Posts Tagged ‘arcade game’

Linux release of the game Savage Wheels (Destruction Derby like game) is out!

Friday, September 17th, 2010

Savage Wheels Game for Linux

A close friend of mine Pro-Xex (a.k.a. Necroleak) has released Savage Wheels game for Linux.

The Savage Wheels game is a recreation of a game in a way similar to the good old Destruction Derby that most of the hard code old school arcade know very well.

The Savage Wheels has been an existant for a long time for a free download. However for a couple of years the Pro-XeX decided not to publish it’s code publicly, his considerations were that the code is too messy and not ready to go public.

For almost 2 years now the game source code has been existent openly for download from a source repository at google code

Though the source was there for download, until recently, the game source code was not ready to compile on Linux, though the game’s programming style used is 100% compatible with the Linux / BSD platform.

Right now the game is licensed under the MIT free software license
A few weeks before Peter (Pro-Xex) has contacted me and shared and told me the good news, that he has finally ported the game for the Linux platform and asked me to help him a bit with the game testing!
I thought this is pretty cool, but I was busy until this very day that I actually downloaded the compiled binary of Savage Wheels on my Debian Testing/Unstable (Squeeze/Sid) and gave it a try.

I’m running the 64 bit Debian release, featuring kernel version:

Linux noah 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP Wed Aug 25 13:59:41 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Installing the game was a really easy all I had to do is download the archived binary of the game and untar it into a new directory I’ve created for the game.

hipo@noah:~$ mkdir savagewheels
hipo@noah:~$ cd savagewheels
hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ wget -c http://savagewheels.googlecode.com/files/savagewheels-1.4-linux-x86.tar.gz
hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ tar -zxvf savagewheels-1.4-linux-x86.tar.gz

It will take like few secs until the game source gets extracted:

To go and start up the game I directly tried executing the game main binary file savagewheels , like you can see below

hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ ./savagewheels
./savagewheels: error while loading shared libraries: libfmod-3.75.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The error in loading library was pretty unexpected, but counting the fact that I’m one of the first people that test the game on Linux I guess it’s pretty normal.
In order to resolve the missing shared library on game execution It was necessary to copy the libfmod-3.75.so to /usr/local/lib/

To do so I issued as a root user:

hipo@noah:/home/hipo/savagewheels# cp -rpf libfmod-3.75.so /usr/local/lib

In case if you don’t want to copy the libfmod-3.75.so into /usr/local/lib, it’s also possible to use the shell export command to specify the exact location of libfmod-3.75.so to your current known systemlibraries.

If you prefer it that way issue command:


hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Now when I invoked the savagewheels game binary once again:
hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ ./savagewheels

the game poped up in a window.

As I’ve red in the Readme.html file it’s already noted there that by default the game would run in window mode instead of full screen due to some bugs or video drivers etc.
Happily it was indicated in the Readme file that in order to run it in fullscreen, it’s necessary to invoke the game binary with the -force-fullscreen option included, e.g. running it in fullscreen comes to:

hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ ./savagewheels -force-fullscreen

At first I was a bit confused when the game poped up before I notice the left side menu which appears could be only reached with the mouse pointer. So I warn you that if you go to give the game a try you will probably wonder how to start up the game after the game entry window with menus appears.

Since the game is so new with Linux it has several bugs to be fixed, one of the bugs is that the Window in which the game pops up by default couldn’t be closed if you press the close window button.

Another thing I do notice is that when I play sometimes during a I crash another car, my car gets stucked for a while.

Another thing which is not very intuitive about the game is the player keys, they could be fount expolained in Readme.html

But I’ll post them here as well to facilitate my dear readers who might be willing to play the game immediately without reading boring docs 🙂

So Player 1 keys are:

arrow keys to move
UP (accelerate up)
LEFT (turn left) RIGHT (turn right)
DOWN (back gear)
RIGHT CTRL - to place landmines
DELETE - self destruction

I think giving the player 1 keys are enough for the player 2 control keys take a quick look in Readme.html

Here is the time to tell you that the game music is absolutely awesome!! So the game is worthy to play just because Pro-Xex has present the user with the wonderful soundtrack that is.

For some further general information related to the game you can read the Savage Wheels game Readme online from here

I would place the game among one of the best car crash games available currently for Linux, so if you’re a arcade game maniac you would probably have a great time with the game.

Nikwi Deluxe a top quality Freeware Debian / Ubuntu Linux Jump and Run Arcade Game

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Nikwi Deluxe Linux arcade game Freeware game main screen screenshot

Nikwi Deluxe is another good quality jump and run game for Linux

The main actor you play with is a (Dexter like) looking kid who has to collect all candy items on the level screen. The game graphics are quite a good level if compared to the most Linux jump and run games. Nikwi Deluxe Freeware Game GNU / Linux game

Your game hero is not equipped with any weapon or (jump over the enemies like in Maries) and you not haven't got any mean to kill enemies, but you have to always avoid them. There are some funny looking crawl (birds) shitting from the above every now and then, if you're hit by a the bird's droplet you die. The game has 30 levels and after each level succesful completion you're provided with a password that can be used as a "Save Game" like if you quit from game and on next game run you would like to start directly from the last game level you reachedNikwi Deluxe is another good quality jump and run game for Linux

nikwi deluxe Linux level screenshot

The only game downfall is the missing music as well as the not too brilliant sound. To boost my game experience, however put some background music and give the game a try 😉

KRaptor a Raptor free software (open source) arcade game clone for GNU / Linux

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Kraptor is another Raptor Shadow of Death free software, open source clone arcade game for GNU/Linux, DOS and Windows (98, XP etc.).

KRaptor main menu game screenshot Linux Debian Squeeze

The game is not under active development anymore since 2004. Kraptor features a powerful engine for creating quickly 2D shooter games, so the game should be a good learning curve for people interested into creation of arcade game shooter games.

The game just like Rafkill is built upon DUMB sound engine.
The game intro is quite entertaining 😉 The intro plays one by one the text:

Near Future:
Blobalization
Imperalizm
Corporations
Megalomaniacs
Money and Power. Slaves of the New Millenium!

KRaptor Bill gates like looking oppressor

After years of oppression, the slaved people of the world have raised against their masters. You, has a mercenary pilot, has been
contacted by the popular rebellion to fight against the forces of oppression.

In the morning, you jump into your cockpit and start up the engines. It's time to get airborne and start the attack. Get ready to
scramble the scum hired by the masters. Murder for freedom is the only way, you're on a mission, don't defraud us...

Like Rafkill, Kraptor is one man masterpiece created by a free software Argentinean geek known under the Kronoman artistic pseudonim. The game is really incredible for a one man work … a true masterpiece.
The game is licensed under MIT License.

Even though Kraptor is older game than Rafkill, the design is more resembling the original Raptor game. The game music is high quality stereo. Besides that music and fx sound effects are quite awesome. After each level you have a Raptor like weapons "blackmarket", where you can buy new weapons, recharge ship energy, upgrade ship etc.
The blackmarket implementation part of the game is probably the worst moment in the game along with the game menus (in my view).
Talking about graphics Kraptor supports really high number of resolutions ranging from 320×240 to 1280×1024! 640×480 is the standard resolution in which the game is running.

Kraptor raptor like Linux game plasma gun debian screenshot

Something I really like in the game is the number of multiple weapons your ship uses during play. Even if played in Easy mode it is taught.

There are game Saves after each level, so thanksfully you don't have to start again from zero once death.
At the end of each level there is a huge bad BOSS you have to destroy ;).
Kraptor the boss Debian GNU / linux

Installing Kraptor on Debian / Ubuntu and deb derivatives is with:

debian:~# apt-get install kraptor

On most rpm based Linux distributions, you can install the game by converting the deb package to rpm with alien or by building from source from Kraptor's sourceforge page

Its interesting the game name e.g. Kraptor is also a death / grind metal band name, (Maybe Kronoman is metalhead big fan of Kraptor and that's how he came up with the playful name. For all the old school game addicts there is the joystick support. I've tested it with my Genius analogous joystick and it works fine.

The game is lacking .desktop gnome definition and after once installed it only appears through Debian (section) GNOME menus and not in Applications -> Games :

Applications -> Debian -> Games -&act; Action -&t; Kraptor

Just like Rafkill on Debian the game exacutable binary is located in /usr/games/kraptor . Also like with the Rafkill case when launched the game has troubles with choppy sound and music caused by the stupid buggy! pulseaudio

Analogously like with Rafkill's case, the work around to the problematic music en sound is to use a little bash shell script like:

#!/bin/bash
pulseaudio -k;
/usr/games/kraptor
pulseaudio --start;

You can dowload Kraptor fix sound issues wrapper here

To install it on your Debian / Ubuntu and hence make the game sound play good issue with root:

debian:~# cd /usr/bin
debian:/usr/bin# wget https://www.pc-freak.net/bshscr/kraptor.wrapper.sh
...
debian:/usr/bin:# chmod +x kraptor.wrapper.sh
debian:/usr/bin:# mv kraptor.wrapper.sh kraptor

 

RafKill Raptor Free Software (Open Source) clone for GNU/Linux

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

I've earlier blogged on playing Apogee's Raptor Shadows of Death arcade on GNU / Linux with dosbox

All the old school raptor addicts will be interested to hear Kazzmir (Jon Rafkind) a free software devotee developer has created a small game resembling many aspects of the original Raptor arcade game.
The game is called Rafkill and is aimed to be a sort of Raptor like fork/clone.
Originally the game was also named Raptor like the DOS game, however in year 2006 it was changed to current Rafkill in order to avoid legal issues with Apogee's Raptor.

The game is not anymore in active development, the latest Rafkill release is from January 2007, anyhow even for the 2012 it is pretty entertaining. The sound and music are on a good level for a Linux / BSD shoot'em'up free software game . The graphics are not of a top quality and are too childish, but this is normal, since the game is just one man masterpiece.

Rafkill Level 1 Debian GNU/Linux

Rafkill is developed in C/C++ programming language, the game music engine it uses is called DUMB (Dynamic Universal Bibliotheque). By the way DUMB library is used for music engine in many Linux arcade games. DUMB allows the Linux game developer to develop his game and play a music files within different game levels in "tracked" formats like mod, s3m, xm etc.

The game is available in compiled form for almost all existent GNU/Linux distributions, as well as one can easily port it as it is open source.

To install Rafkill on Debian, Ubuntu, Xubuntu and Linux Mint en other Debian based distros

root@debian:~# apt-get install rafkill

Installing on Fedora and other rpm based is with yum

debian:~# apt-get install rafkill
...

Once rafkill is installed, in order to start it on Debian the only way is using the rafkill (/usr/bin/rafkill) command. It appears the deb package maintainer did not wrote a gnome launcher file like for example /usr/share/applications/rafkill.desktop
Just to explain for all the GNOME noobs, the .desktop files are a description file GNOME reads in order to understand where exactly to place certain application in the (Gnome Applications, Places, System …) menu panel.

Even though it miss the .desktop, it is launchable via Applications menu under the Debian section e.g. to open it from the GNOME menus you will have to navigate to:

Applications -> Debian -> Games -> Action -> Rafkill

This "shortcut" to launch the game is quite long and hard to remember thus it is handy to directly launch it via xterm:

hipo@debian:~$ rafkill

Rafkill raptor like native Linux game main menu screenshot Debian GNU / Linux Squeeze

or by pressing ALT+F2 and typing rafkill :

Rafkill Linux game gnome launcher screenshot

Rafkill Debian Linux Level 5 power weaponscreenshot

Starting the game I got some really ugly choppy music / sound issues.
My guess was the fizzling sounds were caused by some bug with the sound portions streamed through pulseaudio sound system.
To test if my presume is correct, stopped pulseaudio and launched rafkill once again:

hipo@debian:~$ pulseaudio -k
hipo@debian:~$ rafkill

This way the game was counting on ALSA to process sound en the sound was playing perfectly fine.

I solved this problem through small wrapper shell script. The script did kill pulseaudio before launching rafkill and that way solve gchoppy sound issues, once the game execution is over the script starts pulseaudio again in order to prevent all other applications working with pulseaudio.

Finally, I've placed the executable script in /usr/bin/rafkill :

Here is the script:

#!/bin/bash
pulseaudio --kill
/usr/games/rafkill
pulseaudio --start

You can download rafkill.wrapper.sh here
Or write in root terminal:

debian:~# cd /usr/bin
debian:/usr/bin:# wget https://www.pc-freak.net/bshscr/rafkill.wrapper.sh
debian:/usr/bin:# mv https://www.pc-freak.net/bshscr/rafkill.wrapper.sh rafkill
debian:/usr/bin:# chmod +x rafkill

Interesting in Ubuntu Linux, rafkill music is okay and I suppose the bug is also solved in newer Linux distributions based on Ubuntu. Probably the Debian Squeeze pulseaudio (0.9.21-4) package version has a bug or smth..

After the change the game music will be playing fine and the game experience is cooler. The game is hard to play. Its really nice the game has game Saves, so once you die you don't have to start from level 1.

Rafkill Load menu screenshot

  I've seen rafkill rolling around on freebsd.org ftps under the ubuntu packages pool, which means rafkill could probably be played easily on FreeBSD and other BSDs.

Enjoy the cool game 😉

Download and Play Apogee’s Raptor (Call of the Shadows) DOS arcade game on GNU / Linux and BSD* with dosbox / Few words on Apogee and Shareware

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Since its early days dosbox has elolved a lot. For all those who haven't heard of dosbox, it is x86 Free Software Linux / FreeBSD DOS emulator

DosBox supports, almost all the game classics we used top lay in oldschool times when DOS (Disk Operating System ) version was running on top of most personal computer.

The most spread versions of DOS people used to use on their PCs were Novell (DR-DOS) more rarely used, and MS-DOS (The Microsoft DOS ver.).

I'm sometimes being sentimental about the past so I remembered for Raptor Call of the Shadows !

Having a bit of experience with DOSBox to run few DOS games I've decided to give a try with dosbox.

First I have to dig for this shareware, since this game is part of the sharewares, nowdays a binary version of it is freely distributed on the net.
Finding the game however took me about 10 minutes, as most of the download links for Raptor, were either dead or required some kind of registration. After a bit of look I found it on an old torrent with few seeders and succeded downloading.

For the convenience of people who would like to download run the Raptor arcade classic game check here

Nicely Raptor works out of the box directly launched with dosbox emulator.
Dosbox has packages for most Linux distributions.
I personally used it on my Debian Linux so installed via apt:

debian:~# apt-get install dosbox
...

The game works without any dosbox hacks, just download, unarchive and launch with dosbox:

hipo@debian:~$ wget https://www.pc-freak.net/files/Raptor_Call_of_The_Shadows_Apogee_arcade.tar.gz
...
hipo@debian:~$ tar -zxvf Raptor_Call_of_The_Shadows_Apogee_arcade.tar.gz
...
hipo@debian:~$ cd Raptor/
hipo@debian:/home/hipo/Raptor$ dosbox rap.exe

Apogee Raptor Screenshot Dosbox Debian linux

Raptor Call of the Shadows main screen linux debian

Dosbox raptor level

People like me 😉 who lived in that glorious times when DOS was a standard for a desktop operating system pretty much like MS Windows is today, certainly remember the awesome games produced by Apogee Software a company later known as 3D Realms

Apogee until this very day remain one of the greatest game creation companies in history of games. 3D Realms played a crucial role in development of PC game industry as well as has a great santimental value to probably million of old school arcade game addicts.

They can be ben undoubtedly can be praised for having created some of the most awesome arcade games for all times.

Some of the early hit games they created you probably know, few of the titles are:

  • Duke Nukem I, II
  • Arctic Adventure
  • Monster Bash
  • Stargunner
  • Commander Keen series
  • Wolfenstein 3D
  • Blake Stone
  • Terminal Velocity (Terminal Reality)
  • Shadow Warrior
  • Death Rally
  • Blood

Apogee was also notable for being a company to had established the so spread mostly during the late 80s up to the early years of the second millenium.

ShareWare model of distribution is an interesting phenomenon, that co-relates more or less with the ideas of Free Software.
The idea of ShareWare games was games are distributed for Free and the end customer (gamer) is asked to pay for a game only if he likes it.

Some of the shareware published games was available for free download and play, however the game was only bundled with only a number of game levels to unlock the rest of the game levels you had to play some money.

The shareware games produced were then freely published and shared via dial up access BBS nodes (A text based Bulletin Board System similar to nowdays Forums).
BBS has historically been the major way of sharing knowledge and exchanging ideas and opinions preceding the massive rise of the WEB.
Today most computer users would probably even haven't heard about BBS, if you like to have a general idea on how BBSes seemed to look dahmer.vistech.net .

ShareWare started to loose speed with the decline of BBS and the emergence of Free Software.

Some of the conceptual ideas of ShareWare found its way in "Open Source & Free Software", and commercial companies like RedHat and SuSE.

If you have tried some other Apogee games with Dosbox on Linux and FreeBSD and you can positively confirm they work it will be great. In theory all of the DOS games of apogee should work fine with dosbox. Any feedback or game recommendations of your favourite games of the DOS years are mostly welcome in comments. I'm curious to hear what was your favourite DOS game. Maybe when I have time I'll prepare a list of my favourite games put them here 😉

Pingus – A Lemmings like arcade game for GNU / Linux and FreeBSD (Free Lemmings Clone)

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

Some might remember Psychosis Lemmings that we used to enjoy back in the glorious days of DOS 😉 I remember Lemmings used to be among the played game in one line with other top arcades like Dangerous Dave, Commander Keen, Xenon etc.
The game used to be quite unique for the time and it was quite cool that it worked on quite old machines lime my old 8086 XT with 640kb of memory. It even supported two player mode! 😉

Lemmings arcade screenshot

I was happy to find out actually Lemmings remake is available in the Free Software OS realm . These Lemmings clone game is called Pingus
Instead of governing a group of lemmings which had to move to an exit door by making a save path using various tools and combination of team member character skills, the main heroes in Pingus are cute little penguins 😉

Screenshot Pingus, Lemmings game clone for Linux and FreeBSD

Pingus is built on TOP of SDL libraries and has a combination of awesome graphics and enjoyable music soundtrack and as a game play is a way better than its original predecessor.
If i have to to rank this game I would put it among the best 20 free software games ever produced for Linux / BSD.

ScreenShot Pingus on Debian Linux

pingus is available for almost all kind of Linux distritubions as well as is included in the FreeBSD port tree:

On Debian its available as a package ready to be installed with aptitude or apt by issuing:

debian:~# aptitude install pingus

For FreeBSD pingus is installed via ports tree, by running cmds:

freebsd# cd /usr/ports/games/pingus
freebsd# make install && make install clean

By default pingus will run in a Windowed mode, to run the game in fullscreen you will have to run it with the -f switch via terminal, or by pressing ALT+F2 in GNOME and typing:

$ pingus -f

The game is quite hard to complete in that resembling the lemmings. It has an embedded Mapeditor , by which new levels can be easily constructed and sent to the game developers (in that way helping the game development).

Pingus is also multi-platform, licensed under GPL2 and is also ported for Mac OSX and MS Windows, allowing others non free software users enjoy.
Pingus Windows and MacOS X binary as well as source can be downloaded here

Pingus Lemmings like Free Software Game for Linux BSD level screenshot

Playing Pingus has few benefits, one is it can be nice to kill some boredom (for sysadmins) or / and bring some good past gaming memories. It's also good for developing some elder people strategic thinking as well as very suitable for little children to help develop their intellectual (thinking) in solving complex consequential tasks. Pingus could also be beneficial for teens to develop organizational and math skills.

Alex the Alligator – a nice retro style Nintendo / GameBoy like Free Software game for GNU / Linux

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

Alex the Alligator Free Software 4 colors game Intro GNU Linux screen

Alex the Alligator is a Free Software (Open Sourced) arcade game licensed under the General Public License (GPL)
The game is quite of fun and especially the music totally kicks ass! 😉

The game plot is simple but fun in the good Spirit of oldschool Super Mario like arcade games.
Alex the Alligator evil human kidnapper poachers helicopter, GNU / Linux

In the game you are a little cute crocodile whose (crocodile) girlfriend is kidnapped with a helicopter by the evil human poachers.
As you love her too much and you're determined to grow a crocodile family with this croco-girl you start a long quest to save her from possible zoo slavery or killing for a crocodile skin boots.
Kidnapping Lola dropping a cage Linux screenshot

The quest for kidnapped girlfriend (LOLA) liberation wents through the harsh jungles.
Alex The ALligator level 1 on Linux screenshot

Alex The Alligator has a version for both Windows and Linux ports. The Linux port is available for most major distributions including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora etc.

To install the game on Debian and Ubuntu with apt-get issue:

debian:~# apt-get --yes install alex4
...

After installing the game can be run from command line using cmd:

alex4

The game controls are as follows;
 

  • Arrow Keys – Movement
  • Alt – Jump
  • Ctrl – Fire (if you have previously collected Eggs

Alex the Alligator is also equipped with a MAP editor, so if you really want to contribute the game development, take some time create some maps and submit to game's official website http://allegator.sourceforge.net/ . On the game website there are few other variations of the Alex the Alligator as well as extra game maps.
Explanation on which keys can be used to create maps is found in the game manual, e.g.:

debian:~$ man alex4

If you have downloaded some extra game maps from the game sourceforge website, to load them you can use:

Shift+L

Will Alex succeed in saving his girlfriend ? It's up to you 😉

Abe’s Amazing Adventure, A Dangerous Dave 2 like GNU Linux / FreeBSD Arcade Game substitute

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

Abe's Amazing Adventure Game menu screenshot, A Dangerous Dave like Linux arcade game
While looking over the installable packages in System -> Administration -> Software Center on my my Debian powered notebook, I’ve accidently rolled over a game called Abe’s Amazing Adventure , as a big oldschool arcade game fan, I’ve immediately clicked on Install being impatient to see the overall game atmosphere and gameplay as well as storyline.

Abe’s Amazing Adventure is available under the debian package name abe and can be installed by issuing:

debian:~# apt-get install abe I was pleasently surprised to find out the gameplay and the overall game feels like the golden classical arcade game Dangerous Dave

For youngsters who never played the amazing absolute killing arcade ! as well as for people who feel nostalgic about Dangerous Dave 2 here is a nice gameplay screenshot:

Dangerous Dave 2 screenshot

Here is also a screenshot of Abe’s Amazing Adventure gameplay:

Abes Amazing Adventure Dangerous Dave like Linux / BSD Arcade Game like screenshot

You can see the great resemblense between the two games even by the screenshot; In both games you have to collect keys to open doors and diamonds which gives you points. Of course there are some differences as you can see Abe’s Amazing Adventure ‘s graphics has some additional items like Baloons with which your main character can fly over distances (for a limited time). There is also more diversity in the enemy types you face on the road to unlock the different doors. The game has also a red stars which while taken saves the game so if you quit the game on next game load up starting the game automatically starts you from the last save point.

Abes Amazing Adventure Star gameplay Screenshot on Debian

The ( 6 ) baloons seen in the screenshot on the left upper corner can be used occasionally to fly some distance by pressing Enter .
There are health recovery kits one can take to recover, some health damaged by hitting obstacles on the way.
The game story is short but entertaining, just like the general game feel:

Abes amazing adventure game storyThe game music is relaxing and more or less in the spirit of arcade games, the keyboard interactivety is pretty good as well.One thing I see can be improved to make the game better are the graphics, they’re a bit childish and too cubical, where sometimes some more general characters and obstacles animation will give the game a better look. Anyways for the year 2003 and for a free software arcade the game is not bad. For children and growing kids the game is just perfect, even for big kids like me its good to spend an hour of jump and run fun 😉

PixBros a nice Arcade Game remake of Bubble Bobble for GNU/Linux

Monday, September 26th, 2011

PixBros Linux Bubble Bobble like Game Screenshot

While checking my sister’s notebook running Ubuntu GNU/Linux. I decided to check the gui package installer for some new Linux games that entered Ubuntu 11.04. A quick view over the games and I come across awesome game called PixBros

The game is combining three great arcade games from my young years Bubble Bobble, Snow Bros and Tumple Pop . The game really brought some joy to my boring lifeand here it comes I’ve written a small article to share my little joy.

In the game you can select one of three characters and play a remake version of Bubble Bobble on your Linux Desktop. Besides that the music is absolutely awesome like it is with most of the classic arcade games 😉
The game characters graphics is also trendy, like you can see in the screen below:

PixBros Bubble Bobble Linux game like entry Screen characters

The game history is also intriuging and in the old-school arcade games spirit.
PixBros Start New Game screen, game gangsta characters

The game is published under GPL v2, so its one more great game in the family of free software games 😉
PixBros has also port (binary installer) for Windows, Nintendo Wii and few other platforms. As a multi-platform game its very suitable for little Children to develop their reflexes and intellect. Therefore for parents who wants to use free software to grow up their kids mind, PixBros will fit well with other games likeTux Math, Tux Paint, Tux Typing which are stimulating the kid to learn
The game is also great for big kids like me and other arcade maniacs as well 😉
I have only one small note about the game just like with many other Linux games, by default the game starts in minimized screen and trying to play it in fullscreen is only possible by using the menus available from within the game itself.
This kind of behaviour reduces some of the initial game enjoyment and maybe in the future releases of the game let’s say when it reaches stable version 1.0 it will be nice the game to start in fullscreen by default.

The creator team of PixBrosPix Juegos has 4 other games created, all of which are primary developed for GNU/Linux and downloadable from PixJuegos game dev crew official website . Unfortunately the crew official website does not English translation.

The other games from PixJuegos one can enjoy are; A Remake of the classic Atari frog game again for Linux (available for install via a deb package on latest Ubuntu 11.04):

PixFrogger - Atari modern Frog game remake for Linux

A Super Pang modern remake – Pix Pang , below is a screenshot for all those that can’t remember Pang 😉

Super Pang arcade classic screenshot
Super Pang

Here is also a screenshot of PixJuegos’s PixPang running on Linux:

PixPang Super Pang Linux Remake

PixGuegos game development team has also two other games in their site portfolio; this are Garnatron and PixDash . Here are screenshots:

Garnatron Linux Spaceship arcade game screenshot

PixDash Linux arcade game screenshot
Congrats to the guys of PixJuegos for their great Linux games! I wish them a lot of success and a lot of productive years in Linux game development 😉

Play Nintendo Super Mario Bros on Linux (Secret Mario Chronicles) and SuperTux

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

Super Mario for Linux, Super Mario Chronicles

Are you looking for free software version of the old-school absolute Nintendo classic Super Mario Bros. ? 🙂

If you’re an old-school geek gamer like me you definitely do 😉
I was lucky to find Secret Mario Chronicles a Linux version of Super Mario while I was browsing through all the available for installation Linux games in aptitude .

The game is really great and worthy to be played. It’s even a better copy of the classical arcade game than SuperTux (another Mario like Linux clone game)

Super Tux A Super Mario Bros. clone for Linux

Both Super Mario Chronicles and Super Mario Bros are available for installation as .deb packages in the repositories of Ubuntu and Debian and most likely the other Debian direvative Linux distrubtion.

To install and play the games out of the box, if you’re a Debian or Ubuntu user, just issue:

linux:~# apt-get install smc supertux

The other good news are that both of the games’s engine, music and graphics are GPLed 🙂

To Launch the games after installation in GNOME I’ve used the menus:

Applications -> Games -> Super Mario Chronicles
andApplications -> Games -> Arcade -> SuperTux

The games can also be launched from terminal with commands:

debian:~$ smc
debian:~$ supertux

The only thing I don’t like about Super Mario Chronicles is that it doesn’t have a good music and only sounds, just to compare SuperTux has an awesome level music.
Along with being an absolute classic I should say that these two games are one of the really good arcade games produced for Linux and if I have to rank them as a gamer among all the other boring arcade games today available for Linux this two ones ranks in the top 10 arcade games prdocuced for Linux

Enjoy and drop me a thanks comment 😉 !