LINUXGAMES

A new version of turn-based strategy Hedgewars is out. This version 0.9.9 has the following items in the changelog:

• Voicepacks, customize your teams voice!
• Nice new visual statistics page after the match
• Precise aiming, hold shift to aim more accurately
• Improved lobby chat
• Remote Control Plane weapon
• A couple of additions to customization content, (i.e. grave / fort / hat content)
• Additional sound effects
• Various tweaks and bug fixes

Download: [ Hedgewars 0.9.9 ]

This post was submitted by jay.

Caster The Game is looking for someone to help port the game to Linux and setting up a cross-distro distribution method and provide support for the game. ‘Porting’ the game will be relatively easy – the game was originally developed on Linux, and then ported to Windows and Mac. The developer(s) just don’t have enough time to setup and support the Linux distribution, so they’re willing to let someone help them with that. On the distribution side, support should be available for the mainstream distributions (OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora) and any that the developer would be familiar with. A human-friendly method of installing and updating the game is preferred – so .debs and .rpms, or a graphical MojoSetup installer would do, but a text-based shell script wouldn’t. A portion of the game’s Linux sales will go to the maintainer – so if you’re seriously interested, please drop a line.

This post was submitted by vadi4.

Version 1.8.0 of Eternal Lands, a free MMORPG, has been announced. Changes in this new release includes the following items:

• Horses and support for running.
• A few new items.
• Improvements over the UI.
• Bug fixes.
• Some 2d, 3d and animation artwork improvements (bigger textures, some broken objects fixed, etc.)
• Some harvestable resources have been moved around a little.” – Entropy

Download: [ Eternal Lands 1.8.0. ]

An updated demo of Eschalon: Book I has been released. This release focuses on number of outstanding issues and improved stability in the game with a full changelog available on their forum.


Download: [ Eschalon: Book I DemoVersion 1.05]

The latest development release of Wine, the translation layerapable of running Windows applications on Linux and other POSIX compatible operating systems, has been released. Changes in this release:

• Freedesktop.org-compliant startup notifications.
• Many fixes for 64-bit application support.
• Improved graphics support in Internet Explorer.
• Various Richedit improvements.
• Better certificate manager dialog.
• Various bug fixes.

Download: [ Wine 1.1.13 ]

COR Entertainment, LLC has released version 7.21 of it’s open sourced freeware game, Alien Arena 2008!

Version 7.21 features another long list of enhancements, bugfixes, and as always, some new arenas in which to frag in. Some of the new features include new GLSL water shaders, skybox cloud layers, improved particle/event effects, vegetation shaders, improved in-game server interface, and much more.

For a condensed changelog visit – http://icculus.org/alienarena/changelogs/7.21.txt

To read about Alien Arena, see new media, and download the game visit http://red.planetarena.org

This post was submitted by irritant.

Version 0.8.0 of FreeCol, the turn-based strategy game based on the old game Colonization, has been released.
Changes in this release include:

• Ability to define gameplay mechanics using XML-files
• Units now slide between tiles while moving.
• New terrain graphics.
• Menu music added.
• Sound effects for dragoons, artillery capturing a colony, building
  complete, church and blacksmith.
• New sound effects for artillery and buying/selling goods.
• Short music clips for Aztecs and fountain of Youth.
• Named regions and nicer placement of native settlements.
• New nations added: Portuguese, Swedish, Danish and Russian
• Games with up to eight European players are now supported.
• A lot more new features and bugfixes.

Download: [ FreeCol 0.8.0 ]

RPG Vault has posted a short article about the upcoming sequel to the 2007 independent RPG Eschalon: Book I by Basilisk Games, along with two new screenshots. Although no specific release date has been announced, the game is expected to be released this year, and, like its prequel, it will have a native Linux version.

This post was submitted by paramnaesia.

Koonsolo announces that their upcomming game Mystic Mine will be released in February 2009. You will be able to purchase the game through the Koonsolo website.

The game introduces a whole new concept that nobody has seen or played before. Its most remarkable features are:

• Levels with an impossible optical illusion
• Play with a single button
• Multiplayer with up to 6 people on 1 keyboard

Subscribe now to the Koonsolo newsletter and get notified when Mystic Mine is released.

This post was submitted by koonsolo.

Version 1.9.0 of FlightGear, an open source flight simulator, has been released. Major new developments and features in this release includes the following:

• Major overhaul of the graphics code. FlightGear 1.9.0 makes use of the OpenSceneGraph library
• Easy setup of multidisplay systems using multiple OpenSceneGraph “Cameras” driven by one single instance of FlightGear.
• Multithreaded 3D model loader leads to much smoother performance
• New particle system based precipitation code
• configurable XML particle animations for smoke, spray, fire, etc
• New dynamically configurable 3D Clouds.
• pick animations, which allow for better clickable instrument panels
• multiplayer specific on-screen menu
• AI code can generate wingmen
• At selected airports, it is now possible to start at a predefined parking position, as an alternative to starting at the runway.
• Support for Lighter than air vehicles
• Shader based tree rendering. This new feature allows For much denser tree density without any frame rate loss.
• Support for jpg and png textures
• A new multikey command mode, where multiple key strokes can be combined to form a command.
• Detailed buildings at various airports and major cities around the world
• Scenery can be kept up-to-date by downloading it from and SVN repository using TerraSync
• Over 200 Aircraft are now available for separate download.

Download: [ FlightFear 1.9.0 ]

This post was submitted by jay.

Paintown, an open source fighting game in the same genre as Streets of Rage and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, has been updated to version 3.2
Changes in this release include:

• Python scripting module added
• More options added to the menu
• Added player Wolverine
• Game takes screenshots while playing
• Network mode more reliable
• Players have score

Download: [ Paintown 3.2 ]

Gambatte, which focus on being an accuracy-focused, cross-platform Game Boy Color emulator, has been updated to version 0.4.1. This release has the following changes:

• MBC2 ROMs not getting any SRAM in 0.4.0.
• Major audio/video timing improvements
• platform-specific audio/video improvements

Download: [ Gambatte 0.4.1 ]

NVIDIA has released a new Linux display driver build, version 180.22, for 32-bit and 64-bit x86 Linux systems that utilize their graphics hardware. This is the first Linux display driver in the 180 series. New features are listed after the break.

The README has more info on installation and configuration.

Download: [ nvidia.com ]

Read the rest of this entry »

Version 3.1.0 beta of Angband has been released. This is the first release in 10 months with the main features of this release from the user’s point of view are the improved UI and the reduction in monster drops. The large change-log can be found here


Download: [ Angband 3.1.0 Beta ]

Ars Technica has an article responding to the Wolfire Blog post advocating that indie game developers support Linux and OSX:

Lastly, bad code creates an obvious technical boundary that prevents cross-platform gaming from being a normal occurrence. “Even if you have used some proprietary technology that is only available on Windows, like DirectX, a Linux superstar can still salvage it if your code is nice and has reasonable abstraction,” explained Jeff. “However, if your code is terrible, the porting process will not be easy. But porting your game to other platforms is not easy if you are not familiar with them. Just the act of getting a Linux machine up and running, and getting familiar with new developer tools is too much of a barrier for most people.”

There’s also some criticism for the Linux-friendly game distributor Greenhouse for their lack of responsiveness to inquiries from Wolfire, who are developing an action-adventure sequel to Lugaru called Overgrowth.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, a roguelike game where players seek the Orb of Zot, had a new release with bugfixes and interface improvements (changelog):

Also, Stone Soup won Ascii Dreams Roguelike of the Year award.

Download: [ sourceforge.net ]

Kotaku reported recently that React!Games has acquired the license to the classic Atari title Archon: The Light and the Dark:

We are moving as fast as possible to get it out by fall 2009 (at the latest). Our goal is to get it out on all the platforms, but the only ones that are “officially announced” are the PC, Mac, Linux. Please tell everyone to register on the forums and give us your two cents…we are using the forums to help guide us in making this game for the fans. So every opinion counts!

You can follow their progress at the dev blog.

Illwinter Game Design released a patch for the turn-based strategy game Dominions 3: The Awakening since last we mentioned it; changes include:

• New spirits to summon for Jomon: Ujigami, Mori-no-kami, Kenzoku, Jigami, Gozy Mezu.
• R’lyeh dreamlands suffered from the same problem as Ermor once did. Dom-kill rate now multiplied by 5.
• Battle enchantments did not expire when leaving the battlefield by unusual means (e.g. being immortal
• and getting killed), fixed.
• Shape changing could result in incorrect magic item loss, fixed.
• Wishing for a non unique item could remove too many items from the world, fixed.
• Game could crash due to too many large units on the battlefield, fixed.
• Crash during turn generation fixed.
• Improved cheat detection.
• Many random events have some fixes.
• Some rituals can now only be cast in certain terrains: Hidden in sand – waste, Mountain Vila – mountain,
• Cloud vila – mountain, Leshiy – forest, Nushi – swamp, Shedim – waste, Seirim – waste.
• Hinnom PD reduced
• Hinnom start army reduced
• Hinnom Popkillers gives some unrest.
• Ba’al eat Melquart event reversed.
• Onmyo-ji has got a fortune teller ability and battle summons.

You can also follow future patch changes at the dev blog. If you’re not familiar with the game, this “Let’s Play!” thread at the Something Awful forums is a good primer.

Download: [ shrapnelgames.com ]

Two annual independent game awards are spinning up to recognize the best projects from last year:

• Mod DB’s 2008 Mod of the Year Awards have begun; you can vote on nominees such as Warsow, Wheels of War, and World of Padman. The second round of voting will begin on January 17^th, and the final winners will be announced at the end of February.
• The finalists for the 2009 Independent Games Festival have been announced, which include the native Linux games Dyson, an abstract real-time strategy title, and the previously mentioned Between. There’s also a few Flash games: Coil, IncrediBots, and You Have To Burn the Rope.

Esquire Magazine posted an article profiling the author of Passage, Jason Rohrer (thanks ohsix):

Rohrer is trying to make art in a medium that most people don’t even think is capable of art. He can create this space of pure freedom, as artists have done in the past — isolation, introspection, ascetic poverty. But ultimately he has to send these works out into the world, and people have to respond to them. And right now the audience doesn’t know what to do with them.

Also included is a new game from Rohrer, Between:

These things that appear are ugly and non-procedural: indecipherable transmissions bubbling up through static, faded messages floating in bottles, and charcoal handprints on cave walls. Evidence has reached you through time of unknown duration and distance of unknown magnitude, but stale evidence is still evidence.

Somewhere, across whatever barriers stand between, is an other.

edit: Woops, Rohrer has another game we missed, Gravitation, a game about “mania, melancholia, and the creative process”.

Also, I had to make a small change to Between’s source to compile on a 64-bit system:

--- game7/gameSource/WebRequest.cpp.original	2009-01-07 00:53:58.000000000 -0600
+++ game7/gameSource/WebRequest.cpp	2009-01-07 00:54:20.000000000 -0600
 -289,7 +289,7 @@
                     int resultLength =
                         responseLength
                         - strlen( contentStartString )
-                        - ( (int)contentStart - (int)responseString );
+                        - ( (long)contentStart - (long)responseString );
 
                     mResult = new char[ resultLength + 1 ];
                     memcpy( mResult,