LINUXGAMES

Version 0.5 of Warsow, the popular futuristic cartoon FPS where lasergun-carrying cyberpunks roam the streets, has been released. The ChangeLog which is quite long, lists all the major items that have changed in this release. The highlights of the logs are:

• Weapon settings, armor settings and movement system have been tweaked and revised
• Weapons can stun players, making them unable to walljump for a short period of time after being hit
• Warsow 0.5 introduces AngelScript gametype scripting, inviting everyone to create their own custom gametypes
• Warsow 0.5 has new maps, textures, playermodels, engine features, visual effects… even a brand new weapon!
• Warsow 0.5 comes with new gametypes: Team Domination, Headhunt, Bomb & Defuse

Download: [ Warsow v0.5] [ Warsow - Community Map Pack 1 ]

Thanks to a reader for letting us know there’s a new FOSS gaming (as an aside, where did that acronym first crop-up?) podcast: Open Gaming Now.

As an even further aside, I’m still in a transitionary period, so hold tight a bit longer!

A new version of Grapple, a simple network layer, allowing the addition of multiplayer features to a game with only a few lines of code, has been released.

Download: [ Grapple 0.9.8 ]

This post was submitted by Andre4s.

With Crusader on the move to the Big Apple, you will have to suffer with me in the mean time. With that said, I am curious to what everyone is playing currently, what distribution are they currently using, and if anyone is actually using Wine. Hopefully Crusader will have a safe journey and he will return to regular news posting shortly. You think after doing this for 11 years, we would let him take a break…

We received this press release about an updated version of Lugaru, a very unique game where you play as a ninja rabbit.

Lugaru, the classic ninja rabbit fighting game known for it’s brutal melee combat, has just been updated by expert programmer Ryan Gordon, aka Icculus. This is great, because the original Linux build was starting to show its age and had some trouble running on some newer Linux systems. With this new version, now there is no need to consider wrestling with WINE or other work-arounds — Linux fans should be able to get their wolf-slaying fix hassle-free.

Ryan is an expert at porting video games and always has a ton of projects going on, so it’s really cool that he made time to keep Lugaru current with the latest Linux distrib

Download: [ Lugaru Demo ]

A rather “interesting” post has appeared on an Ubuntu Forum

> Dear Mr Carmack, I am just wondering if the graphics renderer for
> Rage is still
> built using OpenGL 3.* as a target? Will id still port to Linux if
> user numbers are
> small or not as big as say Mac OS or Windows?
>
> Gratzi,
> naikon89

The PC and Mac versions are still OpenGL 2.x.

We are not currently scheduling native linux ports. It isn’t out of the
question, but I don’t think we will be able to justify the work. If
there are hundreds of thousands of linux users playing Quake Live when
we are done with Rage, that would certainly influence our decision…

John Carmack

The followup to that post:

> Ok, it must be alot more difficult to port
> than older id software games :(

Yes, it is. The codebase is much, much larger, and the graphics
technology pushes a lot of paths that are not usually optimized. It
probably wouldn’t be all that bad to get it running on the nvidia binary
drivers, but the chance of it working correctly and acceptably anywhere
else would be small. If you are restricted to it only working on the
closed source drivers, you might as well boot into windows and get the
fully tested and tuned experience…

John Carmack

id Software has been a long time support of the Linux community and is really distributing to read that they are possibly moving away from the Linux platform.

This post was submitted by Tweet.

We received this press release concerning the release of BOH to the Linux Platform.


BOHis an original, retro-flavoured game of exploration and action. You move in claustrophobic, traps-packed, mind-boggling battlefields searching for the Evil Masters, who throw countless enemies at you until you discover and face them in the final battle. Although your quests are made slightly less hard by the bonuses and power-ups scattered all around, carrying out the missions demands lots of concentration and quick reflexes.


With BOH the fun never ends: new missions can be added anytime and you can even create your own! And, as if that was not enough, you can also customize entirely its audio-visual aspect! BOH has been created with lots of passion and care to offer, with its oldschool style, a fascinatingly different videogaming experience.


To learn more about BOH, please surf to the official website at www.bohthegame.com.

This post was submitted by saimo.

Wings 2, a 2D multiplayer network game which you fly small and agile ships in varied maps,, has become freeware. All weapons are now available and anyone can try to fight his/her way to the top of the global Wings 2 ranking list.


Download: [ Wings 2 ]

This post was submitted by buggerall.

My Game Company is pleased to announce the release of Fashion Cents Gents for Windows, Mac, and Linux!

In this sequel to our original fashion puzzle game, you finally get to dress-up some guys! As always, you are given a wide assortment of hats, tops, bottoms, and shoes in a variety of styles and colors, which you must combine into outfits that are color-coordinated. Add accessories like glasses, jackets, and briefcases to score bonus points. You can also add new hair pieces like mustaches and beards to score even larger bonuses! And try to cash in with the special 10X bonus that appears occasionally on random dolls – if you can create an outfit on that doll before the 10X bonus disappears, you can really boost your score!

Check out the game’s web site at http://www.mygamecompany.com/Products/FashionCentsGents/main.htm, where you can download the free trial and learn more about the game!

This post was submitted by mygamecompany.

Today, on August 12, the native Hive Rise Linux client has been released. You can download the game for Windows and Linux now and play for free!

Hive Rise is a high speed real time strategy game full of action.

2023 – After the wars between enemy nations had gradually come to an end at the beginning of the 21 century, somebody had to make sure the supply of senseless violence didn’t stop altogether. The solution: Hive Rise! The TV show that features bored millionaires, car tinkerers and retired generals competing in a paramilitary arms race.

On the huge battlefield somewhere in the desert sand the enemy camps lie neatly lined up. From there the teams march out with highly specialized mercenaries and the latest military equipment to give each other hell.

Now Hive Rise also runs natively on Linux! The download has 79 MB and is thus a little bit larger than the Windows version. Cross platform playing is now possible without any restrictions.

The Linux client can be downloaded here for free:
http://www.HiveRise.com

Hive Rise is an extremely fast running real time strategy game. It takes place on huge maps, each providing space for over 1000 human players. There are 12 different play modes, each offering a unique trophy. What makes it even more outstanding is the fact that the short matches (about 10 minutes) can be started at once without having to wait for your teammates. You can start playing instantly, no registration is needed!

This post was submitted by rototor.

The latest development release of Wine has been released. Changes in this release includes the following:

• Support for IRDA protocol.
• Faster initial wineprefix creation.
• Axis remapping with evdev joysticks.
• More image formats in WindowsCodecs.
• Various bug fixes.

Download: [ Wine 1.1.28]

Updates have been scarce lately, as I’m moving across the continental US in the next week. Regardless, if there’s a news item you want mentioned, please let us know and we’ll get it posted ASAP.

I managed to hit QuakeCon briefly this weekend; I didn’t see RAGE myself but I heard very positive impressions. Also, QuakeLive for Linux is out! Go install it!

I’ll post impressions of my own later, maybe much later, as I’m stuck on an Intel-graphics laptop at the moment.

Quake Live for Linux is according to 1up.com just around the corner, .i.e. due this Tuesday, August 18th:

During the QuakeCon 2009 press conference, id President Todd Hollenshead announced what many non-Windows computer users had been asking about for months. Quake Live, id software’s browser based shooter, would be adding support for Linux and Macintosh operating system users.

Mac and Linux versions of the client are available for users to play on the show floor. Non-attendees will be able to check out the update when it launches this Tuesday, August 18th. …

This post was submitted by c3rb3rus.

In a former post the developers of Mad Skill Motocross assured that they will release a beta version of their game if they achieve over 1000 friends on their facebook page. This actually happened recently and downloads of the beta for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows are available.

This post was submitted by c3rb3rus.

Thanks to a reader for letting us know that Linux Game Publishing is looking for programmers:

Description: We are looking for two experienced software developers.
The following skills are essential:

* Strong C/C++

Also, one or more of the following skills are essential:

* OpenGL, with some knowledge of DirectX
* OpenAL, with some knowledge of Windows sound systems
* SDL, with some knowledge of Windows programming

Any applicant must be able to supply references, either commercial experience developing on Linux, or significant involvement in a well known open source project. References for character and reliability are required.

Hours: This is a part time position, with applicants expected to work for a minimum of 10 hours per week.
Location: This is a work-from-home position
Salary: This is a commission based position. Developers will receive a generous percentage of the sales revenue based on performance and share of the work done on a project once the game is released, for the lifetime of the sales of the game.

To apply please email jobs@linuxgamepublishing.com

The latest development version of Wine has been announced. The following new items and improvements are in this release:

• New version of the Gecko engine.
• New GSM 06.10 codec support.
• Improved support for the disk volume APIs.
• Support for XShm pixmaps for better performance.
• Various bug fixes.

Download: [ Wine 1.1.27 ]

A new release of Golems Universal Constructor, a 3D Physics and Artificial Intelligence simulator, has been announced. This version brings 64-bit support to Linux and some bug fixes including

• This release vastly improves the efficiency of turning wire mode on and off for large machines.
• You can now precisely control the position of vertices in the function design menus. Some other minor bugs have also been addressed.

Download: [ Golems Universal Constructor 0.54.5 ]

This post was submitted by axanon.

Thanks to sawyerix for letting us know that YS Flight has updated their Linux binary to be more compatible with modern Linux distributions.

Download: [ nifty.com ]

Free Gamer recently conducted an interview with Steven Carlyle-Smith, author of games such as Xenogeddon, about his open source game projects.