LINUXGAMES

Version 3.1.0 beta of Angband has been released. This is the first release in 10 months with the main features of this release from the user’s point of view are the improved UI and the reduction in monster drops. The large change-log can be found here


Download: [ Angband 3.1.0 Beta ]

Ars Technica has an article responding to the Wolfire Blog post advocating that indie game developers support Linux and OSX:

Lastly, bad code creates an obvious technical boundary that prevents cross-platform gaming from being a normal occurrence. “Even if you have used some proprietary technology that is only available on Windows, like DirectX, a Linux superstar can still salvage it if your code is nice and has reasonable abstraction,” explained Jeff. “However, if your code is terrible, the porting process will not be easy. But porting your game to other platforms is not easy if you are not familiar with them. Just the act of getting a Linux machine up and running, and getting familiar with new developer tools is too much of a barrier for most people.”

There’s also some criticism for the Linux-friendly game distributor Greenhouse for their lack of responsiveness to inquiries from Wolfire, who are developing an action-adventure sequel to Lugaru called Overgrowth.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, a roguelike game where players seek the Orb of Zot, had a new release with bugfixes and interface improvements (changelog):

Also, Stone Soup won Ascii Dreams Roguelike of the Year award.

Download: [ sourceforge.net ]

Kotaku reported recently that React!Games has acquired the license to the classic Atari title Archon: The Light and the Dark:

We are moving as fast as possible to get it out by fall 2009 (at the latest). Our goal is to get it out on all the platforms, but the only ones that are “officially announced” are the PC, Mac, Linux. Please tell everyone to register on the forums and give us your two cents…we are using the forums to help guide us in making this game for the fans. So every opinion counts!

You can follow their progress at the dev blog.

Illwinter Game Design released a patch for the turn-based strategy game Dominions 3: The Awakening since last we mentioned it; changes include:

• New spirits to summon for Jomon: Ujigami, Mori-no-kami, Kenzoku, Jigami, Gozy Mezu.
• R’lyeh dreamlands suffered from the same problem as Ermor once did. Dom-kill rate now multiplied by 5.
• Battle enchantments did not expire when leaving the battlefield by unusual means (e.g. being immortal
• and getting killed), fixed.
• Shape changing could result in incorrect magic item loss, fixed.
• Wishing for a non unique item could remove too many items from the world, fixed.
• Game could crash due to too many large units on the battlefield, fixed.
• Crash during turn generation fixed.
• Improved cheat detection.
• Many random events have some fixes.
• Some rituals can now only be cast in certain terrains: Hidden in sand - waste, Mountain Vila - mountain,
• Cloud vila - mountain, Leshiy - forest, Nushi - swamp, Shedim - waste, Seirim - waste.
• Hinnom PD reduced
• Hinnom start army reduced
• Hinnom Popkillers gives some unrest.
• Ba’al eat Melquart event reversed.
• Onmyo-ji has got a fortune teller ability and battle summons.

You can also follow future patch changes at the dev blog. If you’re not familiar with the game, this “Let’s Play!” thread at the Something Awful forums is a good primer.

Download: [ shrapnelgames.com ]

Two annual independent game awards are spinning up to recognize the best projects from last year:

• Mod DB’s 2008 Mod of the Year Awards have begun; you can vote on nominees such as Warsow, Wheels of War, and World of Padman. The second round of voting will begin on January 17^th, and the final winners will be announced at the end of February.
• The finalists for the 2009 Independent Games Festival have been announced, which include the native Linux games Dyson, an abstract real-time strategy title, and the previously mentioned Between. There’s also a few Flash games: Coil, IncrediBots, and You Have To Burn the Rope.

Esquire Magazine posted an article profiling the author of Passage, Jason Rohrer (thanks ohsix):

Rohrer is trying to make art in a medium that most people don’t even think is capable of art. He can create this space of pure freedom, as artists have done in the past — isolation, introspection, ascetic poverty. But ultimately he has to send these works out into the world, and people have to respond to them. And right now the audience doesn’t know what to do with them.

Also included is a new game from Rohrer, Between:

These things that appear are ugly and non-procedural: indecipherable transmissions bubbling up through static, faded messages floating in bottles, and charcoal handprints on cave walls. Evidence has reached you through time of unknown duration and distance of unknown magnitude, but stale evidence is still evidence.

Somewhere, across whatever barriers stand between, is an other.

edit: Woops, Rohrer has another game we missed, Gravitation, a game about “mania, melancholia, and the creative process”.

Also, I had to make a small change to Between’s source to compile on a 64-bit system:

--- game7/gameSource/WebRequest.cpp.original	2009-01-07 00:53:58.000000000 -0600
+++ game7/gameSource/WebRequest.cpp	2009-01-07 00:54:20.000000000 -0600
 -289,7 +289,7 @@
                     int resultLength =
                         responseLength
                         - strlen( contentStartString )
-                        - ( (int)contentStart - (int)responseString );
+                        - ( (long)contentStart - (long)responseString );

                     mResult = new char[ resultLength + 1 ];
                     memcpy( mResult,

Warzone 2100, a freed real-time strategy game, has had a version bump to add new soundtracks, improved AI, and other new features.

There’s documentation online for new players.

Download: [ wz2100.net ]

The physics-oriented sandbox game Phun, which we haven’t mentioned in a while, has a redesigned website with tutorials, videos, and the requisite FAQ.

Word War vi, a Defender-style retro shooter inspired by the vi text editor, is at version 0.24 (changes).

Video: [ View ] Download: [ sourceforge.net ]

Wired is reporting that the massive multiplayer space game EVE Online has passed the 45,000 simultaneous player mark. EVE has a Cedega-based Linux client.

New patches are now available for Knights and Merchants and Ballistics, to address a connection issue with PenguinPlay, Linux Game Publishing’s new multiplayer matchmaking service. These can be downloaded immediately using lgp_update.

The developers of the open source game project Yo Frankie notified us of a new contest:

To kickstart some new levels for Yo Frankie I have decided to run a six week competition to create new levels for the game. These can then be included in a future release of Yo Frankie, which will include updates for the next Blender release and bugfixes.

The contest runs from January 16^th to February 28th; here are the rules:

• Collaboration is fine, but I’ll only accept an entry from a single person.
• Final level must be under 100mb compressed.
• No modifications to the player logic (jump height, glide distance etc) - bug fixes are an exception.
• Your level must be under the same creative commons license as all existing YoFrankie levels.
• No node based materials (just use material-textures for more efficient shaders)
• You can enter more then one level
• Level cannot have been entered into a previous competition

The project was conceived as a way to validate open source 3D game creation and features third-person perspective platforming. You can read more about Yo Frankie’s design at the project wiki.

The Annchienta project is a free, single-player graphical 2D tile-based RPG engine. Fall of Imiryn, the official Annchienta-based game, takes place in an isometric fantasy world, where you battle to complete a tragic quest. Changes:

• Most graphics were updated, shadows were added to all objects to improve the sprites.
• An intro scene was added in the beginning of the game
• Many glitches were fixed (especially in cutscenes)
• Added and improved cutscenes and dialogues
• Many balancing changes
• Added battle music
• Polished up parts of the game engine

Download: [ sourceforge.net ]

The groundbreaking open-sourced first-person shooter DOOM reached 15 years of age last month; meanwhile, new features and content for the game continue to appear:

• Chocolate Doom, which aims to replicate the behavior of the original DOOM builds for DOS, had a new release with various bugfixes.
• Freedoom, which aggregates openly licensed art assets and maps for DOOM, is at version 0.6.3.
• Doomworld pointed out that a sequel to The Plutonia Experiment has been made available twelve years after the original IWAD’s retail release with Final DOOM.

Platinum Arts sent in the following update concerning Sandbox, their educational game design tool:

The moddb.com mod/indie game of the year awards are currently underway.  The first round of voting ends on January 16th and then starting on the 17th the finalists are voted for.  So if you vote for us please remember to do it in BOTH PHASES!  To vote for us you can go to http://www.moddb.com/games/platinum-arts-sandbox and click vote in the profile, registered voters count more!  Please consider voting for us :) Thanks for your support!!

We have a ton of goodies for you in this new release dubbed 2.3.

• New 3D sidescroller Mario like mode!  Also there is a seperate RPG project, check the wiki!
• Hotkeys that make it easier to save games, add materials, and lots more!
• New in game help section that displays all of the binds/key commands!
• Snow has been tweaked and updated :)  Be sure to check out the new version of house :D
• Maps now generate cfgs on save!  Also many various map tweaks.
• New main menu theme!  To try other themes check out the options menu.
• Loads of new textures and new player skins.
• Tons of under the hood bug fixes and features.
• Thanks to ZKAT of virtualdarkarts.net there is a brand new great looking launcher!

Be sure to check out the new Sandbox video courtesy of NoesisInteractive.com and moddb where I talk about the mission of Sandbox, my success of using it with kids, useful development software, and a lot more!  Check that out over here at:

http://www.moddb.com/games/platinum-arts-sandbox/features/noesis-presents-moddb-tv-sandbox-interview

Download: [ platinumarts.net ]

Tycoon Games let us know about Heileen, a historical-fiction visual novel game with multiple endings:

The game tells the tale of a young girl from the 17th Century, Heileen. Her merchant uncle leaving her no choice, she undertakes a voyage to the New World. She’ll meet old friends, like her childhood friend Marie, and get the chance to befriend other people, like John, the young, dashing sailor, Marco, the ship’s cook, and Lora, the shameless mistress accompanying her uncle on the voyage.

The game features over 4500 screens of dialog, 8 chapters and 3 different endings.

A free three-chapter demo is also available.

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ heileen.com ]

This post was submitted by rei1974.

Version 0.9 of DeSmuME, the popular Nintendo DS emulator, has been released. This version focuses on a complete rework of the 3d core which fixes a number of bugs which leads to better compatibility and speed.


Download: [ DeSmuME 0.9]

A new version of Cstat has been announced. This tool allows you to gather real-time statistics from Cube and Cube engine 2 game servers which includes the following games: Cube, Sauerbraten, AssaultCube and Blood Frontier. Changes in this release includes:

• updated AssaultCube support
• updated Sauerbraten support (CTF Edition)
• updated Blood Frontier support

Download: [ Cstat 0.5.4 ]

The latest development version of Wine, version 1.1.12, has been released. Changes in this release includes the following items:

• Some simple 64-bit apps should now run.
• Support for subpixel font rendering.
• 64-bit code generation in the IDL compiler.
• New version of the Gecko engine.
• Various bug fixes.

Download: [ Wine 1.1.12]