Some guy, I’m not naming names, slipped a review to LinuxGames last night of Airline Tycoon Deluxe. Which is unfortunately not very favourable. Though here is the review anyway, in case you’ve been thinking about buying Airline Tycoon Deluxe, but weren’t sure if it was perhaps going to be worth your money.
Nazghul, a computer role-playing game engine, has been updated to release 0.5.4. Changes in this version include:
Download: [ Nazghul 0.5.4 ]
I saw this Grid Wars 2 Download: [
A release of Ballistic Weapons has occured. This mod gives a more tactical type of gameplay by replacing the weapons with a batch of unique, more realistic weapons that are based on an enhanced weapon system. You will need both the full version and the patch in order to play.
Also, the full UnrealScript source code for Frag.Ops has been released.
Runesoft has released a demo for Northland, a strategy game developed by Funatics Software that features unit/structure management and adventure-style riddles. The full version has sixteen missions (eight of which are part of the main story campaign), which chronicle Bjarni the Viking’s quest to save his homeland.
Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ 3D Downloads ]
We have recieved this press release about Northland from RuneSoft having gone gold.
Gamers on the Linux platform will soon be able to join Bjarni and his friends in their mission to save their homeland from mysterious serpent creatures, as Northland Linux has gone gold and should be available by February 2nd.
Northland tells the story of Bjarni the Viking.
The story begins where the plot of “Cultures 2 – The Gates of Asgard” ended. After perilous adventures our four heroes defeated the Midgard serpent and thus saved the world. A great celebration began and everyone was happy and content.
But only a very short time later the peace was disturbed by a call for help from their friend Hatschi. Hatschi’s homeland was plagued by mysterious monstrous serpent creatures, which spread chaos and destruction through the country. Without hesitation Bjarni and Crya hurried to help him and stumbled right into a new adventure, in which the sly god Loki will play an important role…
Northland features:
- Stand-alone Adventure Strategy game.
- Single player campaign with 8 missions including several sub missions.
- The exciting plots tells the story of Viking God Loki who tried to take revenge on Godfather Odin for his banishment from Asgard to Earth. For that he abuses our four human heroes with his intrigues and traps.
- 8 additional free single player missions (non campaign).
- 3 difficulty levels to make the game fun for everybody from beginners to experts.
- Special effects like weather effects, fog, ghost units etc.
- Based on the enhanced technology of “Cultures 2 – The Gates of Asgard”; enhanced AI.
Lost Labyrinth 2.3.0, an rogue-like role-playing game, has been updated to version 2.3.0 Changes in this version include the following items:
Screenshots [ View ] Downloads [ Lost Labyrinth 2.3.0 ]
A reader let us know that Airline Tycoon Deluxe, which has been listed with “final candidate” status on the RuneSoft website for quite a while now, has now arrived at Tux Games. Airline Tycoon Deluxe is an economic simulation game where the player is tasked with managing an airline; features include airplane purchasing/maintenance, route plotting, financial management (such as offering shares on the stock market), and sabotage(!) against competitors.
A community patch (developed by the WGW Project Division with the permission of Human Head Studios) has been released for the Rune expansion pack, Halls of Valhalla. Changes include several new maps, crash protection, and server-side support for client downloads.
Rune: HOV 1.08 Download: [ 3D Downloads | 3D Gamers | VGPro | WGW Project ]
Manticore’s French translation of Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood is now available to order online (thanks Jeux Linux). Robin Hood, which was originally developed by Spellbound Entertainment and ported to Linux by Runesoft, is also available in English and German from TuxGames.
A minor release of Nexuiz has been brought to our attention. Changes/fixes in this release include:
Download: [ Nexuiz 1.2.1 ]
Speaking of GC 2005, Lightkey let usknow about some additional things he saw at the show:
Linux Game Publishing posted this unfortunate news to their site today:
Linux Game Publishing today announces that we have cancelled our contract to publish the Linux version of Northland, due to technical issues with the Linux version of the game that could not be resolved to our satisfaction.Anyone that is still interested in this game will still be able to order it (minus the unported multiplayer section) direct from Runesoft who have done the porting work on the portion of the game that will be released by them shortly.This decision by LGP in no way affects the other products from Runesoft, such as Software Tycoon or the upcoming Knights and Merchants.
Release 1.2 of Nexuiz, an open-source first-person-shooter based on the Quake 1 source, has been released. This update brings several new features including:
Download: [ Nexuiz 1.2 ]
Runesoft Entertainment let us know that they are presenting games at this year’s Games Convention, a gaming industry trade show (akin to E3) in Leipzig, Germany, which runs from August 17th through the 21st. The Linux version of Northland is on display; they are located at the stand of Runesoft’s partner company Magnussoft in Hall 3 (Stand B10).
A reader pointed out that the German-based Linux game porting company E.P.I.C. Interactive Entertainment has changed its name to Runesoft Entertainment. Runesoft has previously released Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood and Barkanoid 2 for Linux.
aspifox sent in the following:
Human Head seem to now be re-publishing the Linux version of Rune themselves.http://www.humanhead.com/headstore.htm#headgames
This is Rune Gold, which includes the Halls Of Valhalla expansion pack and is available at the pretty good price of $17.
From a reader:
DevMaster reports: CrossCut Games has released the source code and a fully unlocked playable version of RuneSword 2, a Windows based “CRPG designed to appeal to ‘pen and paper’ role-players. The game comes with two full-length adventures, a number of smaller adventures, and a completely flexible construction set.” The project can be found on SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/runesword/. It appears to be written in VisualBasic. Time for a C port? ;)
A few people pointed out this news from Tux Games at the end of February regarding their remaining inventory of Loki games:
Despite our best efforts to continue to obtain the now discontinued Loki titles, finally the inevitable has happened and one of the Loki titles will no longer be available from our store. Alpha Centauri has now been discontinued.For anyone that is still missing a few of the Loki titles to complete their collection, we still have a few of the rest in stock, but they wont last forever. Come and get them whilst you can!
A few of the top-selling / favorite Loki titles at TG:
David Anderson wrote it to point out a thread on the official Rune site. As well as discussing the possibility of a sequel to the game, the thread provides some interesting sales figures.
To date, Rune has sold over 270,000 copies world wide (about half and half in US and Europe, with additional copies selling in Australia, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Brazil, Mexico and Russia as well). Mac sales were around 5,000 of these while Linux sales were less than 1,000. The PS2 version sold over 150,000 units, with 100,000 being sold in the US and the rest sold in Europe (not bad for what is essentially a port).
While the lackluster sales of the Linux version are certainly disappointing, it may be important to note that Rune was one of Loki’s later titles. Some of the earlier Loki titles sold much better, but it’s clear that we still have a long way to go before we can compete with larger markets.