Gaming Daily A-Z

Overgod Overgod , an abstract shooter using Allegro , is a fast paced top down shooter. It's fun although pretty tough, and has a nice retro feel but with good modern graphics. It's one of those games you can pick up and play for 5 or 10 minutes, let off some steam, then be back to whatever it was you were doing without having lost too much time. It's available for Linux, Windows, and Macs. :-) Cube Legends (formely known as LOZ:Cube) is a Cube mod, inspired by the Legend of Zela series of games. Since Cube is getting a bit old in the tooth and has been superceeded by Sauerbraten , somebody has stepped up to work on Cube Legends 2007 which will bring this popular Cube mod up-to-date to run on Sauerbraten. FreeTrain has gained another developer, and progress on fixing up the codebase continues. Even better, there is an additional plugin set which contains something like 200+ plugins for FreeTrain, and in the coming weeks it is being translated as well. There'...

FreeSynd 0.2 is out! It's not yet mentioned on their site but you can get it from the project download page (Windows only, but 0.1 had a Linux version so hopefully it'll follow soon). I loved the original Syndicate (although the sequel Syndicate Wars was better). What a game that was. I can hardly wait for it to download... downloaded... playing... ok! That was a blast from the past. Only the first mission is playable but it's clear they have gotten through a lot of the harder work on this project. Future versions should be quite fun to play. However they are using the art & media from the original - I would have thought that is of questionable legality (the game is classed as abandonware) but I can't comment properly without knowing the facts and they are not so easy to come by for a game with so little official documentation online. Speaking of classic DOS games and open source efforts to revive them, UFO2000 no longer needs data files from the origin...

Funny how I have a quick moan about Beats of Rage yesterday only to find OpenBoR today. In fact I had mentioned OpenBoR before on this site but forgot plus these days they seem to be a little more organised. Saying that, borgeneration.com seems to have a few issues (forum down, mod links 403). Beats of Rage is an old school arcade beat em up game, and there's various mods for it such as Double Dragon (what a game that was, eh!?). OpenBoR is an open source effort to provide a free engine compatable with Beats of Rage. I'm hopeful that OpenBoR will run with more success on my Linux laptop than the official BoR game does. There is even an "enhanced" fork of OpenBoR found on lavalit.com . I use quotes because I can't vouch for that, it's just how I found it described on the Beats of Rage article on Wikipedia. The BoR community seems to be pretty active, and there's lots of mods. If I had the time I would try out a few. But I don't. Just to pro...

If you want to help the next SuperTuxKart release then be sure to check out 0.3 alpha which has been uploaded . Expect bugs but once ironed out this should be a cool game again. :-) The lead developer of Heroes of Allacrost kindly let me know that a new version is due in the next two weeks. Colonies The "other" Colonization-inspired effort, now called Colonies , saw version 0.0.3 out yesterday. I'm not sure how indicative of the gameplay state that version number is e.g. I wouldn't say that OpenCity 0.0.4 reflected the state of development, I would say it was more like 20-30% complete but what would I know! Anyway I don't have time to check it out properly but I eventually found the screenshots (not in the most obvious place). Any really dedicated Free Gamer readers may note I said that they claimed to be an open source sequel to the 1994 original, but they are explicit that this is not the case (don't know whether I was being sensationalistic or ign...

At last, a Vega Strike update is coming in the summer . It's been long overdue. :-) The next Ultimate Stunts release is imminent. It won't bring much in the way of features but should keep things moving forward. I like this game, it's a little different to the other racing games out there - a little more freeform and funky. (It makes sense to me.) A few more graphics, levels, and cars and it really would be a cool game, but there's only so much that 1 guy can do unless others chip in. ;-) Pingus needs an SDL guru... well, not a guru, but somebody prepared to take the SDL port which "sort of" works and make it "really" work. I might run a little campaign now that the translated version of FreeTrain is coming together. Speaking of FreeTrain, a Windows binary is due in the next couple of weeks. The end goal is to replace any Windows-specific code and make it cross platform but that is going to have to wait. The game lacks proper save game su...

*Cheer* A Linux version of Those Funny Funguloids is being prepared. Stop by the OGRE forums if you fancy an early look although you will need to compile it yourself. *Cheer* The next release of Scourge is imminent - due this weekend. Improved UI, more story, more game art, localization, bug fixes, and general Scourge love mean this should be a kicking release. (Scourge is a fave Free game of mine!) :-) *Cheer* Also due this weekend is some real RSS abuse as I take on reinstating the Free Gamer lists in full. Social life + no home Internet + sometimes having to work == delay thus far. OpenOutcast *Booes* I got a bit of stick yesterday for slightly misrepresenting the fact that Crystal Space is more than just a 3D engine - whereas OGRE is just a 3D engine - so yesterday's comparison of the two was slightly unfair. No stable release for something like 3 years was a mistake by the CS team (a similar mistake being made by the Vega Strike developers) but it's goo...

I know what I wanted to post about yesterday... the Crystal Core tech demo ! This rather sexy looking FPS is designed to showcase Crystal Space 3d engine . Crystal Space used to be the open source 3d engine of choice in it's early days, but then OGRE roared past with much better management and more frequent releases. (Developers of any project: release early, release often. ) It's difficult to see CS ever getting back on level terms with OGRE but it's good to see progress. I want another Ecksdee release though! Battle for Antargis 0.2 was rather quietly released several days ago. I've mentioned this game a few times on FG - I like it because it's fairly original i.e. not another remake and because it's inspired by a fairly unique game - Powermonger . Ok so the ZX Spectrum turned 25 yesterday. I'm older, so I am not amused. What does amuse me is the classic spectrum games - Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy II . Those two remakes had me up until 3am...

Plasma Pong Well, actually, if you're playing Plasma Pong your Monday is probably multi-coloured! What a cool looking variant on a classic game, eh? Shame it's only available for Windows & MacOS X at the moment but it works in WINE . Another shame is that it's not released under a FLOSS license. (The author wants to keep his research into fluid effects proprietry.) A pong game that is Free and looks quite cool can be found on darkdawn.co.uk . This one is FLOSS and has a few nice particle effects. If you like Frets on Fire , be sure to check out this thread in the Ubuntu forums which gives details on some cool improvements you can get for the game as well as some song locations. And there's another release of FIFE , the engine which has evolved from a Fallout port to a "unique 2D RPG engine". This release takes the engine much closer to being a viable generic RPG engine. I've got a feeling we'll be seeing a game or two based on FIFE crop ...

There's a Frets on Fire update. I swear that game has the coolest logo. New features for this guitar-meets-DDR game include wobbly effects for long notes, combo totals, and support for left-handed players, plus the usual bug fixes. You can now play FreeTrain . It lives! Still missing are pre-made levels, proper save game support, and tutorials, plus a few of the plugins don't work. FreeTrain is an interesting game when it comes to architecture. Almost everything is written as a plugin, trains and all. Anyway if you have a copy of VS2005 you can play it now, otherwise you'll have to wait a bit longer before binaries are created. I somehow missed a game out yesterday in the flight combat article ... Edit - added it! Carrier 2 , an opengl remake of the old classic Carrier Command. It looks good and 4 years steady development means it should get better. ;-) Also I don't think I mentioned that Egoboo Resurrection 2.3.7 got released - for Windows & Mac only at...

Flying Guns Thunder & Lightening glHorizon glHorizon 3D cockpit Combat Simulator Project Decopter Hey, I'm up early - or in bed late. Anyway, I came across a few open source flight combat simulators last night and thought I'd comment on them. I thought the OS flight combat sim scene was barren, but that is definitely not the case. The main protagonist in this FLOSS game genre is GL-117 . It's been stable and polished for quite some time now. There is vaunted development on a v2 of the game, but nothing tangible to speak of. It is more an arcade game than a simulation but packs of fun nonetheless! RedShift is inspired by GL-117, so will be another arcade flight combat game. It's early days and in the progress of a rewrite from C to C++ but the author is optimistic that he'll be able to release an update in a month or so. Flying Guns is a WWI flight combat simulation game where you can engage as many as 100 AI planes at a time. It's intrigingly writte...

Somebody is taking the Glest engine and turning it into a game based on Starship Troopers , the bloodiest goriest movie ever to be certified as suitable for viewing by 15 year olds in the UK. StarShip Troopers: Last Defense StarShip Troopers: Last Defense is in it's infancy but they are making steady progress and it would be nice to finally have an open source answer to Starcraft. Building on the Glest engine shows off one of the powers of Free Software. :-) FreeTrain is now playable. If you have VS2005 you can grab SVN and run it. There are a few more issues to be addressed before any builds are posted, related to features not working that should be and a rather sharp learning curve that needs addressing with a few nice tutorial levels, but it's getting there! Simutrans continues to close in on it's 1.0 release with version 0.99.10 - I always like a release early, release often strategy and the Simutrans releases epitomise that philosophy. I had more to talk about b...

Tired OpenCity 0.0.5 closing in ( screenshot ) FreeCol 0.6 Sauerbraten 2007-04-13 Lords A War - fork of FreeLords Unofficial FreeLords update

Freespace 2 is a commercial 3D space action game, created by Volition inc , whose engine has been made available as Free Software. This has enabled several total conversions of the game, 3 in particular, to be made into standalone games. WC Saga First up there is Wing Commander Saga , (obviously) set in the ever-popular Wing Commander universe. There is no Linux version yet but it's in the works, so you'll need a Mac or Windows (or WINE ?) to play it at the moment. The Babylon Project is (obviously) set in the Babylon 5 universe. It seems to be Windows only for the moment. :-( Finally, the recently announced BattleStar Galactica - Beyond the Red Line , set in (you guessed it) the Battlestar Galactica universe, which does have a Linux version (yay!) although you may need a few tricks to be able to play it in Linux. There is another TC called Inferno that is fairly popular amongst FS2 fans, but it's existence is a little less clear. There is: Inferno Release 1 (old, a...

Anything is possible Sauer Platformer So yesterday I'm perusing the Sauerbraten forums and came across this wonderful new map [see right]. The creativity! :-) But, more seriously, check out the following screenshot of SauerMod , described as: Gameplay Extensions for Sauerbraten, including Bots and Enhancements to the FPS, as well as a new Side Scrolling Platformer. Kewl. Although I wish they'd finish Eisenstern . *twiddles thumbs* In other Free FPS news, the action oriented game Warsow is closing in on a new release, 0.3, which should bring a lot of improvements to the game. If you want to get a feel for the game without playing it, there's a community gameplay movie showing off the various jumping tricks you can pull off in Warsow. Get the HD version from their forum or stream it in a lower resolution . Does anybody remember PPRacer ? It was supposed to be the Free Software successor to the formerly-Free Tux Racer . Development of PPRacer stagnated, planetpenguin...

I'm in a rush today - back to proper Free Gamer business as usual next week - so just a quick one. The old school GTA games may be available as freeware , but purists will be happy to see Passenger , an open source game which shares many gameplay elements with the newer GTA games. Based on the Spectrum classic Turbo Esprit , the idea is to hunt down and kill terrorists rather than indulge mindless gangster oriented mayhem. The fact that you may cause carnage en-route is moot. :-) Check out S.W.I.N.E. , a 3D RTS by indie developers StormRegion . It's freeware and Windows-only but it looks really cool ! Get some WINE ready. ;-) Another Windows-only freeware game called Chaos , has a demo available ( gameplay video ). A game based on molecular simulation - if that's not original then I don't know what is! I am in direct contact with the author so will try to talk him into making it available under a Free license (think Linux port) so we'll see where that dicussi...

It's been nearly a year since I first posted up a request for volunteers to get FreeTrain ( original Japanese homepage ) up and running. Many thanks to Daniel Markstedt who has stepped up and not only translated the game but managed to get it running as well! A little bit more work is involved in getting it to a stage where we can provide binaries but the hard stuff is done. If you want to know what all the excitement is about, check out this gargantuan screenshot of FreeTrain in action. How cool is that? :-) In order to disambiguate this version of FreeTrain from the original, it needs a new name. FreeTrain-En and FreeTrain International are already taken. Daniel gives his opinion: I was thinking of something in the lines of "FreeTrain Universal" or maybe "FreeTrain - Free Edition" ('freed' from its linguistic/geographic and platform restraints.) =) Can anybody come up with something for us? In the rumour mill, apparently the Privateer Gemini Gold...

In a brief follow up (time constraints) to the Q3 TCs post, there's some news on a couple projects. The guys behind the recently released World of Padman have talked about the future of the project whilst thanking people for the positive initial feedback: This first version is not supposed to be the final one. There are some things we want to implement in future versions like the missing singleplayer. Well, we only plan to integrate a simple SP, fighting against the bots throught the maps, but want to tell a story by adding some nice comic strips and videos. Known bugs will be fixed too and some new features are also on our list. Have we already mentioned a new map pack by ENTE, which might be available within 2 or 3 days? And I missed out the mod Urban Terror . Although this is more freeware than Free due to some restrictions on the game content, it is still a cool looking TC for Q3 and worth checking out if you are into your contemporary war-fests. Lastly the game FlowFlowMania...

Not much happening really, then again I have been offline for X days. I'm in the process of inputting the Free Game list into OpenOffice.org Base (Access equivalent). Then I'll be able to do lots more fun things to the game lists, not to mention no more hand-typing hundreds of html tags. I'm back-dating this post to the 9th (it's the 10th really) because I can and because it's something-AM. And [the real reason] I'll probably post stuff later when I get bored trying to do my urgent work that has me in my office at 2:30am in the morning.

In the first of a new wave of Free Gamer content, Ingo Ruhnke aka Grumbel and one of the most prolific open source game developers around has kindly taken the time to do an interview. Please note that Ingo's first language is not English, and I've not modified his answers in any way other than to sanitize links. I have made a few notes on his answers at the end of the interview. Many thanks to Ingo for taking time to answer my questions, especially in so much detail - much more than I could have hoped for! :-) Just in case you left your brain at home today, the questions are bold and prefaced with a Q - and the answers, er, not bold with no Q. Q. In my best Cilla Black accent, "What's yer name an' where d'ya come from?" My Name is Ingo Ruhnke in the real world, on IRC and web forums I use to call myself Grumbel. I am coming from good old Germany from a town called Bielefeld: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielefeld_Conspiracy Q. And what do you do for a ...

It's really great when a company like iD Software release their game engines under a Free license. It means all the hard work by modders (the vast majority of community game development goes into modding commercial games) can be made available to everybody and not just owners of the game. It also means they can improve the engine to suit their games. So, without further ado, here's a few really cool total conversions of Quake 3... Western Quake 3 is a wild west TC. Accurately simulated classic weapons, new music, obviously models and maps, and various gameplay tweaks mean it should be quite an interesting experience. Still in beta but a new release is imminent. Urban Terror made a release on April 1st. It's a Counter-Strike-like game. 'Nuff said. Tremulous , one of the original FPS RTS combo games, recently celebrated the 1 year anniverisary of their 1.1 release - the first standalone version of the game and the one that really got people talking. Since then ...

I came across the Hardwar project the other day, a contemporary remake of the classic game . No visible progress but plenty of ambition and a cute website. We shall see if it gets anywhere . A remake that has made some good progress is Game of Bases , putting a modern spin on a Commodore 64 classic Flash Attack . Control 4 tanks, protect your base, and take out your opponents. I mentioned FlowFlowMania the other day, a Pipe Mania remake. Since then there have been a few updates - 0.5 was announced on Freshmeat although not on the FlowFlowMania site at the time of writing. Gno3dtet Blockout was the original 3D tetris. Gno3Dtet (aka 3D Tetris) is a remake that looks very similar to the original in terms of the tile graphics. Beware, for I have known more than one person be addicted to that game to the point it adversely affected their degrees! Not a remake, nor open source, but the Flash adventure game " The Terrific Menace of the Invaders from Audio Galaxy " (I'm...

Welcome to post number 100 on Free Gamer. Slowly I am finding out how to push blogger to it's limits. The list is starting to look much better, now that the layout is getting there. The tedious work of populating it with real information is looming. Once that is done, several more mini-lists will sprout up. Anyway, back to the daily grind of talking about Free Software games. It's a hard knock life, it is. ;-) Starting with Freeciv , which saw 2.1beta4 released ( download ) over the weekend. (Not sure how I missed that yesterday.) It fixes many crashes so hopefully should be a lot more stable than 2.1beta3 which, in my experience, was fairly ropey. Initial feedback seems to be pretty good. I created some Ubuntu packages for Freeciv-2.1beta4 . I felt like doing a good deed for the day, or something like that. Beyond The Red Line Battlestar Galactica: Beyond The Red Line is a game being developed by fans for fans of the series and is based on a modified version of the...

UFO:AI 2.1 was released ( changelog , download ) yesterday. This is turning into an incredible game. It takes the best elements of the original UFO games and builds on them with contemporary technologies to produce what really has to be one of the leading - if not the best - open source games available. If you want to see how cool it looks, just go over to their screenshot gallery . Importantly this version adds the foundations for a storyline. So subsequent releases will include a story to compliment the gameplay. Awesome! :-) 3D RPG game Scourge has seen quite a lot of development since it's last version. Notably, the game has been localized and translated to Italian, and the UI is being overhauled with a completely new inventory screen that is more traditional i.e. similar to games like Diablo. With those new features and lots of bugs fixed, hopefully a new release will follow soon. The 3D post-apocolyptic RTS Warzone 2100 Resurrection team snook out a 2.0.6 release ( c...

Well, not really, I never enjoy reading rubbish people try to make up to be funny. Honestly, if I want a laugh, I'll go to a comedy store. Anyhow... World of Padman . 3D, Toy Story esque setting and freeware. It's a deathmatch game but comes with bots, it runs on Linux and Windows, looks fantastic, and even has a promo trailer . Released today, surely this is not an April Fool's as it is too elaborate. Or maybe it is just a promotion for a commercial game, released as freeware for today only? Who knows. This is why I don't like April 1st. Anyway, download it and see. It's not open source though. I've been whining about a lack of good platform games, but I found a few on GetDeb . The Goonies I came across The Goonies just after posting on Friday. It's a remake of a classic NES game, but with better graphics and sound. It's quite tricky to play but a good time waster. Then I tried to play Magicor which looks fun, but it crashed on my Feisty F...