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SpaceZero, a real time strategy 2d space combat game, has been updated to version 0.80 Changes in this include the following items

• Bug fixes.
  • Bug fixed that make pirates too strong.
  • Bug fixed in net games between 32 and 64 bits machines that make game crash, hung.
• AI improvements:
  • AI players follow different strategies.
  • Attacks to planets improved.
• Teams. Mode games added: Cooperative, Deathmatch and Queen mode.
• Minor changes:
  • Ships and asteroids destroyed inside a planet increase the planet resources.
  • Added the command line option -nopirates
  • Feed-back in terminal when an order is given.
  • Home key selects the first ship in outer space.
  • Sound control from menu.
  • Indicate player names in the command line, now works.
  • It is not necessary to install to have sound. Sound works from the install directory.
  • Documentation updated.

Download: [ SpaceZero 0.80]

This post was submitted by xay.

A new development release of Wine has been announced. This release has the following changes:

• Support for installation rollbacks in MSI.
• 8- and 16-bit bitmap formats in the DIB engine.
• Fixes in the XInput2 mouse support.
• Better support for text shaping in Uniscribe.
• Improvements to the Item common dialog.
• More MSVC runtime functions.
• Various bug fixes.

Download: [Wine 1.3.21 ]

A fifth and final trailer has been posted for Dungeons of Dredmor, the upcoming rogue-like hack and slash from Gaslamp Games:

Warzone 2100 version 2.3.8 (and 2.3.7) has been released. Changes include:

• Support for video playback up to 1024×768, optionally with scanlines
• Two new maps included
• Multiplayer balance updates
• Assorted bugfixes and translation updates

Download: [ wz2100.net ]

What’s all this then?

The Family Farm Game has been updated to 1.2.5 which fixes sound support on 64bit systems and crashes on some distros (ie. Slackware).

The full version is now one of the few quality games available for purchase through Ubuntu’s Software Center.

There is also a demo that includes several playable levels of the full game.

Thanks Nemoder!

It has been one year since Heroes of Newerth was released and to kick off the anniversary celebration, S2Games is offering 11 days of FREE play. Starting today (Thursday, May 12) at 9 p.m. EST new players will be able to sign up and play at no cost. Grab your friends and get your game HoN. The F2P session ends Sunday, May 22nd at 12 a.m. EST. To join, new players simply need to download the game and register a HoN nickname at:
www.heroesofnewerth.com/create_account.php

Thanks Nemoder!

The latest development release of Wine has been announced. Changes in this release include the following items:

• New sound driver architecture for MMDevAPI.
• Better support for relative mouse events in DInput.
• Debugger support for the ARM platform.
• Various improvements in D3DX9.
• More MSVC runtime functions.
• Various bug fixes.

Download: [ Wine 1.3.19 ]

The release of Warsow version 0.62, a free first-person shooter featuring trick-jumping boars, has been announced with performance enhancements and bugfixes.

Download: [ warsow.net ]

Quick here it is no time to explain!

A few items relating to the next id Software title, RAGE:

• EDGE spoke with Tim Willits about how mod development will likely shake out with RAGE with built-in tools on the PC-side (note: as with Neverwinter Nights, this might not necessarily mean it’ll be the case with Linux); also of note is an update on Doom 3/id Tech 4′s open source release:
  

  “That’s mostly up to [id co-founder] John Carmack,” Willits explained, “he sets the schedule for that. But his philosophy of maintaining that type of connection with the community hasn’t changed.”

• Shacknews interviewed producer Jason Kim at length about the post-apocalyptic shooter, covering such topics as developing adversarial AI behavior.
• Bethesda Blog has a new 5 minute gameplay trailer that follows a mission against the Shrouded Clan (hey, spiderbots are back!):

Entar, of the blog Games Fascination, conducted an interview with Kot-in-Action Creative Artel’s Alexander Zubov about the upcoming release of Steel Storm: Burning Retribution:

Entar: Talk about some of the benefits of using the Darkplaces engine as your engine of choice for this game.

Alexander: The first and foremost benefit is that Darkplaces engine is a complete, solid game engine. All we had to worry about is the game logic and art assets. We didn’t have to worry about creating state-of-the-art technology, it was already there for us.

A reader (thanks scrawl!) pointed out this Ogre profile of Garshasp: The Monster Slayer, a new action game with a Linux port in development and some sweet moves:

This game is based on ancient Persian mythology bringing to life the epic battles of the mythological hero, Garshasp, in the ancient lands against the evil monsters. You play as Garshasp himself, the strongest man in Persian Mythology, in a journey to revenge and reclaim the legendary mace of his ancestors which is stolen by the Deevs. A journey which proves to unlock more significant hidden mysteries. The main mechanics of the game revolve around melee combat, platforming and exploration.

Project Zomboid is available to pre-order; a zombie survival RPG, it features an open world with an isometric viewpoint where players can cooperate or compete to survive in the undead landscape. There should be demo in the near term (i.e., this month), but in the meantime, the site emphasizes that this is not a game you can win:

Project Zomboid is about the choices you make, and how you choose to live your last days on Earth. As a hero who goes out in a moment of heroic self-sacrifice to save a defenseless family? Or a callous coward who saves his own skin and leaves his companions for dead?

It’s these choices, and the story you weave in your adventure. That is what Project Zomboid is all about. Not saving the world with some pie in the sky cure, or flying away in a helicopter where everything will probably be okay. This is the apocalypse.

Here’s a crafting demo:

Release announcement!:

A new arcade game has come out to kick your nerves and test your reflexes! Vertigo is an open-source, cross-platform game in which the player controls a probe that’s equipped with 2 shields to protect it from hazards. You have to navigate the probe and complete your mission as briefed, and to do that, you have to be very quick…

Check out the game at www.vertigo-game.com or watch a trailer at YouTube

Edit: Venn noted in our comments that the LGC has posted video of Vertigo gameplay on Linux.

Speaking of the Humble Bundle, as promised at the end of the last one, Puppygames has released the source code for Revenge of the Titans.

Yay!

Notes:

Now read this carefully: you can do what you want with the contents of that zip, provided you leave the license header alone that’s at the top of each file and respect its meaning (and the licenses of the various libraries). Make your own RTS or Tower Defence game, pinch any bits of code you like from within (in which case the license header is probably in a grey area but… I don’t care much), or maybe make some mods for Revenge of the Titans itself.

What you absolutely may not do is redistribute our assets – that’s the graphics and sounds and music – without our express permission, which if I don’t know you quite well, you are unlikely to get. Although some of the sound in the game comes from the incredibly awesome Freesound.org project, the oggs and jars are still ours; if you want the original .wav files which are licensed under the creative commons license, we’ve included links to every one of them in the docs.

You may also absolutely not use the name “Revenge of the Titans”, “Puppygames”, or “Shaven Puppy Ltd” when redistributing any derivative works without our express permission, as that’d again be stepping on our trademarks.

The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle has concluded; all told, the venture raised $909,715.38 US, and the average Linux user’s contribution was once again larger than those from other platforms ($11.81).

Ars Technica interviewed Frozenbyte CEO Lauri Hyvärinen about the bundle:

We are really happy about the current sales though, and it’s going to help us a lot in going forward. We’ve basically been self-funding our games for a year or two, but recently we had to delay Trine 2 to late summer 2011 instead of spring to ensure it’s as great as it can be, and that caused a little bit of financial worry—luckily the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle sales have been so good that I think we’ll be good on that front.

Which is good to hear!

Frozenbyte has posted a general FAQ with a Linux section, and a Linux-specific FAQ. An initial version of Jack Claw is now available, and Trine has been updated. Moreover, Frozenbyte has released several bonuses for purchasers of the bundle: a playable teaser of Splot, an upcoming title that bundle owners will receive when completed, and the source code for Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds Survivor.

Finally, the Humble Bundle Inc. itself just received a windfall:

A recent SEC filing has revealed that Humble Bundle — the company that packages indie games together for charity — has acquired $4.7 million in venture capital funding.

The funding round is led by Sequoia Capital, a reliable source has confirmed to Gamasutra. The VC firm has also funded gaming companies including Pocket Gems, GameGround and Unity Technologies.

Sequoia partner Alfred Lin is the only outside director listed in the SEC filing for the San Francisco-based Humble Bundle operation, CNN’s Fortune noted in a report.

John Graham, co-founder of Humble Bundle and COO of Wolfire Games, did not immediately return request for further comment regarding details of the funding, and how it will be used.

I expect we’ll hear more about this on the Wolfire blog at some point!

The crew of the Linux Game Cast have had a few updates this month, covering Trine, True Combat: Close-Quarters Battle, and Oil Rush. Moreover, their most recent episode about Family Farm brought about an insightful comment from the developer, Hammerware:

Linux is much difficult environment to run the game on, but we love to support it because community is much more responsive. In fact, volunteers who do translations are Linux users…

Yours sincerely,

Martin Prochazka
CEO, Hammerware, s.r.o.

tiny Build GAMES (capitalization is important) created a Kickstarter campaign (for those unfamiliar with the site, it’s a pledging system for creative efforts) for their upcoming platforming game No Time to Explain. They’ve already met their funding goal (with help from Notch of Minecraft fame), which meeeaaaans:

I just want to clarify some things which weren’t clear enough:

The game will cost around $10 on launch day if you haven’t pledged. “Around” because it will differ based on currency exchange rates, processing fees, vendors, etc.
You will get it BOTH ON MAC AND PC (as standalone apps, will follow up on Steam/Mac App Store later) if you pledged; – note that we are unsure of what conditions Valve or Apple may offer us and if we’d be able to give away free copies to backers there
When we release on LINUX, you initial pledgers will also get it for free. This will be AFTER PC/MAC launch.
At the time of writing this post, we have a STEAM BUILD pending review by Valve
The LEVEL EDITOR & Beta test are in the pipeline for PC, but if enough people request a MAC Editor/Beta, we will make it

PC Gamer has a preview of the next champion slated for inclusion in Heroes of Newerth: Silhouette, a ninja!

Also, version 2.0.25 was released by S2 Games last week:

• Added a new Pestilence Alt Avatar: Ladybug Pestilence
• Fix to a server issue that caused them to degrade after extended uptime
• Alchemist Bones have been changed back to the 2-charge buildup version