Enhanced ping: Ping values are now much more precise and usable!
Voodoo Doll support: Ever wanted to play maps like Deus Vult II online with your friends? Now you can!
Many many many ZDoom and GZDoom updates: The 97dx branch of Skulltag was locked in 2007. 98a is fresh and updated, allowing mappers to do manynew things!
Indie developer 2D Boy have posted the final results from their World of Goo sale; surprisingly, Linux users made up 17% of the sales but paid, on average, at least a dollar more than Windows users:
Congratulations to 2D Boy on the successful birthday sale!
A reader (thanks vadi!) pointed out this discussion at the Ubuntu forums about a viable game video recording solution for Linux. I remember using yukon a few years back, but it doesn’t seem to be under any sort of development anymore. Any opinions/recommendations?
The author of BOH, a retro-inspired action game, has announced a new contest:
Starting October 26th, 2009, the TOUGHER AND TOUGHER CONTEST gives you the chance to win a very special copy of the commercial game BOH and more!
Participating is as easy as playing the mission “tougher and tougher” (included in both the full game and the demo of BOH) and submitting the records set – all at no cost and without any registration.
The prizes are:
1st: TOUGHER AND TOUGHER CONTEST EDITION + digital copy
2nd: regular edition + digital copy
3rd: digital copy
4th-10th: EUR 5.00 discount on the purchase of a copy
A reader sent in word that Phoronix conducted an interview with NVIDIA UNIX driver team member Andy Ritger:
Some of the particularly interesting answers include how the managerial view of Linux at NVIDIA has changed over the years, how greater than 90% of the driver’s source code is shared between Windows and UNIX platforms, the actual percentage of the Linux driver downloads from the NVIDIA web-site, how an open-source strategy similar to that of AMD’s may be technically possible at NVIDIA but is very unlikely, whether gaming on Linux will become viable for commercial game publishers, how the Nouveau developers are doing “a really incredible job so far”, what’s coming in the next twelve months to their Linux driver, motives behind creating VDPAU, and the biggest challenges with distributing a proprietary Linux driver.
What vendor created your current graphics card’s chipset?
Railroad Rampage is a cross between an arcade game and a strategy game. It is similiar in construction to many “Tower Defence” games, but it has a twist : here, you are part of the action and can affect the game in many different ways more than just building structures.Bandits are trying to rob your train and steal all precious cargo! Thankfully, you are a skilled engineer who can construct many different kinds of turrets and use them to defend your train. You have to make it through 20 waves of relentless enemy assault before you reach your destination, so plan ahead and devise a smart strategy and you may survive!
Ryan of the AtomicGamer posse has informed me that a patch for Machinarium has been released. This patch fixes the following issue:
Fixed: The bug with the crank in plaza level, stuck place in prison guard level, wrong walkthrough page in kitchen level (when checking for the 2nd time), cones and steps on the lamp in gate level when you come there for the 2nd time, and possibly some other minor bugs.
Koonsolo is giving away free copies of Mystic Mine (or a $19.95 Gift Card if you already bought the game). To get a chance at winning, all you have to do is become a fan or follow them on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Vimeo.
Koonsolo explains: “Becoming a fan or following Koonsolo means a lot to us, so for those who support us that way, we offer something extra. Next month we’ll give away free copies of Mystic Mine. (Or if you already bought it from our website, a $19.95 Gift Card). A few winners will be picked out from those who are a fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, YouTube or Vimeo. So make sure you subscribe before the deadline to secure your spot.”
Koonsolo also has something special lined up for those who don’t win, but more on that later. Important thing now is to subscribe as soon as possible so you don’t miss out on this great opportunity.
KreiselBall, a game where you control a ball by turning the world around it, either trying to get to the finish line or clear all the colored circles from the level by changing the ball into that color and then hitting the circles, has entered the Linux gaming world. This game features 30 levels with physics and internet high score. KreiselBall is available now for EUR 7.82 (excl. VAT) from their website
After five years of development, Broken Glass Studios has released a beta of their Doom 3 modification, The Dark Mod. Inspired by the Thief series, the Dark Mod has four missions, including training.
Comments welcome. I’m submitting the kernel patches later today when I figure out how to do it without looking like a n00b, but feel free to play with it. There’s even a whole proof-of-concept virtual machine, with Ubuntu 9.04 x86 and amd64 installs glued into one.
The birthday sale has been a huge success so far, and because of that, we are extending our little experiment/celebration until sunday, October 25.
A histogram of the amounts people offered for the game and survey results are discussed. There’s also commentary about the sale at Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
There’s people who were getting a second copy. Many bought it on Wii or PC or Mac or Linux and wanted another version. Having already paid full price for it, this was their opportunity to get a version working on another platform without paying all over again.
[...]
But I think the punchline to all this is: 2D BOY made around $100,000 in a week. That’s $50,000 each for writing a blog post about a game they finished a year ago. By letting people pay whatever they wanted. That’s damned important information.
The authors of Game Editor let us know that the game creation app is now open source:
Game Editor is a powerful game creation application that lets you design and create exciting, interactive games for the Windows, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, Smartphone, GP2X and Linux markets.
In development since 2002, the game creation tool Game Editor finally becomes Open Source. By using a dual license system, the Game Editor developer wants to create a self suported open source model, by selling a license to users that’s won’t to create open source games, sharing the reveneus with the developers thats have contributed to the code. The users thats create GPL games can use the software without pay anything.
Thanks to the future new developers, we will see in the next version features like make games for iPhone, Android, Nokia Maemo, Symbian and many other platforms!
Alien Arena, an open source multiplayer game that combines retro and modern sci-fi themes, is now at version 7.32:
Yes, it’s only been a couple of weeks, but a critical bug when using Nvidia 191.xx drivers has forced us to put out a new release much sooner than anticipated. Despite the frantic moments, we also were able to squeeze in a few new features, as well as a new level! Also, it should be important to note, that because of some compatibility issues, we removed the automatic video settings on first run, and have reverted back to defaulting the game to medium settings out of the box. Players should be advised that the game will likely run just fine on a mid-range or better system if you enable higher graphical settings.
Features added for 7.32 include:
Fixed critical bug when using Nvidia 191.xx drivers
Dynamic world shadows using shadowmaps
New map, dm-zion2k9
Splash damage now triggers hit indicator sound
New spawn effects
Future work for Alien Arena will continue, as we have begun work on improving our antilag code and some other gameplay related items, as well as some items that for now remain a little more clandestine. Our next release will be targeted to occur some time in the winter or spring of 2010. So for now, grab 7.32 and enjoy!
Thanks to the many, many readers who let us know 2d Boy are holding a birthday sale for their award-winning physics/puzzle game, World of Goo, where you only pay as much as you think the game is worth (be honest please!).
