Gaming Daily A-Z

Ah, the recent spate of Free game / Free Gamer activity continues. I will be away for the weekend so there will be respite. However, not today! True Combat: Elite Battle for Wesnoth A new release of True Combat: Elite is imminent. They are finalising RC3 of the new version and then shortly after testing that going gold. On the site you can find more details on the HDR lighting used in the game. This release looks really good - really, really good. I used to be a Counter Strike addict so will probably avoid this for the sake of my health. Also a new Battle for Wesnoth release gets ever nearer. The second beta for 1.2 is available, and contains many improved graphics - the graphics are really amazing for a volunter developed 2D game. Some of the character portraits are stunning. The gameplay ain't half bad either! Davide Coppola (aka M3xican) notified me that the Mars: Land of No Mercy team have released version 0.1.2 of their isometric turn based strategy mech game. (...

SuperTuxKart has finally emerged as a game in it's own right, with a release planned for September 10th . I'm looking forward to playing it. If anybody thinks they can help out with the release, chip in! SuperTuxKart is the result of the Happypenguin Game of the Month efforts from eons ago to update TuxKart . As a side note, I inspired GotM (although grumbel implemented it) and I also put forward TuxKart for GotM development. Sadly, at the time, the usage of SDL [TuxKart is PLIB -based] by the GotM team meant the original developer refused to help out unless all SDL stuff was removed - only PLIB didn't properly support fullscreen rendering at the time. I reckon it was a case of NIH syndrome since the TuxKart author is a PLIB developer. This caused the SuperTuxKart fork but all the politics detrimentally affected the development. I think the GotM guys were right to introduce SDL. It was pragmatic as it supported the features they needed, and it was practical as ...

These days my conscience starts playing up when I don't update FG. Here I am, sat at work, fretting over not having posting an update for a few days. I may have to change format to just blog about things as and when I encounter them rather than building up entries... still, I'm digressing. Nikwi Deluxe Nikwi Deluxe , by Slashstone , is now available under the GPL. This cute 2D platformer is very old school but still well done. It's also a bit silly [you collect sweets, birds poo on you, etc] and therefore suitable for kids, but still isn't easy to don't let the "kids" tag prevent those mega tough macho men amongst you from checking it out. I even made my own screenshot of it, coincidentally of the level where I gave up because it was too hard. Sadly it is a Windows only game but should work on WINE . Perhaps now it is GPL somebody will port it? Edit - there appears to be a Linux binary . Thanks Mr Anonymous for the tip. The latest VDrift release s...

Ultimate Stunts 0.6.2 is out. I always loved the original Stunts 4D game that inspired this. Ultimate Stunts looks a little more free form than ManiaDrive and reminds me of an old game Car & Driver whose graphics haven't aged a bit *cough* *splutter*. That game was ace. I was did a 49 rotation somersault off a cliff, bounced of the bridge, did several flips, and landed on the road. Tell me another game where you could be so Mick Jagger . There's a new Free FPS on the go. I say new, I mean "re-released with better graphics". It's Marathon Rubicon X which takes the original and drags it kicking and screaming into the modern PC world. I believe it is sprite based instead of 3D enemies, so is a modern throwback to the days of Duke Nukem 3D . I couldn't find any screenshots of Rubicon X. On the Game Tome I also found The Black Legacy Darkness 0.9.9 . This 3D Fantasy Sci-Fi MMORPG project looks something like a cross between Quake 3 and Anarchy Onli...

Due to personal reasons Free Gaming has been a bit slow lately. Here's a few snippets... Next version of True Combat: Elite will have HDR lighting making it the first Free Software Linux game to ship with HDR lighting (thanks Albert Santoni) VegaStrike gets network deathmatch support - go register and play on the online server ManiaDrive 1.2 bugfix release "no more crashes" Warzone Resurrection 2.0.4rc2 OpenArena 0.5.0 - btw it's now a standalone download (and has been for a while, I think) Scourge! 0.15 which should be much more playable than previous releases with lots of work on making the character movement better Frets on Fire makes guitar playing fun ;-) I'm off to suffer having lost my gal to her desire to be free! If only the female mind were open source...

There's been an update to Mania Drive . This one introduces a beginners storyline, which is a welcome addition to any non-expert drivers given the difficulty of the previous release! Lots of bug fixes, lots of new levels, and this game is definitely now one of the leading Free Software driving games available. Also of note is the 2.1-beta2 release of Freeciv . I checked out the SDL version and it is really looking nice. However, the term "beta" means beta. The release is laden with bugs. Loading it up, the "Start New Game" option is disabled. After manually starting and connecting to a localhost server, the "Server Settings" button was impotent. Still, I remembered "set aifill=6" to give me some opposition although I couldn't work out how to make them tougher (and was too lazy to google) so played on easy AI. I'll start by saying that they really need to review most of the UI - it is a usability nightmare. Everything is iconi...

There is a demo of The Silver Lining (formely known as King's Quest IX) available for download ! For those who don't know, King's Quest is a long running series from Sierra. Back in the good old days of 16 colours, this game combined the best possible graphics, fantastic landscapes, puzzles, and great stories. In fact, I don't think I enjoyed many adventure games more than King's Quest V. (Then again I stopped buying games after that.) There's a good overview of the King's Quest series on everybody's favourite resource . There's a quick overview & screenshots of each of the KQ titles on vintage-sierra.com . There's also freeware VGA remakes of KQ1 and KQ2 availabe from ADG Interactive . Enough background information... onto the game in question. The Silver Lining The Silver Lining is a 3D adventure game with breathtaking scenery and superbly animated characters. It is a fan-made game so it should combine, refine, and outshine the qual...

OTRS Well, look what we have here. Joining the likes of Boson , Glest , and TA:Spring / TA3D is another Free 3D RTS game: ORTS . The interesting thing about ORTS is the motivation - the AI. ORTS is a programming environment for studying real-time AI problems such as pathfinding, dealing with imperfect information, scheduling, and planning in the domain of RTS games. <snip> ...the current state of RTS game AI is bleak which is mainly caused by the lack of planning and learning - areas in which humans are currently much better than machines. <snip> ... the ORTS project [is] a free software system that lets people and machines play fair RTS games. <snip> Users can connect whatever client software they like. This is made possible by a server/client architecture in which only the currently visible parts of the game state are sent to the players. This openness leads to new and interesting possibilities ranging from on-line tournaments of autonomous AI players to gauge the...

Thanks to Nicklas Marcusson who took the time to email me his findings on running Gusanos on Linux . Without further ado: I saw in your previous blog entry that you mentioned gusanos and I have been looking for a good liero like game for linux, and man I have to say this game is the cat's pyjamas :D It is a shame that they have not made it easy to find the documentation on how to compile it for linux and what mods there is etc. I thought I'd share my findings: Build gusanos under linux: http://gusanos.sourceforge.net /docs/doku.php?id=main:installation_docs:linux How to fix a compile error with the latest cvs source code: http://comser.liero.org.pl /forum/index.php?topic=250.msg2549#msg2549 Mods for gusanos: http://powerhuhn.net/depot/gusanos/mods/ Fanzine covering the latest and greatest news regarding Gusanos: http://powerhuhn.net/depot/gusanos/lieromag/ Video of the upcoming Quake mod for gusanos: http://powerhuhn.net/depot/gusanos/videos/trailerg3a1.avi

Recently the ClanLib team released version 0.8.0 upon the indie game development world. This "game SDK" boasts an impressive number of games built using it, and one of the more notable ones is Pingus. Pingus Level Pingus Tutorial Island Peng2illa Pingus , many may recall, is a Lemmings clone, except we watch lots of penguins die instead of lemmings. The last release, 0.6, shows so much promise - it's stable and playable and comes with a tutorial set of levels (tutorials == good) presented nicely on an island. Sadly, it seems that development has somewhat ceased. From memory and list archive perusal, issues with ClanLib changes [from ClanLib 0.6 to the then-unstable 0.7] was hindering progress. I'm very hopeful that, now ClanLib 0.8 is out, development might resume and a release with more levels and depth can rekindle the project. Another cool ClanLib-based game is Peng2illa . This circular pong-on-rails game is very good looking and about as fun as pong can be...

What is Mistlands ? It's a graphically impressive 3d open source rpg! At the end of July they released Milestone 5, just over a year since their last release. It's online-only, I think, which is a shame. Single player games just aren't the flavour these days. I feel obliged to mention Gusanos . Thanks to Amos ML for the link and apologies for taking more than a month to post it. Gusanos is a Liero clone for modern operating systems. (Liero requires DOS or DOS emulation.) Whilst the Windows download was easy to get to, I couldn't see an obvious download for non-Windows platforms despite the homepage promise of portability. For those not familiar with the classic Liero, here's some gameplay videos of Gusanos. Think Worms vs Quake. There was an update to Trackballs , making it more fun for younger kids which is good news for me and my 6 year old. For the adventurous, there's a 0.2 pre-release of Battles of Antargis which is coming along nicely. There...

Sorry for the lack of posts... damn laptop died and it's taken several days to sort it out. Between that and an unusually time-sapping week last week, it took the wind out of my free gaming sails. Service will be resumed shortly.