UPDATE (15/02/2012): Warsow was updated to 0.62 and World of Padman to 1.6.
In the past months I have been working on many things for Mageia, like mentoring some novice packagers, fixing bugs, preparing updates for Mageia 1, and the usual packaging of new applications and updating existing ones. On this last activity I’ve been working really hard to get the biggest amount of games packaged for Mageia. I always have loved FPS games, so that kind of games have been my main objective.
Of course, all are open source games, but unfortunately, for some of them the data files have non-free licenses, so those have been put on the non-free repository, or are using a nifty feature to autodownload the data files at first run of the game. How this autodownload feature works ? using a program developed by Fedora called autodownloader. Here is how it works:
The user install one of the games that has non-free licensed data files using urpmi, Mageia Control Center or drakrpm as usual. Then, when the user runs the game for the first time, he/she will be prompted with the following screen describing the game and the space requirements for the download that is about to be done:
If the user accepts, then another screen with the game license will be displayed so the user can agree to it or refuse it:
Upon the user agreeing the game license, the download of the data files will begin from the first configured mirror:
You can have multiple mirrors configured in case that the first mirror is down, or the files aren’t available anymore on that server. After the files finish downloading, they will be verified against a md5 hash to be sure that download was ok. Then, the user will see a screen telling him that the download completed successfully and asks the user if he wants to launch the game !! 馃榾 :
And voila ! the game starts running 馃榾
The autodownloader program uses a very simple configuration file where you specify the text of all of these screens and the mirror list from where to download the files with it’s corresponding md5 hash. What I like the most of this autodownload technique is that we can use it for other programs that can’t be included on the distro, not even on the non-free repository, like skype or flash plugin perhaps ?
Well enough about technicalities !! lets see which new games we will have in the upcoming Mageia 2 in May 馃榾
The following games are all based on ioquake3 engine, thus they use it as their game engine, which has been patched to better support these games. Also most of these (autodownloader) packages have been taken from Fedora and adapted for Mageia. I’ll start with my preferred one 馃榾
Version: 4.1.1
Media: core/release (uses autodownloader)
Description from the game’s website:
Urban Terror is a free multiplayer first person shooter developed by FrozenSand, that (thanks to the ioquake3-code) does not require Quake III Arena anymore. It is available for Windows, Linux and Macintosh. Urban Terror can be described as a Hollywood tactical shooter; somewhat realism based, but the motto is “fun over realism”. This results in a very unique, enjoyable and addictive game.
There’s an excellent video that shows the gameplay of the game on youtube. You can find more screenshots here.
Description from the game’s website:
World of Padman (WoP) is an open source first-person shooter computer game available in both English and German. Originally it was a modificationfor the game Quake III Arena titled PadMod created in the year 2004. After the source code for Quake III Arena was released, the game became standalone.[1] The idea is based on the Padman comic strip for the magazine PlayStation Games created by the professional cartoon artist Andreas ‘ENTE’ (German for “Duck”) Endres, who is also the man who made many of the maps included with the game in 1998.
You can find more screenshots here.
Version: 1.0
Media: core/release (uses autodownloader)
Description from the game’s website:
Smokin’ Guns is intended to be a semi-realistic simulation of the “Old West’s” great atmosphere & was developed on Id Software’s Quake III Arena Engine. Gameplay as well as locations are inspired by Western movies, particularly those from the Spaghetti Western genre.
You can find more screenshots here.
TurtleArena
Version: 0.5.3
Description from the game’s website:
Turtle Arena (working title) is a free and open source cross-platform third-person action game using a modified version of the ioquake3 engine.
Turtle Arena is currently focused on multiplayer (with multiple game modes) and can be played with human players over a network, splitscreen, or with AI players. In the future there will also be a single player / cooperative reach the end of the level mode with AI enemies.
This game has it’s own engine called ioq3ztm, which it’s a modified ioquake3 engine to support additional features like the four player split screen.
Sauerbraten
Version: 2010_07_28 Justice Edition
Description from the game’s website:Cube 2: Sauerbraten is a free multiplayer/singleplayer first person shooter, built as a major redesign of theCube FPS.
Much like the original Cube, the aim of this game is not necessarily to produce the most features & eyecandy possible, but rather to allow map/geometry editing to be done dynamically in-game, to create fun gameplay and an elegant engine.
You can find more screenshots here.
Media: nonfree/release
Description from the game’s website:
AssaultCube is a FREE, multiplayer, first-person shooter game, based on the CUBE engine. Taking place in realistic environments, with fast, arcade gameplay, it’s addictive and fun!
You can find more screenshots here.
Version: 0.62
Media: nonfree/release
Description from the game’s website:
Warsow is set in a futuristic cartoonish world where rocketlauncher-wielding pigs and lasergun-carrying cyberpunks roam the streets. It is a completely free, fast-paced first-person shooter for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
You can find more screenshots here.
There are other excellent FPS games that already can be fouond in Mageia:
- Alienarena
- Nexuiz (other of my favorites, in minstagib mode)
- OpenArena
- Tremulous
That's some nice work, thank you.
However, the UI and wording of autodownload is terrible :-(. It also looks unmaintained, the last release is 3+ years old.
An application shouldn't put the space requirement checking on the user. It should check if enough space is available, and prompt a message if there's not enough space.
Here's how I would see that:
1. Screen telling the user that the game requires additional data, saying how much space it requires. Two buttons, "Cancel" and "Continue". On a click on "continue", the system check that there's enough available space, or tells the user to do some cleanup and aborts.
2. Screen displaying the licence, with a checkbox below "I accept the terms of this licence", and "Cancel" and "Continue" buttons. The "continue" button is enabled only if the checkbox has been checked. This forces a 2-step procedure to avoid people clicking by mistake.
The flash plugin already has its own package (or used to, in mandriva). Installing the package used to run a script that would download the plugin.
Hope this helps. BTW, you can look at how packagekit handles that:
http://www.packagekit.org/img/gpk-eula.png
http://www.packagekit.org/img/gpk-client-codecs.png
Hi,
Yes, that was my same thought when I saw autodownloader in action, it's really ugly. I didn't knew that packageKit had those features, it would be nice to use that instead. If I have time before the beta I'll take a look.
Thanks for the comments 馃檪
Just a question… I'm a terrible control freak, what happens to autodownloaded files when I remove the game via rpm?
Very very EXELLENT !!!!
As the game data files were downloaded by the user, AFAIK, they can't be removed when uninstalling the package using RPM, so the user will have to do it by him self… I have to come with a better way to deal with this :S