the village as prosperous as possible, remember all the time that your village is in a wild and rugged area, with raiders and highway men being constant problems. The king of course expects his Tithe each month as well.
Download: [ Fantasy Land - Medieval Village Manager ]
Chronic Logic has announced a new demo as well for their 2D Jump’n'Bump game Gish where you control a ball of tar with the focus on the physical implications one brings. Now it includes the Turbo mode that is on by default in the full version as well.
Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ Gish demo ]