Too Many Shoot 'Em Up Games

I'm more into space sims. There Linux has the Freespace engine ones, also OoLite (not just the default Ubuntu repository's OLD version, but mod-able versions) as well as the VegaStrike engine games. Plus, with X2 & X3-Reunion, ported by (the defunct?!?!) LGP, there are some good titles out there. And some of the old Lawrence Holland Star Wars X-wing games run under Wine (but are obviously showing their age).

> Yes we do have the odd non violent game or two

TA, there is a whole class of casual games, mostly written in Python AFAICT, which are run on all three major platforms (Windows. Mac, Linux). Many of them are good.

I'm at work now, and most game sites are blocked, so it's hard for me to give examples. However, the small independent game market seems to Understand that they can't survive on Windows sales alone.

Back when we were mainly dual-booting, my kids got me into SRB2, Sonic Robo-Blast, which is a Sonic fan-game bult on the Doom engine. It's effectively an over-the-shoulder shooter but with glides and spindashes instead of firearms, and not-so-cute lil' bots for targets instead of anything at all homonid. Lately I've noticed it in the Debian repos, but the build I run is one I chased down by following links from the forums on the homesite. There's a bunch of add-on level wads, some of them quite elaborate (I'm still working my way through mysticrealm). I'm not a gamer, really (my kids are but the last thing I bought was Katamari), but I'll play a level or three when I need something to stir up the blood.

http://www.srb2.org

OK, here are a few companies offer at least some (though in most cases, not all) of their games for Linux:

http://www.winterwolves.com/ http://mygamecompany.com/ http://www.hanakogames.com/ http://www.anawiki.com/

I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg, but it's what I could find with a quick search.

Thanks I'll follow those up.

Like I said TA, they're casual games, not in the same class as the top end games most gamers concentrate on, but they're a very important segment of the games market, especially for independent developers. Things like Diner Dash and the like are big sellers after all.

Many of these seem to use the Ren'py engine ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren'Py ), and are loosely based on Japanese ren'ai ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren'ai ) game styles, but mygamecompany.com doesn't seem to be, and is more oriented toward children's games.

And don't forget Humble indie Bundle 2 ... http://www.humblebundle.com ... it contains Braid - award winning platform puzzle game, and Machinarium - likely the most charming puzzle adventure game you will ever find, and Osmos - trippier than a a trippy thing on a trip puzzle game.

No shooting in either.

Also contains Cortex Command and Revenge of the Titans - both very shooty-killy, but also both rather silly fun. :)

> Humble indie Bundle 2

And, of course, the Humble Indie Bundle 1 games are still available as individual games.

I have gotten completely stuck in Machinarium, on, what, screen 3?, by being unable to get into the city after falling down under the bridge.

Just cannot figure out how to get to the switch. Help is no help, since I know I have to get to the switch. Argh.

Anyway, thinking about it, the closest I have to a shoot-em-up game on my system here is Wesnoth. Maybe wands in Nethack qualify.

It's been a long time since I played Duke Nuke'em, with the BubbleGum Crists mod.

> Maybe wands in Nethack qualify.

Bows in Nethack definitely qualify.

Quoting:Just cannot figure out how to get to the switch. Help is no help, since I know I have to get to the switch. Argh.

What switch? You can reach the lever on the left by using/sliding the stair railing. To get to the control box/switch on the right, make yourself short (click-drag down on yourself).

Regarding Indie Bundle 2- Again, Linux makes up about 25% of the total revenue,a nd in general are donating on average twice as much as everyone else. Windows users are the cheapskaes in this case, even though their overall contribution is bigger.

> To get to the control box/switch on the right, make yourself short (click-drag down on yourself).

Oookay... I'll let you know.

Let's look at common breakout games. Not shooters exactly but entail coordinated interaction with the game field

they are fun, fairly simple and in a Windows environment...fairly cheap.

Linux offers breakout games such as Briquolo, circus linux and LBreakout2. These are fairly polished and well written...

But when you come from a Windows platform and compare it to offerings such as Magic Ball...they pale in comparison.

I guess it all comes down to what you are used to and what your expectations are but clearly, at least in this instance, the linux/open source offerings are cosmetically challenged.

h

I think TecnoballZ is one of the best arkanoid game on linux, unfortunately the menu is a bit messy and its full screen so not user friendly.

As for tetris, LTris to me is the best one, but again suffer from a bit messy menu.

Quoting:I think TecnoballZ is one of the best arkanoid game on linux.....

Actually that's another issue I have and I know newbies have with games on Linux. more often than not the game is described in terms of a) the programming language it's written in, b) the framework it's based on, c) the proprietary games it's based on. Not necessarily all at once, and for example, as I'm not a gamer, I have absolutely no idea what an "arkanoid game" is, and suspect a great many if not most of the people who are casual gamers also have no idea.

Rarely does one have any clue what in the hell the game is about, what the point of it is, or even what it might look like in play. For most people, the casual gamers like myself, there is no point of reference in the description given.

Quoting:...cosmetically challenged

helios, I agree with your whole point, but sometimes games like Minecraft come around that show graphics is not everything.

Actually, the newly open-sourced MMO Ryzom looks pretty darn good for a game that's 6 years old. And while I am still trying to get stats from the developers, it would seem that open-sourcing the game client has revived this nearly dead game.

@ tracyanne Well in that case, when I first used KDE I had troubles getting used to the apps because they all started with the letter K. I hate to brag about Ubuntu since its not popular here, but they made it easy with the names, sometimes even omitting the actual software name, ie Text Editor instead of "gedit". Hardcore users might not like this over abused.

I think the software center is pretty good with description and often include screenshots. Newbie should be able to download something with the games categorized in genre. The software center for 10.10 has a section for "what's new", "featured apps" and "paid apps", its just begging for commercial entities to embrace it. Maybe some casino suite by Hoyle and Encore would be welcomed, even Monopoly by Hasbro?

Quoting:I hate to brag about Ubuntu since its not popular here,

tmx, I'm an Ubuntu user. The Software Centre adds something, but I'm not sure it's the b eall and and end all you say, many of the games still lack screen shots, and there are still a large number of packages that aren't actually games, but are libraries, and frameworks, take those away and you'd be left with about 25% of the packages.

What I said above still applies in any case, the names and descriptions don't really help.

The best way to describe games is not. For example if there was a game like Bookworm.The description should not say "a Free Software clone of Bookworm", or "based on the Renpy framework", or written in C++ using the Open GL Frame work... these a pretty common ways to describe games ion Linux.

What it should say is something like "help the worm find the words and stop the library from burning down....." and include a few screen shots of various game scenarios, and include some additional explanatory text, go to almost any site that support Windows and Mac and see what I mean.

+1 on that, tracyanne