LINUXGAMES

Linux Games Publishing has announced a new beta:

The beta test for Shadowgrounds Survivor is now open for applications. Please apply at our betas website if you wish to join in the test.

Shadowgrounds Survivor is a third-person/top-down action game where the player takes control of three characters and faces alien invaders; there’s a teaser trailer at AtomicGamer, and you can read reviews of the Windows version at Metacritic.

Version 1.1.7 of Mumble, the open source, low-latency, high-quality voice communication tool for gamers, is out, which adds Positional Audio plugins for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.

Download: [ sourceforge.net ]

2D Boy posted a blurb about the Linux version of their upcoming eclectic puzzle game World of Goo:

The Linux version of World of Goo is well into beta. Thanks to Maks Verver for helping us with the port and running the beta program.

There’s also a soundtrack available while you’re waiting!

Thanks to vadi4 for letting us know that Newerth.com has announced a  Savage 1 XR Public Beta:

Everyone will be able to play with Savage XR on 13th of February, 2009. The Beta will allow you to download the XR Client Installer for both Windows and Linux with all it’s new features.
After the beta period is over, using the automatic update system, the Beta client Installer will be updated and release as XR V1.0 after which we plan to release the server package.

Its been a long time in the making and all the staff at Newerth.com hope you will enjoy the new additions to Savage: The Battle For Newerth and to give you a feel for the game, we have created a feature length trailer (High-Resolution / Low-Resolution).

XR is a fan-developed enhancement project for the original Savage: The Battle for Newerth.

A reader sent in the following notice:

Are you a PC gamer? Do you play Free and Open Source games? – Complete this short survey and you could win a $50 Amazon gift certificate + $100 donation to the Open Source game project of your choice.

Read the rest of this entry »

S2 Games has released a patch, version 1.7.8, for Savage 2: A Tortured Soul:

• Bug fixes
  • Fixed some issues where the hunter would sometimes get stuck in a certain animation.
  • Any skills with push-back effects will now apply the push back even if the target of the skill successfully blocks the skill

• CC Panel improvements (thanks Stanz)
  • Fixed a bug where once the CCPanel was closed your input would still go to the last active input field.
  • Fixed a bug where typing in the CCPanel would go to input fields outside the CCPanel.
  • Fixed a bug making the input fields sometimes hard to click on.
  • Fixed a bug playing the sound when the chat window was re-buffering (each time it was shown).
  • Fixed a bug that would play the received sound when sending chat messages.
  • Made improvements to some input fields, making them properly retain focus as long as the window has focus.

• Maps
  • New map, Bunker. This is a port of the original Savage 1 map
  • Updated blocker on several of our existing maps
  • Fixed some spots where players could get stuck on rocks on Desolation

• Balance
  • Conjurer
    • The root applied by Entangle Trap skill will no longer be broken by trivial damage sources. Players entangled by this spell will break free once they have sustained 50 or more damage, or once the spell has finished its full duration of 2.5 seconds.
  • Hunter
    • Wing spin re-worked:
      • Wingspin no longer freezes the hunter in place
      • Wingspin is now a constant 360 spin for 6 seconds. During these 6 seconds nearby enemies will be hit with 70 damage every 0.5 seconds. Note the 70 damage will be reduced by armor, and that the overall damage per second of this attack is comparable to the Hunter’s normal melee attack chain.
      • Wingspin also provides immunity from ranged damage and a small armor bonus to the hunter for its 6 second duration
      • Wingspin slows the hunter’s movement to 70%. The hunter may still sprint, but may not charge or dodge
      • New sounds, effects, and animation to match the new functionality
      • Note that the damage inflicted by this skill can be blocked. Most classes should be able to block 3 attacks, the 4th attack breaking the block meter.
    • Frenzy re-worked:
      • Removed stamina leech
      • When frenzy is activated, successful melee hits on enemies will apply a speed buff to the hunter. The speed buff is a 25% increase in movement speed for 3 seconds
      • Note that the speed buff will not be applied if the attack is blocked
    • Slightly reduced the attack time of the Hunter’s third melee attack. This will slightly reduce the delay after completing a melee flurry before the hunter can perform other melee actions.
  • Shaman
    • The root applied by the Entangle spell will no longer be broken by trivial damage sources. Players entangled by this spell will break free once they have sustained 50 or more damage, or once the spell has finished its full duration of 3.5 seconds.
    • Chant of Life and Arcane Chant have been combined into one skill, Chant of Restoration. This chant will heal allies within its radius while also restoring their mana
      • This skill costs 7 mana per second to use, decreased from the previous 10 per second of Chant of Life
      • NOTE: The shaman is still rewarded in experience and gold for both healing done and mana restored. The end result is that this spell has a higher yield of gold and experience than either of the shaman’s previous chants.
  • Predator
    • Increased mana regeneration rate from 2.5 per second to 3
  • Scout
    • Reduced armor from 7 to 5
  • Chaplain
    • New chaplain skill, Shield of Sol:
      • When activated, instead of taking damage from enemy attacks, the chaplain will instead be healed for 40% of the damage dealt
      • This ability causes the chaplain to be immobile and is a toggle skill, similar to Hunter’s sleep
      • The effects of this ability last for a maximum of 8 seconds
    • Increased hit points healed by Heal spell to 138 from 120
    • Increased hit points healed by Group Heal spell to 75 from 50
  • Legionnaire
    • Decreased melee damage by 10%
  • Items
    • New enduring item:
      • Advanced Sights (for humans) or Magic Amplifier (for beasts). Increased ranged weapon damage by 25%
      • This new item costs 700 gold and requires the siege workshop or charmshrine
    • Stone Hide and Plate Mail armor items slow movement speed by 5%. Cost for both items increased to 650 from 550
    • While active, Shield of Wisdom will play a unique hit effect when struck by melee or ranged weapons
    • Power Absorption will no longer trigger on hunter’s venemous.
  • Commander
    • Decreased the cool down of Centurion Armor to 1 minute 40 seconds, down from 2 minutes
    • Dispell is now a single-target snap cast spell rather than area of effect spell. This spell should no longer be missing its intended target. Decreased cool down to 20 seconds from 25.
• Modding notes
  • All melee skills in Savage 2 can now apply a state to the user of the skill (as well as specifying a custom duration)

Savage 2 is a mixed-genre fantasy-themed multiplayer game that was recently released for Linux.

AMD has released their monthly Linux ATI Catalyst display driver package for their graphics cards; the requisite release notes delineate the bugfixes in this build.

Download: [ amd.com ]

Total Annihilation 3D, a remake of the Total Annihilation engine but in a 3d view has been updated to release 0.5.2. Fixes in this release includes the following items:

• Fixes the 24/32bits GAF bugs
• Fixes the radar/sight/sonar/*distance bugs
• Fixes for the resource installer which should not freeze any more and should be able to detect CDs on any Linux system (unless you changed your CD mount point to something non standard).

They are looking for help with programming in OpenGL and/or C++, so if you have the skills and our a fan you can drop them a line in their forums


Download: [ Total Annihilation 3D 0.5.2 ]