eyerouge sent in the following:
The next best adventure thing to hit Linux since ScummVM is the port of Adventure Game Studio runtimes. Now it’s almost too easy to download, install and start: Behold the Goddess that makes hundreds of free adventure games available with the click of a very few keys.
The roguelike game POWDER, which has graphics-based tiles and is biased towards fast play, has a new version available. The changelog is pretty lengthy, and includes the addition of a rapier, female character options, and a nerfing of the Soul Sucker. The website also has a beastiary and spell tome.
Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ zincland.com ]
GemRB version 0.3.0 has been announced; the project is an open source clone of BioWare’s Infinity Engine, which was used in many classic computer role-playing games. New features include:
It’s also noted that while there’s still a bit of missing functionality, Baldur’s Gate 2 in particular is playable. As for myself, I’m interested in finally being able to give Planescape: Torment a spin, having owned it without taking it out of the CD case for several years now :(
The physics-oriented sandbox game Phun is now at beta 3.12 (and by the time you read this, may have had another release – development has been moving rapidly). Recent changes:
The “game” aspect mostly consists being creative with your toolset; as an examples here are a trebuchet and a crazy traffic jam people have made.
AMD launched a new website to host the various docs they’ve released for their ATI-branded graphics hardware: Open GPU Documentation. New 3D acceleration reference material for the Radeon R5XX chipsets is included.
Also, Phoronix attended a FOSDEM session conducted by AMD, where their open source strategy to date and future plans were discussed:
AMD is looking at a possibility of a Linux hybrid driver. This would consist of some fglrx components being open-sourced.
Here’s another Linux on PlayStation 3 installation guide (Yellow Dog Linux specifically) from TweakTown:
There was a lot of noise in the beginning of the PS3’s marketing-hype-launch that the console would have Linux pre-loaded, but Sony came to their senses when they realized how much more work that was going to be for them. So we are left to figure this one out for ourselves. But don’t cry; Sony has not left us completely in the dark! The XMB menu system has an option to partition the hard disk and install another operating system which I will be guiding you through the use of in this how-to.
Phoronix has a brief article up previewing Linux Game Publishing’s new installer:
This new LGP installer is written to (finally) use the GTK2 toolkit, if it’s available on the target system, but there is fallback support for GTK1 and ncurses. With that said, this installer does look better than earlier builds.
The installer will be utilized in their next title, a Linux port of the space combat and trading sim X3: Reunion.
NVIDIA has released a new Linux display driver build, version 169.12, for Linux systems that utilize their graphics hardware. Here’s what’s new:
The README has more info on installation and configuration.
Download: [ nvidia.com ]
Version 1.2 of the Unreal Tournament 3 dedicated server has been released for Linux by Ryan “icculus” Gordon:
The GNU/Linux server for Unreal Tournament 3, version 1.2, is now available.
PLEASE NOTE:
This is NOT a complete package, only a patch. You do not need a retail copy of UT3 to host games, but you will need the full server installation and a GameSpy login, as discussed here.
There’s still no news on the client; at last report, it was being held up by the replacement of middleware. UT3 is a single player and multiplayer first-person shooter developed by Epic Games. Thanks to ThOR27 for the news.
Download: [ icculus.org ]
Rock, Paper, Shotgun pointed out the Love project, an artistic multiplayer game:
The game itself, dubbed Love (as in For The Love Of Game Development), is an exploration-based moderately-multiplayer FPS with astounding impressionistic visuals and a procedurally generated universe. Since Steenberg is a one man show, he’s relying on clever maths to build the world for him and then clever gamers to come in and help him figure out where to take it, and what to do with it.
So far he’s already populated it with weird animals and wondrous, gaseous visuals, and he intends to build the world into a kind of communal adventure, where gamers work together to furnish a central village, defend it from enemy attack, and explore the surround world and its many dungeons.
The feature list mentions possible Linux support; Love is also being developed with a myriad of open source tools described in detail at the Quel Solaar site.
The top-down perspective multiplayer shooter Bloodmasters has been released under the GPL (thanks Free Gamer). While there’s no Linux client yet, there is a Linux dedicated server, and now that the source code is available hopefully a game port will begin in short order. Bloodmasters features deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag and scavenger game modes.
Eurogamer has interviewed Hothead Games’ Ron Gilbert about Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, the Penny-Arcade-based adventure game/RPG:
“Through and through, this is going to be an authentic Penny Arcade experience,” he says. “It’s going to feel like playing the comic. So it’s something we think fans are really going to love.”
[...]
With his name attached, Penny Arcade Adventures is likely to attract fans of Gilbert’s previous games. But without the mind-boggling puzzles, are they going to be disappointed? “I think what they’ll get out of this is the humour,” says Gilbert. “A lot of people love Monkey Island because it is a laugh-out-loud game. I think this game absolutely has that. Jerry is probably one of the top five writers I’ve ever worked with. So I think Monkey Island fans are going to like the humour in this game, definitely.”
Ron Gilbert also created Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, and SCUMM, which lives on today in the open source project ScummVM.
This is relatively old news, but it’s interesting morning reading: the developers of BZFlag, one of the longest-running open source game projects, published an article detailing their experiences as one of the only game projects to have ever participated in Google’s Summer of Code:
Since 2005, Google has run an open source software development program specifically for students called the Google Summer of Code (GSoC). Under this program, Google funds students to write code for open source projects during the northern hemisphere’s summer timeframe. The student efforts are focused on projects that they themselves propose to projects such as BZFlag, sometimes catering to ideas that the project suggests or ideas entirely of the student’s own conception. Student proposals are then reviewed, evaluated, and ranked by the project.
[...]
BZFlag first participated during GSoC’s third year in 2007. A detailed after-the-fact discussion and analysis of BZFlag’s first-year participation is included in the article “Postmortem” Perspectives of a First-year Participant in the 2007 Google Summer of Code for BZFlag
The post-mortem discusses managing open source game development and lessons learned from the experience; their wiki also mentions they plan on participating in the 2008 GSoC, which is officially underway. Thanks to Plouj for the heads up.
Version 3.1.1 of Glest, an award-winning open-source 3D RTS project, has been released. Changes:
Linux users need to download the game data; you can then download the source code or use the official binaries, but the developers warn self-compiled executables have had a tendency to lose network synchronization in multiplayer.
Here’s something new: a non-Java or Flash-based browser game! Missile Fleet is a canvas-based real-time tactical game written with CAKE that the author, kig, says was inspired by this post on rapid game prototyping. Missile Fleet requires canvas support (you’ll need to use Firefox 2 or 3) and has 13 levels at present.
Battlefront.com has announced that DropTeam, a real-time tactical sim developed by TBG Software, now retails in their online store for $20 US:
To warm up the cold winter a bit, we’re dropping the price for DropTeam immediately! You can now save a whopping $15 off of the original release price across all delivery options!
DropTeam, set on various other worlds in the far future, includes single player against AI opponents, a multiplayer mode with up to 16 players, and a detailed damage system.
Demo Download: [ battlefront.com ]
The Nexuiz project, an open-source first-person shooter based on the DarkPlaces engine, now has a new website, which includes a media page and video showcasing the next release:
Scheduled to be released in the next two weeks, Nexuiz 2.4 will include an entirely new menu system, new content such as three new weapons models and two maps, and new effects for explosions and water/slime reflections. The release’s memory usage has been reduced, and numerous optimizations and new features have been added.
Name/Version: FreeLords Tech Release 0.02
Summary: FreeLords is a turn-based strategy game in the style of the classical Warlords. In short, you produce armies in cities and use them to conquer more cities and finally defeat the other players. However, we have already extended the game design, e.g. by introducing hitpoints for the armies.
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ FreeLords Tech Release 0.02 ]
Name/Version: Kudus 0.3
Summary: Kudus is a Suduko game for KDE. It can generate some very easy and some firndishly difficult Suduko games.
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ Kudus 0.3 ]
Name/Version: Loemu 0.3.1
Summary: Loemu is a free application that provides a simple frontend for various game emulators.
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ Loemu 0.3.1 ]
Name/Version: qscore 0.8.0
Summary: Parse Quake3:Arena (and compatible) server.log into high scores and statistics
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ qscore 0.8.0 ]
Name/Version: TuxFighter 0.54
Summary: TuxFighter is a little asteroids-like shooter game written in python/pygame.
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ TuxFighter 0.54 ]
Name/Version: Vamos – Automotive Simulator 0.6.0
Summary: Vamos is an automotive simulation framework with an emphasis on thorough physical modeling and good C++ design. Vamos includes a real-time, first-person, 3D driving application.
Screenshots [ View ] Download [ Vamos - Automotive Simulator 0.6.0 ]
Missed this earlier: AMD has released new ATI Catalyst display drivers for Linux; the release notes delineate the following changes:
Download: [ amd.com ]
Atomic Tanks version 2.8 has been released with the following changes:
The project is a remake of the classic game Scorched Earth, where artillery pieces lob shells at one another across varied terrain.
Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ sourceforge.net ]
