LINUXGAMES

We have received the following press release from Frictional Games for Penumbra: Requiem:

Frictional Games is happy to announce the release of Penumbra: Requiem for Mac & Linux. The puzzle expansion for Penumbra: Black Plague is now available through our online store at USD 9.99.

About Penumbra: Requiem

Requiem is a puzzle expansion for Penumbra: Black Plague. The game contains numerous physics based puzzles, spread out over 9 levels with unique settings. The expansion pushes the graphics capabilities of the game as far as it can - while creating the most detailed and dreading environments yet in a Penumbra game.

The expansion gives extra details to the characters from previous Penumbra games, taking peeks into their final moments of insanity.

Special Linux Deal

Driven completely insane from creating the Penumbra games, Frictional Games is offering all three Penumbra games as a collection at a horrific price of USD 35. This offer is available through the online store and is for Mac & Linux only. Just select all three games for the the single platform and a discount will be added.

Frictional Games Store: store.frictionalgames.com

Phoronix has started their 2008 Linux Graphics Survey (thanks vadi4!):

Last year we hosted our first annual Linux Graphics Survey as really the only study that’s been done to get a better understanding what the Linux community is using in their computers to fulfill their graphics needs, what their key interests are, and where they are looking for improvements. We’re hosting this survey once again so we ask that between now and December 15 you take a few minutes to vote [...]

Vulcando Games sent in a new update regarding their upcoming massive multiplayer game Celetania:

On February 13th 2009 the persistent 4X-MMOG Celetania will be coming out – and as a sneak preview Vulcando Games has released the long awaited trailer!The two minute trailer will include the history of the patriarchal Celetanians which have abandoned the universe they had been controlling, to the younger races such as the S.E.C.C.T.S. and the Grogg.

On the Celetania web page you will be able to download the movie in four languages and two different qualities or directly watch it in your browser: http://www.celetania.com/download.php.

Charlie Dog Games and Tweeler sent in notice about Go Ollie:

Go Ollie! is the latest in innovative mouse controlled platform gaming featuring a unique fusion of platform and match three gaming mechanics and comes with beautifully rendered scenes and animations.

Go Ollie! is free software and powered by tuxcap.

Download: [ tweeler.com ]

Thanks to vadi4 for pointing out Finity Flight: Fight Back:

We are proud to present not only the first commercial game available on MirthKit, but the first commercial game ever to be released with full source code.

Available on Ubuntu, Windows, and soon OSX, Fight Back is the expansion to our August release, Finity Flight, and represents a path yet-untraveled for gaming. It is the first direct hybridization of commerce and the open source philosophy.

[...]

Finity Flight: Fight Back is not open source, but it comes close. When you buy Fight Back for $11.99, you automatically receive all of its code and assets. You are free to modify the game as much as you please.

The reason it is not justifiable to say Fight Back is open source is because you are only allowed to be redistribute changes through MirthKit’s arcade. To reiterate, you are always free to publish your changes through MirthKit (you can even sell them), but users will have to gain access to your work by first purchasing the original game.

The Annchienta project has released the svn781 version of the “Fall of Imiryn” series, a role-playing game with a Active Time Battle system, resembling to those seen in older Final Fantasy games. Updates include:

• Beatiful terraforming system.
• Intruiging storyline.
• New and updated graphics.
• Fixed compilation issues.

Download: [ Annchienta svn781 ]

Linux Game Publishing sent in the following announcements (apologies for the delay in posting it):

At last, X³: Reunion has gone Gold! We expect X3, and X3 Special Edition will begin shipping on the 28th of November.

Today, we have made the decision to do some good with the extremely sought-after #1 copy of X3: Reunion - Special Edition. We have assigned #1 as a special For Charity Auction on Ebay, with the proceeds going to the EFF. We ask all of our customers to consider bidding on this auction and raising money for a great cause.

X³: Reunion is a space combat simulator developed by Egosoft. X²: The Threat was previously ported to Linux by LGP.

Oddlabs has released a new beta version of their real-time strategy game Tribal Trouble 2 with lots of changes:

• New single player quests and multiplayer islands, where you can earn points to spend on new warriors, buildings and Viking clothing!
• Fun changeable avatars where you can design your own Viking look.
• Enhanced warriors with more diverse skills.

List of changes

Unit and building changes:

• The iron warrior is now known as a Berserker. He is a fast close combat warrior that uses his axe as a melee weapon instead of throwing it.
• The chicken warrior is now known as a Chicken Punisher. His axe no longer requires rock and iron, and it stuns enemies it fails to kill.
• The rock warrior is now known as an Axeman. Changes to his skills will come later.
• The chieftain is now known as a Lur Blaster. You are the chieftain now! He now regenerates health over time. The Lur Blaster will get more skills later.
• The peon is now known as a Peasant.
• The tower can be built in half the time but withstand the same amount of damage.

Avatars:

• Customizable male and female faces.
• Clothes and helmets available in the shop.

Other changes:

• Multiplayer maps are hand drawn to be as fair as possible. Players chose their position from the beginning.
• Central management of resource gathering lets you recall peasants from within the armory.
• New keyboard shortcuts which can be found on tribaltrouble2.com/reference
• You can now place buildings on top of you own men - they will simply move out of the way.
• Attacking is impossible in the beginning of the game to stop rushing.
• You can move the view longer away from the island to get a better view of everything.
• A new grouping system lets you create and select whole groups of units easier.
• Resources respawn in a more fair way.
• Chickens always spawn in predefined areas to make maps more fair.
• There is a new game speed in between “Fast” and “Ludicrous” called “Faster”.

Upcoming features:

• Return of the natives.
• More quests.
• More multiplayer maps.
• More special attacks for the Lur Blaster.
• More avatar clothing.
• An option for trading points and oddies with other players.
• …and much more!

Screenshots: [ View ] Download: [ tribaltrouble2.com ]

Thanks to reader JonnyM (and others) for letting us know that an installation client for Americas Army version 2.5, Deploy is out for Linux:

2.5 Deploy is a Deploy Client for America’s Army, It is designed to make the process of Installing and getting up and running with AA as easy as possible.

If you are new to the game this little Application will fully automate the download and installation of the game from it’s own repository server and handle all the needed updates and checks. It will then guide you through the process of creating an account and then load your account details automatically when you first play.

Getting up and running with this free game is now as easy as a few clicks of the mouse.

If you already have America’s Army 2.5 this Application will make a copy of your existing installation and put it into a completely separate folder so it does not alter your existing installation and then bring everything up-to date. Once you are happy you may delete your old installation of AA if you wish.

After a lengthy hiatus, I’ve returned to clear out our now-molding news queue. Please let me know if there’s anything I’ve missed these past few weeks, and thanks!

The creators of TeamSpeak are moving forward with their upcoming version of a cross-platform Voice Communication Tool dubbed TeamSpeak 3. They have put out a request for Alpha Testers.but they are only looking for Linux and Mac OS X users at this point in time.. Additional information can be found here on their Developer Blog entry where the call for testers is put out.

This post was submitted by pwk.

If you have some spare cycles and are a reliable coder, you might be interested in helping out Portalized project. What is the Portalized project you may ask:

Portalized is a game project currently in development by a two-man strong team. It aims to be create a unique puzzle-solving experience using heavily stylized viusals and uncommon gameplay elements. The game was initially started by Nullsquared as a tech-demo for showing off portals using the OGRE3D graphics engine. Null’s announcement on the Facepunch and OGRE3D forums caught the attention of many people including the second team member, Svenstaro, who quickly got into contact with Null and, having previous project experience, suggested to create an actual game. This is how we got started.

This post was submitted by vadi4.

A new version of Hedgewars has been released. The changelog for this release includes the following items.

• A completely redesigned, redrawn frontend, built to be both prettier and easier to use.
• Completely reworked netplay, supports players joining and leaving games in progress
• Admin controls for network play
• A new, official central dedicated server, allowing mutiple “rooms” per server, a multiplayer lobby for matchmaking
• The ability to customize your team in exciting new ways, including the ability to customize the visual look of your hedgehogs
• New maps, themes, and graphics, a huge addition to content
• New weapons, gameplay mechanics and game options. New super weapons that you will find only in crates
• New working flames that damage hedgehogs and corrode the terrain
• New sounds, music and media
• Atmostrophic’s chat border

Download: [ Hedgewars 0.9.7 ]

This post was submitted by jay.

The latest development of Wine has been released into the wild.
Changes and new features in this release includes the following items:

• Substantial parts of inetcomm implemented (for Outlook).
• Still better crypt32 support.
• Memory management improvements.
• Theming support for buttons.
• Various bug fixes.

Download: [ Wine 1.1.8 ]

LordsAWar version 0.1.3, a clone of the turn-based strategy game Warlords II, has been released with the following changes:

• capital cities on random maps are now further apart
• added the ability to not show a particular player’s movements
• ruins and temples now have descriptions
• the city history report now works again
• fixed bugs related to a stack moving into water from a bridge or port
• fixed many more bugs

Download: [ nongnu.org ]

The second episode of the Penny-Arcade game, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, is now available for Linux. This time the price has been lowered to $15 and:

Not only did we learn a lot on the first episode but we got a ton of great feedback from you guys. As a result episode 2 has more puzzles, more flash cut scenes, multiple difficulty settings, a longer story with more dialog options and some really epic boss fights.

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Ep 2 Download: [ Atomic Gamer | Greenhouse ]

Speaking of Wine, CodeWeavers has announced to give away their pretendulator CrossOver for free to anyone visiting their website tomorrow on October 28:

In July, CodeWeavers – whose software lets Mac OS X and Linux users run Windows programs without having to Microsoft for a Windows OS license – launched the Great American Lame Duck Presidential Challenge (lameduck.codeweavers.com) to encourage President Bush to make the most of his remaining days in office by accomplishing a major economic or political goal by January 20, 2009.

[CodeWeavers CEO] White admits this is not how he foresaw the Challenge unfolding.

“I launched the campaign to inspire President Bush to make the most of his final days in office. Who knew that our Challenge would have this kind of impact on the country?” White said. “On the other hand, who knew that the economy would implode, causing oil demand to drop into the abyss and gas prices to plummet as well. Clearly, investigating Bear Stearns, AIG and those guys is misplaced – CodeWeavers is responsible for this mess. So it’s free software for all!”

This offer includes free support and updates as well, just like a regular purchase that goes for $40 or $70 usually.

The latest development release of Wine has been released. This release has the following new items:

• Improved device management for DOS drives.
• Many Richedit fixes.
• Various installer fixes, particularly for IE 7.
• First steps of Direct3D 10 implementation.
• Various bug fixes.

The previous release added:

• Beginnings of schannel implementation using GnuTLS.
• Many fixes from various code analysis tools.
• Support for X11 desktop work area.
• Fixes for Richedit tables.
• More complete JavaScript support.
• Various bug fixes.

Download: [ Wine 1.1.7]

Ryan “icculus” Gordon has released the Linux port of 3D Realms and Human Head’s id Tech 4 engine shooter, Prey. Currently only the demo is available, pending feedback which will enable the release of the version that works with the retail release. See the Prey Linux page for more details.

Prey Demo Download: [ Atomic Gamer | icculus.org ]

2D Boy and Greenhouse Interactive have announced that the Linux version of World of Goo will be available on the Greenhouse online game store. The 2008 Independent Games Festival award winner is priced at $19.95 US; there was also a recent interview at Rock, Paper, Shotgun with the developers:

RPS: What have you learned from the process? What advice would you give to other small teams of indie devs looking to be the next attention-grabbing game?

Kyle: Some of the best advice I got from Randy Pausch was, “Learn to shoot your baby in the crib.” I think I ended up killing around 2 out of every 3 levels I made, keeping only the ones we thought people would really like.