LINUXGAMES

A blog has posted a review of Beginning Game Development with Python and Pygame: From Novice to Professional, which introduces game development with the pygame library:

Although this book is less self-contained than some older games programming books, it does contain a massive amount of information and certainly promotes the Open Source idea of community interaction and makes you think about solving problems for yourself while providing the technical knowledge required to get started.

Version 0.9.52 of Wine, the free implementation of Windows on Unix, has been released. The changes in this release include the following items:

• Improved graphics tablet support.
• Support for RPC context handles.
• Fixes for some longstanding screen depth issues.
• Implementation of “My Network Places” shell folder.
• Lots of bug fixes.

Download: [ Wine 0.9.52 ]

Hero of Allacrost, an open source single player role-playing game, had a version 0.2.1 release this month. New features:

• You may now have multiple characters in your party, and hence in battles
• Support for saving and loading the game has been added
• Game settings (display, audio, key and joystick mappings) are now saved and restored automatically
• Treasure chests have been added to maps
• The ability to run in map mode is now active, along with a stamina bar that depletes while running
• The menu layout for battles has been improved
• The shopping interface has been vastly upgraded, and now sports a new “shopping cart” like functionality
• Upon entering a map, an introductory text and location graphic are displayed briefly
• We now support interactive dialogues in maps (e.g., you can select a response in specific conversations)
• Various updates to the party menu screen
• Audio playback quality has been improved greatly
• OpenAL-based audio engine

It’s also noted that this will be the last tech demo for the project, and future work will be focused on complete game demos.

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

Adventure Classic Gaming conducted an interview this week with the developers from Frictional Games about their adventure/horror game series Penumbra:

Jens Nilsson: For us it has been a goal to have the horror in the unknown, not only because we believe it’s a good way to create horror but also because of financial limitations. We simply do not have the funds to create complex visual scenes so we try to replace that with more subtle insinuations. Having the player as defenseless as possible and adding looping eerie sounds seems to work well to create a constant horror effect in the game.

It’s also stated that the final game in the series, Penumbra: Black Plague, is slated to be released in the first quarter of 2008.

Version 0.5.2 of Crimson Fields, a turn-based tactical war game with single player and multiplayer modes, is out:

• Added animation effects when moving and choosing targets
• Improved portability
• Updated translations: de, fr, pl

Screenshots [ View ] Download: [ seul.org ]

A trailer for the next Skulltag release has been posted, promising, among other changes, improved Linux support for the popular DOOM engine multiplayer game:

Linux users can now play in OpenGL mode! Let the celebrations begin. They will be able to enjoy all the wonderful features that this brings. We welcome all our new Linux users and hope you continue playing Skulltag for a long time to come.

Mod DB is conducting voting for their 2007 Mod of the Year awards through January 1st; readers are to whittle down a list of 100 mods to the top 5. Here are the Linux titles on the list this year:

• Released
  • BSG: Beyond the Red Line
  • Tremulous
  • Warsow
  • World of Padman
  • Urban Terror
  • Paintball 2 (Quake 2)
  • Killing Floor (Unreal Tournament 2004)
• Upcoming:
  • The Dark Mod (Doom 3)
  • Wheels of War (Enemy Territory: Quake Wars)

Vitetris, a terminal-based Tetris clone, is at version 0.3.4:

• Fixed missing flush of output when winner is shown in 2-player mode.
• SIGWINCH signal is now handled, which means that terminal resizing can be detected without using Xlib.
• The position line under Top Scores now shows up when score qualifies for the highscore list.

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

A new version of Mother of all Gravity Games has been announced. In this game you pilot a small space ship thru different caves by using thrusters and rotation of your ship. The big reason for this release is the conversion from SDL to Java.

Download: [ Mother of all Gravity Game 1.90 ]

S2 Games posted an update today on the Linux port of Savage 2, the mixed-genre sequel to Savage: The Battle for Newerth:

I wanted to keep the Linux community updated: The Linux client will be delayed shortly after the Windows launch. More details to follow in the next couple weeks.

The game will be released for Windows on January 16, 2008.

AtomicGamer has new screenshots from Penumbra: Black Plague, the first-person survival horror game being developed by Frictional Games as a sequel to Penumbra: Overture. The first game in the series was released for Linux earlier this year; a demo is available, and you can order the full retail version online.

Linux.com profiled Risk-inspired games earlier this month:

How are GNU/Linux users preparing for Linus Torvalds’ plan of world domination? By playing free software computer games based on the classic world conquest board game Risk. You can perfect your strategy by playing the games XFrisk, TEG, or Ksirk.

Moreover, Sillysoft has several variants of their Risk-derived game Lux available:

• Lux Delux – features 400 different maps, AI opponents, online multiplayer with rankings, a map editor, and a SDK.
• Ancient Empires Lux – focuses on conflicts between early civilizations.
• American History Lux – recreates American conflicts from the colonial period to the present day.
• Devil’s Brigade Lux – created for a television documentary on the 1st Special Service Force.

• Quake 4 Maximiser, a competition mod, hit version 0.80 to add a SuperHud, multiplayer bots(!), and new menus. Additional informantion can be found in the changelog.
• Quake 4 Run adds an emphasis on acrobatics such as trickjumping by implementing run timers. Five maps are included; there’s also a speed competition that ends on December 31^st.

The first mod for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars that I’m aware of has been released: Quake Wars: Tactical Assault:

Quake Wars: Tactical Assault is a revamp of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars’ core gameplay, with the intention of creating a grittier, more realistic environment than the base game, while still telling the story of the Strogg invasion of Earth.

• Strafejumping eliminated.
• Head and neck hit locations’ damage multipliers increased slightly.
• Unscoped/unironsighted weapon spreads increased(accuracy decreased).
• Weapon damages against players increased.
• Weapon damages against vehicles and deployables decreased.
• Player respawn times increased.
• Vehicle respawn times increased.

You’ll want to get the base 0.1 release and the 0.11 Linux patch.

Download: [ servequake.com ]

Chronic Logic has announced a new version of their award-winning tar platforming game Gish, which has the requisite bugfixes:

• added support for more screen resolutions
• added non 4×3 screen resolutions
• changed Gish “Sticky” graphics
• changed the damage from being crushed so you don’t die from falling as much
• added support for pasting the registration key

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ Demo | Retail ($19.95 US) ]

Kotaku recently pointed out Passage, a short game developed for the gamma 256 event, which was created to encourage experimental gameplay. After you play the game, read the creator’s statement. You’ll need the SDL library to compile the source code.

Edit: Doh, jvm mentioned it earlier this month. Welp, here it is again!

Download: [ sourceforge.net ]

Thanks to many readers for pointing out that Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion is now available for free from the independent game developer/publisher GarageGames:

Released in the spring of 2004, DH: Lore has enjoyed a loyal following and in preparation for the upcoming release of the next generation of Lore games we are giving Invasion away for free across the supported platforms.

With this change Max Gaming is proud to be turning over release of community generated patches to the Skunkworks mod team, who along with the Ambassadors core has keep the community going for the last year.

You can download your a copy of the game from GarageGames.com at http://www.garagegames.com/products/29 . For those using Linux you will still need to have a serial number which is available for free from GarageGames.com (USE THIS SERIAL NUMBER: RYD6-B2AM-6K6C-MRY4)

This does officially end the support of Lore: Invasion by Max Gaming, even though we will keep the login server up and running, along with the dedicated servers for a indefinite time frame.

ENJOY!!!! and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

NOTE: We will be releasing a new Linux installer soon, the legacy installer seems not to work on some distributions.

DH: Lore Invasion is an action-oriented FPS/mecha game which was named as a finalist in the 2005 Independent Games Festival Competition. Max Gaming also recently announced that they are developing a sequel to Dark Horizons for the browser-based InstantAction service from GarageGames, which brings us to a semi-related item…

Shacknews is reporting that GarageGames has inadvertently revealed a Tribes-like game for InstantAction:

Unprotected links on the InstantAction.com website, a browser-based gaming platform in development by GarageGames, have today lead to the discovery of several alpha-level videos showing off the company’s upcoming team-based online shooter. A source close to GarageGames stressed that the videos–depicting Tribes-like combat on an alien world–represent early work, and were meant for internal use only.

Unfortunately, this blog post from a Torque SDK developer states that they are uncertain if InstantAction will support Linux at this time, but we’ll keep our eyes open for any updates.

Dark Horizons Download: [ garagegames.com ]

The Frozen Sand development team have released version 4.1 of their ioquake3-based multiplayer tactical shooter, Urban Terror. Changes:

• Working IP ban system
• Duplicate name protection (the trade of is that you can’t use spaces in your name anymore though
• Removal of white skins
• New/updated maps
• Updated UI and default settings
• /rcon players command, returning map/score and per player: name, team, score, ping, IP
• No votes within first 60 seconds of a map
• Fixed hit bug when crouching and moving
• Several spawn locations fixed
• Negev reload exploit fixed
• Power slide physics exploit fixed
• TDM scoreboard not updating fixed
• in-game browser now remembers your sorting preferences
• Short names won’t mess up the healtbar anymore
• A problem with blood (fps bug?) fixed
• sr8 gets 5 bullets again, but unzooms when getting hit with 15% damage
• spas does less damage and knockback when getting hit by it is lower
• ump does more damage
• psg back to 8 bullets and chest hits bleed out

Download: [ urbanterror.net ]

The Enemy Territory Community site has an update regarding the upcoming 1.4 patch:

We know you’re all waiting eagerly for the 1.4 update to be released and I’ve got a brief status update for you. Quality Assurance testing has turned up a few issues with 1.4 that need to be addressed before it can go out the public. One of them is specific to ATI cards, so we’re working closely with the guys over at AMD / ATi to get this resolved as quickly as possible, while also making sure that the rest of the update is as solid as can be. We don’t expect this to be resolved before the new year, so we’re now aiming to release 1.4 in early January 2008.

Despite the update not being out in time, we here at Splash Damage and id Software would like to wish all of you fantastic holidays and we hope you have a great 2008!

Edit by Crusader: While we’re at it, here’s what to expect in the patch:

• New User Interface Features – new server browser, HUD complexity toggle, end of match statistics
• Basic Training for New Players – voice over tips for bot mode training
• Auto-Downloading – support for downloading third-party maps/mods from servers
• ETQW:TV – spectator mode for tournament matches
• Gameplay Balance Improvements – improved headshots, deployable hacking, and vehicle damage models
• Networking Update – fixes for ISP and memory leak issues

NVIDIA has released a new Linux display driver build, version 169.07. Here’s a truncated rundown:

• Added support for GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS 512 and GeForce 8800M.
• Added CUDA driver to .run file.
• Improved modesetting support on Quadro/GeForce 8 series GPUs.
• Fixed several X rendering issues.
• Improved support for interlaced DVI, HDMI, and HDTV modesetting.
• Fixed stability problems with some GeForce 8 series GPUs.
• Fixed stability problems with some GeForce 6200/7200/7300 GPUs multi-core/SMP systems.
• Fixed a problem with Compiz after VT-switching.
• Improved display device detection on GeForce 8 series GPUs.
• Improved usability of NVIDIA-settings at lower resolutions like 1024×768 and 800×600.
• Improved GLX visual consolidation when using Xinerama with Quadro/GeForce 8 series and older GPUs.
• Worked around a Linux kernel/toolchain bug that caused soft lockup errors when suspending on some Intel systems.

As usual, the README has more granular information on installation and configuration.

Download: [ nvidia.com ]