LINUXGAMES

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

• RHEL 5.3 production support
• Ubuntu 9.04 support (early look)
• Stopping X in dual-head mode no longer causes segmentation fault
• [SUSE 10.1] Indirect rendering no longer causes failures
• Catalyst Control Center: Default button now works properly for Warning Dialogue in preference page
• Catalyst Control Center: Gamma values now maintained for color channels
• Catalyst Control Center: Formats are now listed properly in HDTV Support page
• Playing video after resuming from S3/S4 no longer causes the system to stop functioning
• Errors are no longer reported in dmesg when running 3D applications

Download: [ amd.com ]

The Alien Arena development team has released 16 screenshots of the upcoming Alien Arena 2009. This release features “some very significant advances” in the game engine and new arenas, and player models. It’s also mentioned that they are planning to release the new version in June; thanks to jay for the heads up.

Unigine Corp has been developing their namesake engine since 2005, and now on their development blog they’ve posted screenshots from another of their projects, a game which utilizes the Unigine (thanks vadi4!). Not much else is said about the game, although they’re targeting a 2009 release. However, right now you can download two of their engine demos for Linux (the lengthy feature list can be found here). Not being a developer, I can’t really judge the engine against its peers, but it does look very capable and I’m looking forward to what Unigine comes up with!

The latest development release of Wine has been announced. This version, 1.1.20 release, has the following changes and new items:

• Show a dialog on application crashes.
• Much improved OLE copy/paste support.
• Various listview improvements.
• More Direct3D code cleanups.
• Various bug fixes.

Download: [ Wine 1.1.20 ]

The indefatigable zakk appeared and declared “Lo, there is a new release of ioquake3″. Disbelieving, as zakk was glowing and cackling, I checked ioquake3.org and sure enough, version 1.36 is out:

• Off-server data downloads (http redirection) via HTTP and FTP with cURL
• OpenAL sound rendering allowing for surround (5.1 and 7.1) speaker layouts and generally improved sound
  quality.
• Ogg Vorbis audio decoding.
• In-engine VOIP support, with optional Mumble player-location support.
• IPV6 Networking. We’re ready to frag on the net of the future!
• SDL backend for the OpenGL context, window management, and input. This also improves portability.
• Anaglyph stereo rendering (for viewing with 3D glasses)
• Full x86-64 architecture support
• Rewritten PowerPC JIT compiler, with ppc64 support
• New SPARC JIT compiler, with support for both sparc32 and sparc64
• Improved console command auto-completion
• Persistent console command history
• Improved QVM (Quake Virtual Machine) tools
• Colored terminal output on POSIX operating systems
• GUID System
• PNG format support for textures
• Numerous security fixes

Additionally:

If you’re interested in following more updates with ioquake3, follow our twitter feed , and please do digg/reddit/slashdot this post! Please!

Join us on our forums, mailing lists, irc, etc at the discussion page!

Write just about anything about ioquake3 on the wiki!

Talk with us on our mumble server at mumble.ioquake3.org

Thanks again to everyone who has made this a spectacular release. What do you want to see in the future of ioquake3? 4-Player Split-Screen? Let us know in the comments.

Download: [ ioquake3.org ]

Altitude is a fast-paced, online multiplayer aerial combat game with 2D physics-based gameplay and a cartoony aesthetic. There’s a demo available; the full version can be purchased online for $19.95 US. There’s also a wiki with the beginnings of a player’s manual.

Demo Download: [ altitudegame.com ]

Platinum Arts’ Mike Tomaino sent in the following:

The first episode of The Exciting Adventures Of Master Chef Ogro Fruits And Vegetables Extraordinaire has been released!  The Platinum Arts Sandbox RPG is a branch off of the main version of the open source free 3D Game Maker.  The free download is available at the new Platinum Arts Sandbox webpage, http://SandboxGameMaker.com

The majority of the content was created by High School students and it has already been accepted at a College festival and competition.  The RPG features produce magic and monsters and many levels to explore.  The project has been kept kid friendly with mild animated combat which features monsters becoming “full” and unable to attack. The RPG contains many new powerful features, including the ability to easily add and tweak NPCs, monsters, spells, etc.  Though kid friendly, without much effort the RPG could be used to create a non kid friendly game.

The main version of sandbox is getting a ton of awesome updates!  It has been reported that Sandbox runs even faster now, and there are tons of new features coming up, including a map with a working train!  Check out the screenshot in the custom content section!  A new release is expected in 1-2 months.

Thanks to Ant for pointing out that the recent version 180.29 beta graphics driver for NVIDIA cards has a problem with Fujitsu Celsius H270 laptops:

LWN does not normally carry announcements for proprietary driver releases, but… the NVIDIA driver 180.51 release is worthy of note. It fixes a problem with the 180.29 release (packaged by RPMFusion, at least) which can brick certain Fujitsu notebook systems. Anybody running the older drivers should probably upgrade, just to be sure.

Thanks to Nemoder for letting us know that S2 Games has released v2.0.0 of their RTS/FPS hybrid Savage 2: A Tortured Soul. Here’s a summary of the changelog:

• Team Manager panel: allows commanders to more easily view the status of their team, and also provides some additional controls.
• VOIP (new/complete overhaul)
• Many user interface updates
• The full ISO-8859-1 character set (unicode characters up to U+00ff) is now available for use in the game interface.
• Lots of map textures and objects cleaned up.
• 3 brand new maps
• Speed boost items rebalanced
• Map editor should now work completely out of the box (no special work or extra installation required).
• Improved Mod support
• ALSA is now the default sound device for sound output instead of FMOD’s default (OSS).
• Many more miscellaneous upates for improved gameplay.

Dyson, an abstract real-time strategy title, is now at version 1.20 (thanks SlickMcRunfast), which adds the features demonstrated at the Independent Games Festival. There’s also a new interview with the developer, Alex May, about the game at TIGSource:

Leigh: Your most recent game Dyson was a finalist for the Seumas McNally grand prize, it started off as an entry in one of the frequently held competitions here on TIGSource, were you surprised at the reaction its received?

Alex: Yes, but also no, in a way. I think I also speak for Rudolf when I say that the response we’ve received has changed the way we think about our work. Personally, I was surprised that so many people could enjoy our game, which I considered to be flawed and incomplete in every aspect. However, we ourselves tried hard to create something a little surprising, so it is good to see that people are finding that refreshing.

Download: [ dyson-game.com ]

Indie game developer Gabob has announced Now Boarding 1.2 for Linux:

Now Boarding is an action-tycoon game focused on running an airport. Create calm from chaos in a busy airport. Get your passengers to the correct destination before they freak out.

The team at Airways Airlines needs help to keep their airport open! Their airport is going to be closed if they don’t get some help quick. Take charge and get the airport running smooth. Pick up and drop off passengers to a growing number of destinations. The passengers get angry the longer they wait, so get them home before they freak out. Hire employees by choosing from a variety of fun characters. Lead the team to success.

• Master the new “pickup-and-deliver” gameplay (think Travelling Salesman)
• Renovate and make the terminal look fantastic
• Grow and expand across the world over 5 episodes
• 4 game modes: Career, Free Play, Challenge and Survival
• Earn High Scores, Unlockables and Achievements

Changes:

• New Caribbean map with 16 new cities to explore.
• Faster performance, for when your terminal gets crazy with too many passengers.
• See what cities are growing or shrinking at the end of each month.

Now Boarding is $9.99 (USD) as digital download purchase.

Demo Download: [ nowboarding.us ]

Thanks to a reader for letting us know that Frictional Games have reduced the prices of their award-winning Penumbra games (Penumbra: Overture, Penumbra: Black Plague, and the Penumbra: Requiem expansion) to $10 each. Additionally, if you purchase the entire collection the price drops to a mere $20! They can be purchased from the Frictional Games Online Store.

Thanks to the developers of Tribal Trouble 2 for letting us know about their latest release:

Tribal Trouble 2 has undergone a major makeover. The browser part of Tribal Trouble 2 has been transformed into a virtual town for each tribe to expand. Upgrade your ship to go on far away missions, build a hall to meet other players, setup a theater to watch epic battles and much more. The new website has been moved away from the unstable beta server and onto a brand new setup in Google’s server park to make sure it will have all the power and stability ever needed. On top of this, the new version offers a new quest where you have to fight against a revengeful African tribe.

What’s new:

• New website with a town per player.
• New stable servers.
• New Quest: Ngumba’s revenge.
• New shortcut: ‘O’ key inserts a beacon by the mouse pointer that shows up on other players screen.

Play: [ tribaltrouble2.com ]

We received the following press release from Chronic Logic today:

Chronic Logic announces the release of Zatikon for Windows, OSX and Linux. Zatikon is a free, online, turn based, multiplayer tactics game featuring over 30 unique units, each with their own set of spells and abilities. Construct your own distinct army. Create your own strategies. Defeat your opponents in competitive, multiplayer mode. With a limitless number of possible tactics at your disposal, Zatikon is highly engaging and very addictive. Zatikon includes online player ranking and several game types including co-op, single player, and random army vs. mode. Zatikon is constantly being updated with new features and units. Upgrades are also available for even more unique units and powerful armies. Play Zatikon for free and see how your tactics stand up against the competition.

Features:

• Online ranking system
• Play single player, constructed, random army, or co-op games
• 2 vs 2 multiplayer
• Multiplayer match making
• Global Chat function
• Unlock over 30 units to use in your army
• Unlimited strategies and tactics
• Many types of units including Mages, Scouts, Horsemen, Siege units, Structures and more!
• Unique and easily-identifiable units provide almost unlimited army variations
• Simple stylized graphics allow for easy addition of new units
• Available for Windows, OSX and Linux: Buy once, and play on any of these systems!
• Frequently updated with new Units and Features

Chronic Logic also published Gish for Linux.

Screenshots: [ View ] Play: [ zatikon.com ]

Version 0.5.1 of X-Moto has been released. It’s a 2D motocross platform game with an emphasis on physics. Changes:

• Track stolen levels (new pack + info box)
• Change restart button (enter by default) and show console (world_18)
• After changing the game settings, the game must be restarted (info box)
• Chineese language support
• Chipmunk hash functions to improve performances
• Make levels/replays db load faster
• Filter on rooms lists
• –server option to run the server only (without the gui)
• After death, display the menu after a few seconds

You can also read how to create levels at the project wiki.

Download: [ tuxfamily.org ]

The Super Mario-inspired platforming game Secret Maryo Chronicles is now at version 1.8 with improved moving platforms and updated sprites.

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

Phoronix, a Linux hardware review site with an emphasis on gaming, has posted an article examining the open source 3D game engine XreaL:

The lead developer of XreaL is Robert Beckebans, who has been working to deliver stunning graphics capabilities to the id Tech 3 engine. As far he knows, XreaL is actually the only Quake-based engine with a pure GLSL (GL Shading Language) renderer. With his GLSL renderer for XreaL, he wrote it entirely against the OpenGL 2.0 ES specification, so that it is very minimalist in order to avoid driver problems.

The XreaL blog has also posted a comparison with the ioquake3 engine utilized in many open source game projects.

Boing Boing’s game blog Offworld recently interviewed Introversion’s Chris Delay about the company’s previous titles (which, with the exception of Multiwinia, are all available for Linux) and their next project, Subversion.

Doomworld e-mailed id Software’s John Carmack about a potential legal issue with the upcoming release of Doom 3′s source code under the GPL:
Doomworld:

I believe you’ve said publicly that you are planning a GPL release of the Doom 3 source code, but I remember around the time the game was launched you had Creative holding a patent on the shadows algorithm, and you assuaged them by including support for EAX. Is that still causing problems?

Carmack:

When we release the code (no date set), anyone that uses it would potentially be infringing. There are workarounds at a modest performance cost.

Hedgewars 0.9.10, an open source multiplayer turn-based strategy game, is out; some of the many changes are listed here.

Media: [ View ] Download: [ hedgewars.org ]

This post was submitted by jay.