LINUXGAMES

A reader sent in a release announcement for Adanaxis:

Adanaxis is a space shooter like no other. It takes place in a world entirely different to everyday experience. As well as left/right, up/down and forward/back, there’s another direction in space – the fourth dimension. Objects phase in and out as your craft rotates into this hidden dimension. The game uses an all-new 4D texturing method to display the fluid rotations and motion that are possible in four dimensions. All ten degrees of freedom are available for mouse and joystick control, to create an environment different to any other game. A simple scanner system and tutorial make the game easy to pick up.

There’s a commercial demo available, and a note that GPL’ed source code will be released in the near future. The retail version can be purchased online for $18.95 US.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ mushware.com ]

There’s a bugfix release of Spring,the opensource real-time strategy game inspired by Total Annihilation.0.75b2′s changesinclude:

• Fixed possible crash while waiting for connection to the host.
• Fixed unknown net msg in read ahead bugs when large UDP packets were received.
• Fixed a crash when empty network packets where destructed.
• Fixed rapier like units being unable to attack enemy units.
• TargetBorder now takes the correct vertical distance into account.
• “.kick” and “.kickbynum” now just kick the given player instead of kicking everyone including the host himself.
• Game end condition is now fixed to check allyteams instead of teams.
• Added gui_xray_shader.lua widget
• Added gui_team_platter.lua widget
• Added camera_smooth_move.lua widget

You’ll want to read the SetupGuidefor Linux, although it’s still slightly out of date.

Screenshots: [ View ]Download: [ berlios.de]

Version 0.0.4 of irrlamb, a 3D game that involves physics and challenging gameplay, has been released. Installation instructions are available, although I haven’t found a changelog.

Download: [ google.com ]

The Bit Blot website has posted atongue-in-cheek video news update toannounce a Linux port of their 2D adventure game Aquaria. There’s some elaboration inthis forumpost:

The ports’ real at any rate. I should know, I haven’t slept in 24 hours. =_=

Aquaria features underwater exploration, character interaction, and a spellsystem; screenshots and a trailer can be found at the official website.

Queasy Games’ Jonathan Mak was interviewedrecently by Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal about his upcoming shooter, Everyday Shooter:

As forthe visuals, it all started when my friend Raigan introduced me to a gamecalled Parsec47 by Kenta Cho. At that time I had not yet seen Rez, so KentaCho’s work was the first time I saw geometric shapes celebrated so beautifullyin a video game. A couple years later, I saw many games emulate this style,but while they all captured the inherent sexiness of shapes, they ignored theinner beauty of geometry. What makes geometry and vectors so special is thatthe shape only exists as parameters to a function. Once you start modulatingthese parameters and connecting them to gameplay reactions, the shape beginsto take on a life of its own.

Parsec 47 was ported to Linuxby Evil Mr Henry, and Mak’s previous games are both available as well:

• Gate 88, aunique multiplayer real-time strategy game
• TojamThing, which focuses on inflating shapes for points

I also e-mailed Mak to see if Everyday Shooter would be coming to Linux:

All I can say now is thatEveryday Shooter will be coming out for PS3.

Should this change, we’ll keep you informed!

Speaking of drivers, Phoronix has postedcomparison benchmarks between Linux (Fedora 7) and Windows XP with two NVIDIA GeForce 8X00-class videocards:

When it comes to binary display drivers under Linux, NVIDIAis generally known as the company that’s able to offer drivers that are on parwith their Windows driver [...] However, with the GeForce 8 series we havecome across some unusual issues that are limiting the performance of theGeForce 8 series under Linux and Solaris. In this article, we have additionalinformation on these austere performance problems along with benchmarksshowing the frame-rate differences between Windows XP and Linux.

AMD has released version 8.39.4 of their ATI display driver for32-bitand 64-bit Linux architectures (although their website doesn’t appear to have updated with download links yet). Changes:

• The kernel modulebuild no longer fails on kernel version 2.6.22. Further details can be foundin topic number 737-28556
• Starting AMDCCC-LE no longer fails with a floating-point exception when started in certainconfigurations. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28557
• When playingvideos in I420 color format using the Xv extension and TexturedVideo (thedefault on R5xx), colors are no longer displayed incorrectly. Further detailscan be found in topic number 737-28558
• Runningaticonfig –initial in X with the Vesa driver no longer segfaults resulting inthe xorg.conf file not being available. Further details can be found in topicnumber 737-28559

Additional info can be found in the releasenotes; there’s also a FAQ page.

Download: [ amd.com ]

Edit: a reader pointed out that this release has been yanked; disregard!

Edit #2: the same version has been re-released with the Beta Testing watermark removed.

NVIDIA released a new build of theirLinux display driver forx86 and AMD64 architectures… uh, last month (whoops). Changes include:

• Added support for new GPUs:
• GeForce 7050 PV / NVIDIA nForce 630a
• GeForce 7025 / NVIDIA nForce 630a
• Fixed console restore problems in several different configurations:
• Quadro FX 4400 SLI
• VESA console
• Notebook LCD displays
• Improved interaction with ATi RS480/482 based mainboards.
• Improved support for House Sync with G-Sync II.
• Improved NVIDIA X driver interaction with ACPI daemon.

Additional info can be found in the README.If you have questions or issues, NVIDIA directs you to check their Linuxdiscussion forum, or e-mail linux-bugs@nvidia.com.

Download: [ nvidia.com ]

Version 0.3.019 of the CrystalSpace-based MMORPG Planeshift hasbeen released. It features 12 playable races, magic and skill systems, andnumerous quests. Changes:

• Content
  • Reached mark of 100 quests.
  • Complete review of quests, all of them are working in game now
  • Greatly improved dictionary of NPCs, and common responses
  • Added new creatures: derghir, tloke, kikiri
  • Made available variations of many creatures
  • Added dermorian female player character model
  • Added 4 Kran skins
  • Improved dermorian male character
  • Added plate armor for many chars
  • Added new skins for enkidukai clans
  • Added spell casting effects
  • Added lot of new items, like bludgeoning weapons, amulets, rings, plants
  • Added missing animations to player characters
• Engine
  • Shadows are now present under characters and objects!
  • Chat bubbles are used on players and NPCs during dialogs
  • Completely remade how inventory works server-side for more robust management
  • Enabled generation of random loot, you will see lot of new items!
  • Improved NPC movement and AI
  • Improvement to guild management (we will reveal more in the next weeks)
  • Improvements to sketches, you can now edit your own sketches
  • Improvements to books, you can now edit your own books

The site also has additional details concerning the game setting and gameplay.

Screenshots: [ View ]Download: [ planeshift.it]

The Free Gamer blog is devoted toproviding commentary for free-as-in-libreentertainment software. Project profiles and notices of new releases are amongthe content regularly offered.

A reader pointed out that Gears ofWar, Epic’s 2006 third-person action game, isboundfor Mac OSX. As UnrealTournament 3 will be releasedfor Linux and Mac OSX, I suppose there’s an outside shot of a Linux portbeing developed. That said, Unreal II(their previous single player focused title) was never ported,and Microsoft GameStudios was the original publisher, so I won’t be holding my breath for it :)

ManiacMarble3D has been released for Linux:

This OpenGL game is a remake of a well known game concept. The player has to guide a marble from the start to a target point in a 3D environment. The tricky part of the game is the constant fight against the gravity, because the marble has to be moved across small platforms in the sky.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ subliminal.at ]

GNOME Video Arcade is a simple xmame front-end for the GNOME Desktop Environment. What’s new:

• Relicense code under the terms of the GNU GPL v3.
• Program now uses an SQLite database to manage game information.
• Basic properties window with game history (if available).
• Remember configuration of columns in main window.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ sourceforge.net ]

Planewalker Games has posted anew article examining characterraces in their upcoming role-playing game The BrokenHourglass. There also other articles and screenshotsavailable. Micks profiledthe game here last year:

The game is powered by WeiNGINE, a new engine developed by PlanewalkerGames’ Westley Weimer after years ofexperience with modding the various versions of Bioware‘s Infinity Engine (see Icewind Gate II for one of hismore ambitious projects).

ArsTechnica mentioned that Mark Shuttleworth,founder of the Ubuntu Linux distribution,has announced Gobuntu:

Gobuntu, which will eschew virtually all proprietary software components, aimsto pacify critics who think that Ubuntu’s support for “non-free” software isdetrimental to users. Last year, the Free Software Foundation announced therelease ofgNewSense,an Ubuntu derivative without proprietary graphicsdrivers, proprietary plug-in components like Adobe’s Flash player, andpatent-encumbered proprietary media codecs. According to Shuttleworth, thegoal for the Gobuntu derivative is to “provide a cleaner and easier tomaintain base for projects like gNewSense.”

Shuttleworth says that the current focus is on hardware drivers, but moresignificant differences will emerge as the team grows. In his announcement,Shuttleworth asks for interested developers to participate by joining theGobuntu development team. “This is a call for developers who are interested inpushing the limits of content and code freedom—including firmware, content,and authoring infrastructure—to join the team and help identify places wherewe must separate out pieces that don’t belong in Gobuntu from the standardUbuntu builds,” says Shuttleworth.

I, along with what I suspect are most Linux gamers, at least run propietaryvideo card drivers to have acceptable performance withOpenGL-rendered titles. That said, Iwould prefer that there were viable open source alternatives, and to be fair,there have been a fair number of projects over the years with varying degreesof success. Today there’s Nouveau and xf86-video-avivo,which hopefully will become comparable to their closed-source counterparts.

Given the debate, I guess my questions to you are: what kind ofperformance hit would you be prepared to accept to switch to open drivers? Ordoes it matter at all? Do you think it possible that reverse-engineered projectscould ever exceed the performance of the official releases? Thanks!

Snowballz is a penguin-themed RTSgame where aquatic fowl duel in the snow where aquatic fowl duel in the snowover fish. Changes:

• Terrain height.
• Major optimizations using Rabbyt.
• Networking fixes.

The project is also looking for community assistance from Blender users and musicians.

Download: [ joey101.net ]

A new build of Spring, an opensource real-time strategy game inspired by Total Annihilation,has been released. The 0.75b1 changelogis extensive and includes many Lua-relatedimprovements.

There’s also a Setup Guidefor Linux, although it hasn’t been updated for v0.75 yet. There’s also a lotmore information about the game in this SomethingAwful forum thread.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ berlios.de ]

The third snapshot release of Java Classic RPG framework/engine is now available; the changes are:

• New plant model collection
• Day-night cycle with orbiters Sun and Moon
• Many changes in 3D core and render part
• Use of mipmapping for the textures

It runs with the Java Runtime Environment, and requires 300MB RAM and an OpenGL-accelerated videocard.

Download: [ sourceforge.net ]

Free Awale 1.1 has been released; this implementation of the African game can used in command-line mode or with a GUI written in Tcl/Tk.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ nongnu.org ]

Wine version 0.9.41, the free implementation of Windows on Unix, has been released. Changelog for this release includes:

• A number of gdiplus functions.
• More complete pdh.dll implementation.
• Support for MSI remote calls.
• Messaging support in crypt32.dll.
• Lots of bug fixes.

Download:[ Wine 0.9.41 ]