NVIDIA has released a new Linux display driver build, version 185.18.29, for 32-bit and 64-bit x86 Linux systems that utilize their graphics hardware. The changelog delineates the various bugfixes.
As always, hit the README for additional info.
Download: [ nvidia.com ]
Tycoon Games, a visual novel developer, has announced the release of the science-fiction-themed Bionic Heart:
The game is set in the not too far future of London 2099, where climatic catastrophes have changed the Earth’s climate permanently. In this interactive novel, bionic beings and complex technologies, clash with complicated relationships and even more complicated romance. Wise decisions build relationships with other characters, but one wrong move could ruin a friendship forever.
“Bionic Heart features a truly dynamic plot, where each of your decisions affects the story’s outcome. Even seemingly meaningless choices can change your character’s fate in the end. This game has a high replayability factor with 24 unique endings, making it my longest visual novel to date.”
—Riva Celso, programmer/designer of Tycoon GamesBionic Heart blends romance and comedy with philosophy as the players walk the line between scientific advances and love and friendship. The full version comes to life with over four hours of voice acting and beautiful artwork.
There’s a demo; the full version is available for $19.99 US.
LinuxLinks has a new article up examining chess software:
Linux chess software generally is separated into a “front end” application and a “chess engine”. There is a wide range of chess-playing software for Linux, which can defeat most master players under tournament conditions. Computer chess has been a phenomenal success, aiding chess analysis, and allowing players to play when no human opponents are available. Other types of chess software include chess databases and tournament managers. Chess databases provide a convenient way to store your own games, a time-efficient method to study, and offers access to statistics about your own games and of titled chess players.To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 10 top chess applications, identifying our favorite front ends, chess engines and chess databases.
Golems Universal Constructor is a highly addictive 3D physics and artificial intelligence simulator. It is cross-platform and written in Java. It is currently in open-beta and the developers are always looking for new testers. The easy-to-use interface allows you to build simple or complex designs which react to newtonian physics. Joints, motors and sensors can be wired together to create machines that become self-aware or responsive to human input. There are several Golems demonstration videos on YouTube and the project’s documentation is in wiki format.
Download: [ Golems Universal Constructor 0.54.4 ]
As we just reached the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, Technologizer has a great retrospective on Lunar Lander games. You can play many of the ones mentioned on Linux with Vintage BASIC. There’s also this Flash-based version with a cockpit view at the Science Channel website.
What are your favorite space-themed (semi-realistic; i.e., no alien death rays) Linux titles?
Frictional Games posted an updated about their recent Penumbra Collection sale:
We had planned for a re-release of the Mac & Linux versions of Penumbra as a Collection. We sent out a PR and made some noise during the week to make sure it was known the Collection would sell for USD 5 during the weekend. We also came in contact with Helios – the Linux blogger with a big heart for many things. He wanted to do a write-up on the Linux version and got all excited about making it fit with the weekend deal and, oh my, did he make it fit!
Due to the blog, the Slashdot article about the blog, Linux and Mac sites posting of the PR we ended up with an excellent weekend of chaos. Because of this we are now as good as set to focus completely on making the next game, which is great compared to spending most of the day working on survival solutions.
In short, a tremendous Thank You! To everyone for this weeks coverage and to all users that gave us their support by purchasing the game during the weekend deals on Steam and the past few days. It has really turned things around for us.
LG reader Tweet wrote id Software’s John Carmack about the status of Linux ports for the first-person shooter developer’s upcoming titles (minus QuakeLive, which has a Linux port in active development already):
Wolfenstein is pretty unlikely, since it was developed at Raven, and published by Activision. There are no firm plans for linux ports of the idTech 5 titles, but it certainly isn’t off the table. I don’t think it will be very difficult to get them running on the binary nvidia drivers, but bringing them up to functionality and acceptable performance on other OpenGL drivers would probably be a more significant undertaking than we could afford.
idTech 5 is id Software’s next engine, being used for Rage and the as-of-yet untitled DOOM sequel.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, a roguelike game where players seek the Orb of Zot, winner of the Ascii Dreams Roguelike of the Year award, and one of my favorite games of late (seriously, I’ve never been able to get into roguelikes but this is really fun), reached version 0.5 recently:
If you need help, there’s CrawlWiki and this SA thread.
Download: [ sourceforge.net ]
The Vendetta Online news page has an update about the space combat MMO’s latest patch for subscribers:
Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ Trial client ]
By now most of you should have had a chance to spend some time with Heroes of Newerth; please post your impressions and comments below.
Don’t forget to also provide feedback in S2 Games’ official beta forum!
dannystaple sent in the following article:
Did you enjoy playing with model trains as a kid? Me too. Do you still want to play with them now? The transport simulation genre gives you a great way to indulge the hobby without requiring a lot of loft space and a very tolerant wife. OpenTTD and Simutrans both offer very good Train sets.. er.. simulations to play with under Linux. Here I compare them blow by blow, feature by feature and their cons as well.
OpenTTD vs Simutrans | The Linux Transport Simulation Showdown
The latest development release of Wine has been announced. Changes in this release includes the following:
Download: [ Wine 1.1.26 ]
Grubby Games has reduced the price of all of their games from $20 to $6.99 as part of their acquisition by BigFishGames.
The games affected by the price change are:
It is currently unclear if Grubby Games’ future releases will continue to support Linux.
Frictional Games has issued the following press release regarding the new Penumbra Collection,:
Helsingborg, Sweden – 15th of July 2009
Re-release this Friday the 17th of the Penumbra Series for Mac & Linux – USD 5 launch offer!
With a brand new installer the three Penumbra games will be available this Friday as a single download. This will improve the user experience compared to the original three downloads with three serials installation procedure.
During the launch weekend of Friday the 17th to Sunday the 19th the Penumbra Collection for Mac & Linux will sell for a mere USD 5! Windows users recently had the same offer available to them and due to numerous inquires from Mac & Linux gamers we hope that this offer will achieve full cross-platform horror enjoyment. After the launch weekend the Penumbra Collection will sell for USD 20.
The Penumbra Collection will be available in the Frictional Games Store for Mac & linux. In addition the Mac version will also be available from the Mac Game Store, Mac Games Arcade and the recently launched Gamer’s Gate for Mac. All stores are participating in the USD 5 weekend launch!
About the Penumbra Collection
The Penumbra Collection consist of Penumbra: Overture, Penumbra: Black Plague and the expansion Penumbra: Requiem. Penumbra is a horror adventure featuring a unique physics interaction system, detailed story and dreadful environments. The series has received numerous awards, critical acclaim and recognition for its rejuvenation of the adventure genre as well as its fresh approach to the survival horror genre.
Visit http://www.penumbragame.com/ for more information, media and demos.
About Frictional Games
A small independent game developer located in the south of Sweden, developing unique technologies to power their creative game ideas. Currently with a crew of four in-house, with a network of contractors to utilise during production, enables the company to be dynamic and efficient.
http://www.frictionalgames.com/Visit our blog, http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/, to follow our work in progress and to participate in the discussions about game development, design, horror and related topics.
S2 Games, developers of the Savage series for Linux and other platforms, is conducting a closed beta test for their newest title, Heroes of Newerth. A multiplayer strategy game, HoN expands on the Defense of the Ancients style of play.
Moreover, S2 Games has given us beta keys to give away; comment on this article with a description of your favorite game hero/heroine (doesn’t have to be a Linux game, but it’s preferred!) and we’ll send one your way! This is on a first-come, first-serve basis; once they’re gone, they’re gone forever.
More screenshots/info can be found here at the game’s Facebook page.
EDIT: The first batch of beta keys have been sent out! Let me know if you have any problems, and thanks!
EDIT: The second batch (through post #125) has been sent out; if you’ve posted but haven’t gotten your key yet, e-mail me.
EDIT: If you’ve posted through post #175, you should have your key! If you don’t have one yet, there’s plenty more!
EDIT: Everyone through post #218 should have a key. We’re not out of them yet!
EDIT: 282 posts later, we have around 200 keys left.
EDIT: 30 keys left to go; after today we’ll be all out.
WE ARE ALL OUT OF BETA KEYS – thank you so much to everyone who participated, and have fun in the beta!
The indefatigable zakk asked us to mention that the ioquake3 project, which extends the base Quake 3 code released by id Software, is holding a hosting fundraiser:
Donations are required for ioquake3’s hosting to continue every two years. Next month, ioquake3’s hosting bill comes due. Fortunately it is only due once every two years which means that requests for donations will be infrequent.
Thanks to the many people who let us know that Wildfire Games have announced that their Age of Empires-inspired real-time strategy game 0 A.D. is now an open source project:
Wildfire Games is switching from a closed development process to open source, making the game’s code available as GPL and the art content available as CC-BY-SA. People are encouraged to reuse and learn from and improve our work. We are not releasing a playable game, but we want to show what we have achieved and make it easier for more people to get involved in bringing it closer to completion.
If you’re interested in contributing, check out the Getting Started guide at the project wiki.
Version 2009.1 of the Unknown Horizons project was released for testing by developers and other interested parties:
Unknown Horizons is an economic sim, loosely based on the Anno series, which uses the FIFE engine.
Download: [ unknown-horizons.org ]
Charlie Dog Games and Tweeler have announced the release of version 1.0 of the free software word game Cuba Letra for Linux:
Cuba Letra is a new type of word game with a fun and funky Latin American theme! It combines mental and physical dexterity to challenge players ability to make words against the clock. It’s great fun for all ages with an easy mode that children can play or a harder mode that will challenge even the most literate adults
Cuba Letra is powered by TuxCap.
Download: [ tweeler.com ]
Version 0.8.4 of Wormux, an open-source multiplayer strategy game inspired by Worms, has been released:
Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ wormux.org ]