I feel silly, because I remember seeing Machinarium before this week and thinking it looked neat, but somehow assumed it didn’t have a Linux port. Well, I was clearly mistaken, as this IGF award winner for Excellence in Visual Art is available natively. Machinarium is a point-and-click adventure game (I can’t even remember the last one I played, but it, as it was for probably many of you, was my first PC game genre) starring an adorable robot on a quest.
You can play the (Flash-based) demo in your web browser; if you decide to purchase it, it’s available for $20 US (plus soundtrack).
I have three invites to the Heroes of Newerth beta available still; first-come first-serve to the initial three commenters below. I haven’t played myself in a while, mainly due to a cross-country move, but also partially because I still haven’t gotten the hang of the game (I never played DoTA). To those in it, how are you liking the beta?
One of the most requested features in QUAKE LIVE and something that I think would be at the core of any premium service, would be the ability to very easily and quickly start a private match (that only you and the players you invite can join). Right now, all of our matches are open to the public and started by our back end systems. So, what we’re looking at creating is a totally integrated and very easy to use method for starting and running a personalized private match.
Evil Geniuses posted a four-part “Quake Bible” that has some interesting Bushido-esque philosophical advice for players.
Also, there’s been some consternation over recent comments John Carmack made to Variety (as a side note, I had completely missed that Variety now covered gaming news) about Rage probably not having a dedicated server for multiplayer. While initially disconcerting, my understanding is that Rage is primarily a single-player or co-operative multiplayer game, and not deathmatch-oriented like previous titles.
EDIT: Yeah, here’s the quote I was thinking of from a recent Shacknews interview:
Todd Hollenshead: I expect that we will be online on the consoles. It is a single-player, story-driven game with co-op capabilities, as opposed to a game where co-op is the way in which it’s built then there’s a different version of the game that’s not as fun by yourself… There’s no deathmatch in it now. If you put two people in the same time, they can shoot at each other, but there’s a whole bunch of different stuff that goes into that versus a cooperative campaign.
Here’s an offbeat project: Ars Technica pointed out a homebrew project to create a Metallica-themed pinball game.
“We wanted the audio playback to be CD quality (44KHz 16bit stereo), and we wanted to be able to play a lot of different songs, so I chose an embedded Linux system to run the audio,” he explained. The other challenge? Pinball games are designed to be played roughly, and the team already had to deal with a shaking play field.
“I prototyped with a BeagleBoard, but moved to a Gumstix Overo Earth board for the final system because it is rated up to 90 C and is reported to have passed the 5 year MIL-STD-810F 514.5 military vibration test,” said Klyce.
Here comes the science. “Since the Gumstix Linux board does not use 5 volts on board, I used an Arduino Mega board to interface to the Williams System 11 CPU board. The Arduino Mega watches the sound command signals and translates them into serial commands that are sent to the Linux board over USB.”
What Linux-based game hardware projects have you seen and/or worked on?
Moreover, SlickMcRunfast reported that the And Yet It Moves port to Linux is moving along again (video included). And Yet It Moves is a puzzle/platformer game set in a paper collage world.
Enhanced ping: Ping values are now much more precise and usable!
Voodoo Doll support: Ever wanted to play maps like Deus Vult II online with your friends? Now you can!
Many many many ZDoom and GZDoom updates: The 97dx branch of Skulltag was locked in 2007. 98a is fresh and updated, allowing mappers to do manynew things!
Indie developer 2D Boy have posted the final results from their World of Goo sale; surprisingly, Linux users made up 17% of the sales but paid, on average, at least a dollar more than Windows users:
Congratulations to 2D Boy on the successful birthday sale!
A reader (thanks vadi!) pointed out this discussion at the Ubuntu forums about a viable game video recording solution for Linux. I remember using yukon a few years back, but it doesn’t seem to be under any sort of development anymore. Any opinions/recommendations?
The author of BOH, a retro-inspired action game, has announced a new contest:
Starting October 26th, 2009, the TOUGHER AND TOUGHER CONTEST gives you the chance to win a very special copy of the commercial game BOH and more!
Participating is as easy as playing the mission “tougher and tougher” (included in both the full game and the demo of BOH) and submitting the records set – all at no cost and without any registration.
The prizes are:
1st: TOUGHER AND TOUGHER CONTEST EDITION + digital copy
2nd: regular edition + digital copy
3rd: digital copy
4th-10th: EUR 5.00 discount on the purchase of a copy
A reader sent in word that Phoronix conducted an interview with NVIDIA UNIX driver team member Andy Ritger:
Some of the particularly interesting answers include how the managerial view of Linux at NVIDIA has changed over the years, how greater than 90% of the driver’s source code is shared between Windows and UNIX platforms, the actual percentage of the Linux driver downloads from the NVIDIA web-site, how an open-source strategy similar to that of AMD’s may be technically possible at NVIDIA but is very unlikely, whether gaming on Linux will become viable for commercial game publishers, how the Nouveau developers are doing “a really incredible job so far”, what’s coming in the next twelve months to their Linux driver, motives behind creating VDPAU, and the biggest challenges with distributing a proprietary Linux driver.
What vendor created your current graphics card’s chipset?
Railroad Rampage is a cross between an arcade game and a strategy game. It is similiar in construction to many “Tower Defence” games, but it has a twist : here, you are part of the action and can affect the game in many different ways more than just building structures.Bandits are trying to rob your train and steal all precious cargo! Thankfully, you are a skilled engineer who can construct many different kinds of turrets and use them to defend your train. You have to make it through 20 waves of relentless enemy assault before you reach your destination, so plan ahead and devise a smart strategy and you may survive!
Ryan of the AtomicGamer posse has informed me that a patch for Machinarium has been released. This patch fixes the following issue:
Fixed: The bug with the crank in plaza level, stuck place in prison guard level, wrong walkthrough page in kitchen level (when checking for the 2nd time), cones and steps on the lamp in gate level when you come there for the 2nd time, and possibly some other minor bugs.
Koonsolo is giving away free copies of Mystic Mine (or a $19.95 Gift Card if you already bought the game). To get a chance at winning, all you have to do is become a fan or follow them on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Vimeo.
Koonsolo explains: “Becoming a fan or following Koonsolo means a lot to us, so for those who support us that way, we offer something extra. Next month we’ll give away free copies of Mystic Mine. (Or if you already bought it from our website, a $19.95 Gift Card). A few winners will be picked out from those who are a fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, YouTube or Vimeo. So make sure you subscribe before the deadline to secure your spot.”
Koonsolo also has something special lined up for those who don’t win, but more on that later. Important thing now is to subscribe as soon as possible so you don’t miss out on this great opportunity.
KreiselBall, a game where you control a ball by turning the world around it, either trying to get to the finish line or clear all the colored circles from the level by changing the ball into that color and then hitting the circles, has entered the Linux gaming world. This game features 30 levels with physics and internet high score. KreiselBall is available now for EUR 7.82 (excl. VAT) from their website
