Linux gaming

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Linux games)
Jump to: navigation, search
Ambox outdated serious.svg
 This article may need to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information, and remove this template when finished. Please see the talk page for more information. (October 2007)

Linux gaming refers to playing or developing video games for Linux operating systems. This can refer to open source games that run natively on Linux, or commercial games that have Linux ports. Generally speaking, there is a mindset that there are few games available for Linux.[1]

Contents

[edit] Free and open source games

Vega Strike, a space flight simulation.
Nexuiz, a first-person shooter.

A few original open source games have attained notability:

[edit] Clones and remakes

FreeCiv, a well known remake of the popular Civilization Series
Frozen Bubble, a popular adaption of the game Puzzle Bobble
Project Diaspora, a popular clone of the mmorpg classic Diaspora

There are a larger number of open source clones and remakes of classic games:

[edit] Commercial games

[edit] Game Developers

Doom 3 is a popular commercial game that can be run natively on Linux

In some cases, developers have released Linux versions of their games directly.

[edit] id Software

Main Article: id Software

id Software together with Raven Software ported Doom 3, the Quake series, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. id Software's Timothee Besset has stated he hopes to port Rage to Linux.

[edit] Epic Games
Unreal Tournament 2004 running on BeaFanatIX Linux

Main Article: Epic Games

Epic Games released Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004 and they will port Unreal Tournament 3.

These games were ported for them by Ryan C. Gordon.

[edit] Croteam
Serious Sam II was the first game ported directly by Croteam to Linux

Main Article: Croteam

Croteam released the Serious Sam series, with the first game ported by Ryan C. Gordon and with the second self-ported.

[edit] Introversion

Main Article: Introversion Software

Introversion released Darwinia, Uplink, and DEFCON.

[edit] Frictional Games

Main Article: Frictional Games

Frictional Games released Linux version of both Penumbra: Black Plague and Penumbra: Overture, as well as the expansion pack Penumbra: Requiem. They also intend to port Amnesia: The Dark Descent to Linux.

[edit] S2games

Main Article: S2games

Savage: The Battle for Newerth was the first S2games product ported to Linux

S2games released Linux clients for their titles Savage: The Battle for Newerth and Savage 2: A Tortured Soul. They have also announced a Linux port of their Warcraft 3 Defense of the Ancients clone Heroes of Newerth.

[edit] Indie Games

Main Article: Independent video game development

Independent developer 2D Boy released World of Goo for Linux. RPGs Eschalon: Book I and Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness were developed cross-platform from the start of development, including a Linux version.

[edit] Others

Philos Laboratories released a Linux version of Theocracy on the retail disk. Bioware released Neverwinter Nights for Linux. Unigine Corp is also developing a Linux friendly action game using its Unigine engine.

[edit] Game Porters

More commonly, an independent company has taken on the task of porting prominent Windows games to Linux.

[edit] Loki Software
Civilization: Call to Power was the first game ported by Loki

Main Article: Loki Software

Loki Software was the first such company, and between 1998 and 2002 ported Civilization: Call to Power, Descent³, Heretic II, Heroes of Might and Magic III, Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, Myth II: Soulblighter, Railroad Tycoon II, Rune, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Sim City 3000, Soldier of Fortune, Tribes II, and Unreal Tournament.

[edit] Tribsoft

Main Article: Tribsoft

Tribsoft created a Linux version of Jagged Alliance 2 by Sir-Tech Canada before shutting down in 2002.

[edit] Linux Game Publishing
Shadowgrounds Survivor is the latest game ported by LGP

Main Article: Linux Game Publishing

Linux Game Publishing was founded in 2001 in response to the impending demise of Loki, and has brought Creatures: Internet Edition, Candy Cruncher, Majesty: Gold Edition, NingPo MahJong, Hyperspace Delivery Boy!, Software Tycoon, Postal²: Share The Pain, Soul Ride, X2: The Threat, Gorky 17, Cold War, Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom, Ballistics, X3: Reunion, Jets'n'Guns, Sacred: Gold, Shadowgrounds, and Shadowgrounds Survivor to Linux. Some of these games were ported for them by Ryan C. Gordon and Gorky 17 was ported by Hyperion Entertainment.

[edit] icculus.org
Prey running on Puppy Linux

See Also: Ryan C. Gordon

icculus.org has ported Aliens versus Predator, Duke Nukem 3D, Lugaru, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Rise of the Triad, America's Army, Devastation, and Prey.

[edit] Ruenesoft

The German publisher RuneSoft was founded in 2000. They ported the games Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood, Airline Tycoon Deluxe, Ankh, Ankh: Heart of Osiris and Jack Keane to Linux.

[edit] Hyperion Entertaiment

Main Article: Hyperion Entertainment

Hyperion Entertainment ports games to several systems, they have so far ported Shogo: Mobile Armor Division and SiN to Linux.

[edit] Massively multiplayer online role-playing games

RuneScape can be run using the Java Runtime Environment.
WorldForge is a free software MMORPG that runs on Linux.
See also: List of MMORPGs

This is a selected list of MMORPGs that are native on Linux.

[edit] Wine Gaming

Currently, many games can run without serious problems in a compatibility layer called wine.

[edit] Platinum List

This is a list from the wine application database of games that run flawlessly. There are many more.

[edit] Emulation and compatibility layers

Wine running Blood II: The Chosen on Fedora 10
DOSBox running Rob Blanc III on Fedora Linux 10

There are also APIs, virtual machines, and machine emulators that provide binary compatibility:

[edit] Game development

As far as development is concerned, library support for Linux gaming is provided by OpenGL, ALSA, OpenAL and SDL, a cross-platform multimedia wrapper around system-dependent libraries, as well as Pygame. The DRI project provides open source video card drivers, and NVIDIA and ATI also release binary kernel modules for their video cards. Linux also runs on several game consoles, including the Xbox,[7] PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, GameCube,[8] and Wii which allows game developers without an expensive game development kit to access console hardware.

[edit] See also

Free Software Portal Logo.svg Free Software portal
Gamepad.svg Video games portal

[edit] Directories and Lists

[edit] People and Companies

[edit] Other Articles

[edit] References

  1. ^ Rob Williams. "Top 10 Free Linux Games". techgage.com. http://techgage.com/article/top_10_free_linux_games/. Retrieved 2008-11-01. 
  2. ^ "UpFront". Linux Journal. July 2005. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8231. 
  3. ^ Diehl, Mike (2007-10-18). "Free Games for Linux" (HTML). Linux Journal. Linux Journal. http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000435. Retrieved 2007-12-04. 
  4. ^ "Full Circle Magazine n14, page 35" (PDF). http://dl.fullcirclemagazine.org/issue14_en.pdf. Retrieved 2009-01-04. 
  5. ^ Retrospec Head Over Heels Page
  6. ^ The Spring Project
  7. ^ Xbox Linux Wiki
  8. ^ Gamecube Linux Wiki

[edit] External links

v • d • e
The Linux operating system
Linux Tux, the Linux mascot
Distribution
GNU
Applications
Desktop · Devices · Embedded · Gaming · LAMP · Thin client
People
Media
Lists
Mobile
Other topics
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_gaming"