Mega Games Bumper Post

Well, I was fighting with myself not to post twice in a single day, but I have so much good stuff to post and the last post was simply a rant so it's OK!

Topically, Extreme Tux Racer 0.4 has been released, bringing better graphics, a cleaner slicker ui, all new courses and more! You can find download information on the site. No new screenshots on the site yet though. I can't believe I've not seen this game mentioned anywhere else. (Who maintains the tome these days?! It doesn't even have an ETR entry!!!)

ETCE

XreaL

ETCE (full name yet to be decided) is an already-underway project to create a successor to the popular (and proprietary) game Enemy Territory: Castle Wolfenstein. They have [wisely] chosen Sauerbraten as the base for the game. They have a forum, development screenshots, and buckets of enthusiasm. Could the gameplay of one of the most popular online FPS games of all time soon be found in a Free Software game? Let's hope so!

Paintown is an awesome old school 2D beat-em-up game and version 3.0 brings some really neat features - new characters, network play, AI assisted play, and enemies explode into body parts. I'm going to definitely check this one out.

FIFE, the 2D adventure RPG engine, continues good progress. Nothing I can really single out but if you're into your development blogs and what goes on inbetween releases then worth a read.

Last but definitely not least, XreaL is an amazing project modernising the Quake 3 engine to bring it in line with Doom 3 or better. On top of that they are trying to make a game and (like most projects) are looking for artists. The visual quality is stunning. Not much more to say.

Already announced on the game tome but worth a mention:

• MTP Target 1.5.15, a 3D distance jumping game, the latest release featuring teams, time records, new levels, and works on win/lin/mac.


• Top10 0.4, a 3D kart racing game, this release includes new tracks and a track editor.


• Really Rather Good Battles In Space 1.04, a nice looking 2D RTS game with fleets of spaceships. I played this the other day - good fun and well presented game.

Now, that's real open source game information. All these games are open source and work on Lin/Win and (mostly) Mac. Cheap bloody games lists... *grumble grumble*

SuperTuxKart Lives, MTP Target!

SuperTuxKart has finally emerged as a game in it's own right, with a release planned for September 10th. I'm looking forward to playing it. If anybody thinks they can help out with the release, chip in!

SuperTuxKart is the result of the Happypenguin Game of the Month efforts from eons ago to update TuxKart. As a side note, I inspired GotM (although grumbel implemented it) and I also put forward TuxKart for GotM development. Sadly, at the time, the usage of SDL [TuxKart is PLIB-based] by the GotM team meant the original developer refused to help out unless all SDL stuff was removed - only PLIB didn't properly support fullscreen rendering at the time. I reckon it was a case of NIH syndrome since the TuxKart author is a PLIB developer. This caused the SuperTuxKart fork but all the politics detrimentally affected the development.

I think the GotM guys were right to introduce SDL. It was pragmatic as it supported the features they needed, and it was practical as PLIB simply isn't as widely used or frequently updated (and by virtue of that, not as well supported).

Version 1.2.2 of MTP Target was released. MTP Target is a fun Monkey Target clone. Strangely, though, I think you have to have access to the Internet to play it in order to register your scores - a little strange for what really is a single player game.