Linux Games #8: Neverball

Posted on February 8th, 2008

by siyb

Neverball is based upon a classic children’s game, the ball labyrinth, it is not an exact clone but an enhanced version of the game we are all familiar with. The Debian release features three different level sets: Neverball easy, Neverball hard and Mehdi’s level, which are pretty damn hard “funmaps”. All sets consist of 25 levels, which do not necessarily get harder as progressing.

You control your marble using your mouse or keyboard, whichever you prefer. The goal is to reach a predefined score by collecting a certain amount of coins situated on the map, within a given time frame. Coins come in three different colours, there are golden coins, that will add 1 point to the total score, red coins that are worth 5 points and blue ones that will get you 20 points towards you goal. You may complete a level more than once if you are keen on beating your own or someone else’s highscore.

Neverball is a challenging dexterity game, that may induce frustration sometimes but the feeling of accomplishment when successfully completing a level makes the game worth a while.


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Linux Games #7: Nexuiz

Posted on February 1st, 2008

by siyb

Heyhey here we are with yet another awesome Linux game. This time we are going to check out one of the many FPS available for Linux, Nexuiz. Nexuiz uses the darkplaces engine, which is a modified version of the Quake I engine. Even though Quake I has been around for some time, you can’t really compare the looks of the darkplaces engine to Quake I at all, as it comes with quite a few improvements such as: new effects, improved dynamic lights and alpha blended sprites. If you want to learn more about the modifications featured in darkplaces check out this link.

nexuiz000001.jpg

I will spare you more technical detail, anyone interested should really visit the mentioned websites. Although Nexuiz is ought to be a multiplayer FPS, it also features a single player campaign similar to the one in Quake III or OpenArena. The single player campaign consists of 22 action packed levels, some of which are using familiar concepts like “Vampiric regeneration” or low gravity settings. Hunt down you enemy with one of the nine weapons of your deadly arsenal, veteran Quake players might like the weapon equivalents to Quake armoury (Nex -> Railgun).nexuiz000000.jpgVersion 2.3, which was released in March 2007 adopted a huge performance increase and smoothed online gameplay. The improved AI and new levels guarantee a long lasting single player experience. Unfortunately there are only a few gameservers available online, most of which are located in the USA or Germany (based on serverlists acquired from ghdigital.com and dpmaster.deathmask.net masterservers).

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Linux Games #6: Chromium

Posted on December 11th, 2007

by jesse
You are captain of the cargo ship Chromium B.S.U., responsible for delivering supplies to our troops on the front line. Your ship has a small fleet of robotic fighters which you control from the relative safety of the Chromium vessel. And you’re right in the battle.

Chromium is a fast paced, arcade-style, top-scrolling space shooter. Goal of the game is to survive the adrenalin peaks you get from playing get (*g*). You can read about the question why the game is so difficult: “Quitcher whinin’, you ninny! It’s supposed to be hard! Seriously, Chromium B.S.U. is intended to be a 15 minute adrenaline rush/mental cleanser. Frequent doses of explosions (even your own) can be very therapeutic.” which is pretty self-explanatory.

The rules are simple: every enemy ship that gets past the bottom of he screen will attack Chromium and you’ll lose a fighter. Besides shooting at them you can crash into the enemies or perform a strategic suicide which will kill every ship on the screen.

To make the game more fun you can grab two kinds of pickups: the skulls will supply you with weapons and ammunition, the shiny tuxes boost your shields, repare the ship or give you extra lifes.

Chromium uses SDL (1.1.6 or higher) and Hardware accelerated OpenGL or Mesa. One can find a precompiled Windows Binary, which is “100% unsupported” as well as the sources on the project page. Packages for the various linux distributions are available through the particular managers.

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Linux Games #5: Pingus

Posted on November 12th, 2007

by jesse
Pingus is a free (as in licenced under the GPL) Lemmings clone. Lemmings itself was a puzzle game in the 90s where the player had to guide a bunch of lemmings through a 2D world filled with dangerous cliffs and malicious barriers. While the lemmings walk on their own, one has to provide them with tools, e.g. parachutes so they won’t crush or pricks for building bridges. The goal of every level is to make sure a specific amount of lemmings reach the exit point safely.

pingus

Pingus is not limited to the ideas of Lemmings but features some additional actions and secret worlds. This includes a worldmap which you might know from Supertux. At the beginning of every level you get a quick briefing with the mission specs, sometimes small hints, too.
It features 22 (plus 8 with version 0.7.2) playable levels and runs under Windows (Binary) and Linux (Source). I noticed the Gentoo maintainer to be pretty quick with updating the portage ebuilds (~arch) while Debian is a few versions behind (lenny). My advise is to manually build from source if the package provided by your distribution is older than 0.7.1 since there has been a major rewrite (it’s based on SDL now).

pingus

Pingus is not limited to the gameplay itself, the source includes a built-in level editor, multiplayer and a few other features and is under steady development.

So, what are you waiting for? Just give it a try, I garantee you hours of fun and tossing. Visit pingus.seul.org for everything you need.

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Linux Games #4: Sauerbraten

Posted on September 30th, 2007

by jesse
Today I’m going to cover Cube2: Sauerbraten as the first FPS (First Person Shooter) in our Linux Games series. Sauerbraten is a free (as in opensource) multiplayer/singleplayer follow-up to the original Cube FPS. According to their website, “the aim of Sauerbraten is to allow map/geometry editing to be done dynamically in-game, to create fun gameplay and an elegant engine.”

With its first version released on May 6, 2004, Cube 2 has brought various improvements to the original engine. This includes a new 6-directional heightfield world model which allows much more complex level geometry and easier editing. Some features like online cooperative map editing or server-side demo have not yet been seen in commercial online games.

Sauerbraten Screenshot-1

Sauerbraten has several singleplayer and multiplayer modes. If you find no opponent or just want to get in the game you can play deathmatch against AI bots or try DMSP (fight a monster invasion on any DM map). Online play via LAN or Internet offers deathmath, last man standing and a capture the flag gametype. There may be also instagib versions available. In-game there are 7 weapons ‘ tuned for maximum satisfaction’: double barrelled shogun, rocket launcher, machine gun, rifle, grenade launcher, pistol and your fist. If you enjoyed games like Quake, Doom or Unreal Tournament you will immediately embrace the ‘oldskool fast & intense gameplay’ of Sauerbraten.

Sauerbraten Screenshot-2 

Sauerbraten runs on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OSX. See sauerbraten.org for downloads and make sure you don’t miss the documentation, wiki and forums for lots of mods, tweaks and performance guides.
 
 
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