A fun game for movie buffs who happen to use Linux

With the Oscar fever running high, there is towering expectations all around for all the Oscar nominees. So it was only a matter of time before someone jumped into the fray and created a game featuring all the movies, directors and actors nominated for the Oscar award. The beauty of the game is that it is played exclusively in YouTube - the popular video sharing site of Google.

The game titled "2009 Oscar Interactive Photo Hunt" is simple to play. You will be shown two nearly identical photos (there is just one subtle difference) of the people and movie stills associated with the Oscar Awards and you have to find the difference between the two images. You get 30 seconds to spot the difference and click on it. Once you click on the part you feel is different, you are taken to another YouTube video depending upon whether it is the correct answer or not.

There is only one rule... No pausing of the video at any stage is allowed. There are 30 levels in the game. The first 14 levels are quite easy. But from the 15th level, the solution gets more and more elusive. A fabulous idea, great game surrounding the Oscar theme and intelligent use of a popular free service. The game has been developed by DailyFill.com. To start playing the game, watch the following video and do as you are directed.

If you are unable to watch the preceding YouTube video, in all probability you do not have Flash player plugin installed on your machine. Read the following article to install flash player plugin in Linux.

My Tribe - An enjoyable resource management game for Linux

My Tribe is the latest game from Grubby Games - the creators of Prof Fizzwizzle and Fizzball. Grubby Games are known for releasing Linux versions of all their games. My Tribe game also has a Linux version. The first time I started playing the My Tribe game, I was taken in by its vivid graphics.

The game play is as follows : You are put in charge of controlling and managing a set of island dwellers. At the start of the game, you have to choose an island from over 3000,000,000 islands dotting the horizon (No kidding). Once you choose an island, your island dwellers (people) move to that island and start living there. It is anybody's guess that living a wholesome life requires atleast the basic necessities namely food, clothing and shelter. Fortunately, there are sufficient trees on all islands which provide wood for construction, fuel for fire etc. And also rocks which you have to make the island dwellers harvest. The sea is full of fish which provide the food.


Once your people have sufficient resources namely wood, rocks and food, you can direct them to start constructing buildings such as a Science lab for doing research, storehouses to store rocks, wood and food, craftworks, and of course huts which they can use to get some shut eye and also to procreate. While on the topic of making babies, thanks to the game developers, when ever you wish to increase the tribe population which is a necessity, all you have to do is drag a man over a woman or vice versa. The game asks you if you want them to indeed have a baby. Once you confirm in the affirmative, the couple move into a hut and close the door. And in a few seconds they come out with, voila!! ... a baby.


Occasionally celestial objects in the form of star dust and moon dust fall on the island. These dusts have unique properties and they can be used to create magical portions, speed up building of structures and provide many other benefits to your people on the island. And do keep a look out for barrels and crates which float near the island. They contain surprises which may aid your tribe or make them disoriented.


Each island also comes with three of the game's eight mysterious objects for you to solve. Once you've figured them out, each one gives a powerful benefit to your tribe, and one of the game's 25 trophies.

The game is superb in its graphics and detail. At first I had the impression that the game play was similar to that of Age of Empires game. But this game is significantly different and does not involve violence and gore. Essentially, you manage your tribe to make use of the resources at hand to lead a healthy and happy life. And like in real life, the island dwellers in your game also age with time and will eventually die of old age. Another reason to increase the tribe numbers by allowing them to procreate I guess.


And what do the tribe people do once all the resources on the island get over ? They do the logical thing which is build a shipyard, then build an arc (ship) and set sail to another island.

My Tribe - A game with very low carbon footprint

One of the unique aspects of this game which I find quite amusing is that the game progresses even when you have turned off your computer. This means you need not turn on the computer and sit in front of it playing the game hours on end wasting power. You need just open the game once or twice a day and spend a few minutes tending to your flock by assigning them tasks; After which, you can close the game. The next time you open the game after a few hours, you will find your game has progressed a lot.

I had hours of fun playing the game. While there are some irritating things like when a star dust or moon dust falls on the island, you are expected to drag one of the people over it to collect it - which soon gets quite tedious. It would have been better if the players were to just click on the moon dust or star dust to retrieve them. But such minor irritations apart, this is a game worth spending money on, and enjoyed by the whole family.

Download the demo of Linux version of the game, or buy it.

Play a Chess game in Linux

Chess has been a passion for me. I used to play Chess in my younger days and used to love it. I still remember the excitement in the air when the international chess championships were held then, especially when Anatoly Karpov and Gary Kasparov used to play each other. These two Russians were adversaries not only on the game but off it too. And then there was this tournament where Gary Kasparov played against Deep Blue (a 32-node IBM RS/6000 SP high-performance computer) ... and lost in a re-match. Now a days I am a big fan of grandmaster Viswanathan Anand - the current world chess champion.

Linux especially Ubuntu and others which have GNOME 2.20 desktop come bundled with a Chess game called glChess. glChess is a 2D/3D chess game, where games can be played between a combination of human and computer players. glChess detects known third party chess engines for computer players. The game was originally developed by Robert Ancell, now the game is included in gnome-games. The 3D view can be enabled provided you have installed the propritery graphics drivers (ATI / Nvidia) as it makes use of OpenGL. You may also have to install the OpenGL python and GtkGLExt python bindings.

Fig: A glChess game in progress - 2D view

Fig: 3D view of the game glChess

I have found it quite tough to beat the computer the numerous times I played the game. Did I mention that while I am an avid chess enthusiast, I am a mediocre player at the best? Any way, you should try playing it some time if only to exercise your grey cells. It is also a great way to kill time.

But if your favorite Linux distribution doesn't yet have this chess game installed, then you can also try your hand with an online chess game where you play chess against Shredder - the chess game bot. There are three modes of play namely easy, medium and hard and you can choose the level depending upon your skill in playing the game.

Fig: Play this chess game online

Enabling Directx 9.0 in Linux using Wine

It is a foregone conclusion that Linux has made deep inroads into the Windows arena and has succeeded in providing a robust user friendly Desktop which any lay person can use. But there are still a few areas where Linux lags way behind Windows.One of them is Games.

The problem is that most commercial games worth their name are developed using a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft called DirectX. It is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video. And as with all things Microsoft, DirectX too runs only on the Windows platform.

The latest version of DirectX is ver 10. But there is hope around the horizon for those die-hard gamers who would love to run their favorite game in Linux. Now it is possible to install DirectX libraries albeit version 9.0 in Linux using Wine.

The Wine review blog has an elaborate article giving step-by-step details of how to install DirectX 9.0c in Linux under Wine. Finally you will be able to play those fabulous games which you have stored in your attic by installing them in Linux.

Runes of Avalon - an enjoyable game for Linux

In my teens I was addicted to playing computer games. We all are at some point of our lives. And I have played a wide variety of games from arcade to RPG and simulations. But the most enjoyable ones were games which had simple controls. Some of the classic games of yore I have immensely enjoyed are Pacman, MS-Pac, Dig Dug, Snake and so on. More recently, I enjoyed playing the two games Fizzball and Prof Fizzwizzle and the molten mystery which the regular readers of this blog would have already read a review of.

Two weeks back I had the opportunity to try out another very interesting game called "Runes of Avalon". This game is the brain child of Roman Budzowski the founder of Anawiki Games - a professional game developing firm based in Poland. "Runes of Avalon" game has been released for the Linux platform apart from that for Windows and MacOSX.

The game is played entirely with the aid of the mouse and the objective of the game is to clear out runes which are nothing but small tablets of varied colors with inscriptions on it. On first glance the game has some semblance with a tetris game in that you have to match three or more tablets (runes) of similar colors to make them disappear from the board. You can rotate the runes by clicking the right mouse button. And the runes come in different combinations so some mixing and matching is in order. But the similarity to tetris ends there.

Fig: Play Quest mode main page

Fig: Game play in progress

The game has three modes of play. Them being "Play Quest", "Time attack" - where you have just one minute to clear the board of runes and "Endless play".

There are a total of 105 different levels in the "Play Quest" mode. In this mode each time you bring together three or more runes of same color together to form combinations, it gets recorded in a beautiful energy meter on the top left corner of the game board (See figure below). And once the specified quota of energy for each color of rune is met, the level is completed.

Fig: Different stages of the energy meter and timer

This very entertaining game also has a bonus game called "Gallery" where you have to put together jumbled images and make them whole again.

Fig: Completing this level provides you with additional spells or power-ups

It might be said that there are numerous games of these sort with similar game play. To some extent it is true but if you ask me, what makes a game a success and a joy to play is a combination of factors - them being ease of control, superior graphical effects and an entertaining game play. I found "Runes of Avalon" game to sport all these qualities.

It is also commendable that the game developers decided to release a Linux version of their game albeit a non-free game, which in my mind is a big thing in itself because as they all say, an Operating system is as useful as the applications which run on it. And as more and more game developers roll out games for Linux platform it will have a trickle effect in the rise in popularity of Linux.

Pros of Runes of Avalon

• Very entertaining game play
• Ease of control - You play the game entirely using the mouse.
• Beautiful graphics.
• More than one person can play the game simultaneously by managing multiple profiles and the game keeps track of individual scores.
• Automatic saving of ones play levels so you can come back and continue playing where you left off.
• Value for money
• Has over 105 different levels in the "Play Quest" mode, with other modes containing more levels.
• Can download additional levels from the net for free.
  

Any drawbacks ?

This game makes use of OpenGL libraries. So if you have an NVIDIA or ATI graphics card, you won't be able to play the game properly using their open source drivers bundled with all Linux distributions. You will have to download and install the proprietary drivers from the respective websites before you can play the game.

If you are using a Linux distribution such as PCLinuxOS or Ubuntu, downloading and installing the proprietary graphics drivers is a piece of cake and can be done using Synaptic. I tested this game in PCLinuxOS 2007 and the game played flawlessly.

What really makes me happy is that professional game developers are eyeing the Linux platform with increasing interest. The OpenGL framework on which many games could be based upon shows a lot of promise. The Beryl and Compiz project is proof of what could be achieved with OpenGL and that, is just the tip of the iceberg.

The game - Runes of Avalon - is nominally priced at $19.99 and you can download a time limited demo version of the game which is fully playable and test it out before making the jump to buy it. The simplicity of this game makes it an ideal one for kids and adults alike and provide hours of fun in the process.

Prof Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery - A beautiful puzzle game for Linux

Remember the time when I reviewed a very beautiful game called FizzBall which runs on Linux and which was developed by a young gaming company called Grubby games ? Well, they have released yet another game called "Prof. Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery" - this time a game of puzzles. The protagonist of the new game is again Prof. Fizzwizzle and the story line goes thus :

While on vacation, the professor Fizzwizzle comes across a simmering volcano. And his ever inquisitive mind prompts him to find ways of studying the volcano. But alas, on the way he meets his former pupil turned evil genius Penny Pyroclast who with the aid of her trusty flying robots (bat-bots) make his job that much difficult by spreading across his path a number of devious puzzles. And to reach the volcano, the professor will have to solve these puzzles.

Game play is quite simple and involves moving Prof Fizzwizzle from point A to point B. But in between, he has to surmount many obstacles. To aid him in clearing the path, he can use different objects such as magnets, barrels, crates, teleports, guns and many other things.

Fig: Move the Prof from point A to point B.

Prof Fizzwizzle can move only in four directions - left,right,up and down - which is controlled by the four arrow keys of your computer (The keys can be changed from the settings dialog) and his movements are restricted by the fact that you can't make him jump. So while it is easy to move him from a higher plane to a lower plane, to move him up, either the terrain should allow him or you have to make him use the objects at his disposal. And this calls for thinking through the steps which is what the puzzle is all about.

One thing I really like about the games developed by Grubby games is their rich cartoony graphics painted with a hew of colors. The games are developed with the kids as well as the adults in mind. And Prof Fizzwizzle is no different. I was so engaged in playing the game that I did not see the time fly by. And my whole family had a whale of a time playing the game.

Fig: A random level in the game

Coming back to the game, Professor Fizzwizzle and the molten mystery provides three different level sets, them being Regular levels, Advanced levels and Kids levels.

Fig: Yet another level - move the professor to the location pointed by the red arrow

While the regular and advanced levels require applying some logical thought, the kids levels are simple to solve and require little out of the box thinking.

There are numerous objects and terrains in this game and the interesting thing is that all the objects follow the laws of physics. For instance, when like poles of magnets face each other, the magnets repel each other and vice versa, crates can't move on gravel - unless they are freezed, hot metal objects transfer their heat when they come in contact with cooler objects and so on. And, you have to use these laws of physics to achieve your goal of solving the puzzles which is to help the Prof. move to his final destination.

The game is amazingly well designed. There are 210 levels in all and each one of them are unique. The levels are automatically saved which means you can close the game anytime and then come back later to pick up where you left off. Each users score, his game options and levels completed are tracked separately so different people can play the game simultaneously without any overlap. The developers have also been thoughtful in embedding a level editor in the game to help you create and play your own customized levels. And the "Level Manager" will help you manage the customized levels you have created. Grubby games provides additional levels which you can download from within the level manager and even upload your own customized levels to their website to share with others.

Fig: Kids levels are great fun to play

So what happens if you are unable to solve a level? Like for instance, I solved the regular level set up to level 59 and then in Level 60, I got stumped. To circumvent such situations, the game has an inbuilt "Show solutions" button which you can access from the menu. Instead of wringing my hands in despair, I navigated to the menu and pressed the "show solution" button. And guess what, Prof. Fizzwizzle solved the puzzle by himself. This is a very helpful option which has been incorporated in the game play which enhances the overall value of this game. Because as all puzzle games go, you reach a stage where the puzzle is a tad complex for you to solve and showing the solution makes it easier to move to the next level or even retry the level keeping the solution in mind.

Fig: Game settings screen - the game remembers each player's settings

This game is full of pleasant surprises. There is a pedometer on the lower right corner of the screen which records the number of steps Prof. Fizzwizzle took to solve each level. This is useful to know who among you solved the puzzle in the least number of turns. The professor can access up to 12 objects spread across the puzzles to aid him in solving each one of them. And you'd better watch out for bat-bots which will chase and overpower the professor if they lay their sights on him. To solve some levels, it is also required that you get your timings right.

Fig: A level from the advanced level set

I noticed on the Grubby games website that they have released an earlier version of the Prof. Fizzwizzle game and when I had a chat with Ryan Clark who is in charge of coding the game, he told me that there are a lot of enhancements in the new version. For one, you have 3 new power-ups namely the heat gun, inflatable teleports, and inflatable bridges which you won't find in the old version of the game. Then the bat-bots are a replacement for the older rage-bots with the added benefit that they can be placed under the terrain which increases the potential number of puzzles that can be created. You can share your score with others online which is yet another enhancement in the new version.

But the number one incentive for me to try this game apart from its excellent features was because the two co-founders of Grubby games - Matt Parry, Ryan Clark and their team have released the game not just for Windows and Mac OSX but also for Linux. I tried the game in four Linux distributions - Debian, Slackware, Fedora and OpenSuse and in each case the game started flawlessly. Obviously, the game does not depend on system wide libraries and is a standalone package which makes it possible to play the game in any Linux distribution.

Considering the sheer number of levels in the game coupled with enhanced graphics, superb gameplay and user friendly options, this game is well worth the $19.95 dollars charged for its full version. Mind you, they have also released a Linux version which is doubly exciting.

You can download a demo version of the game from their website and try it out before you decide to buy it.

Desktop Tower of Defense - Play this game and you are guaranteed to shirk work

Tower of Defence games are by far the most enjoyable games I have played till now; barring perhaps the classic Pacman which is my all time favourite. Among the numerous Tower of Defence games, the Desktop Tower of Defence game outshines the rest of them.

This free flash based game can be played online and involves making sure the incoming horde of enemies do not pass through the space you control. And for defending your turf, you have access to numerous towers named pellet, dart, squirt, swarm, frost and bash tower. Each of these towers have different powers measured by its speed, damage caused, its cost as well as its range.

Fig: The game in progress...

When you succeed in killing each enemy (known as creep), you gain a set amount of gold. Accumulate enough gold to buy more towers or upgrade existing towers to enhance their damage skills and range. Even while the level is in progress, you can continuously keep on adding towers such that all the creeps are channelled through the path you create using the towers. These paths are popularly known as tower of defence maps.

The challenge you face in this game is to decide in which way the towers need to be arranged such that none of the creeps succeed in crossing your turf. For each creep which successfully cross your turf, you lose a life and in all you have only 20 lives. Once you lose all your lives or cover all the levels, the game ends.

Fig: My own unique tower of defense map.

The goal of the game is to achieve the highest score at the same time not lose any lives. It is a very enjoyable game - a game which will provide you hours of fun. What I found unique about this game is that even in its simplicity, it compels you to think out your strategy. There are decisions to be made, like for instance which tower to upgrade such that it provides you with the most value for your money spent or in which direction you want to grow your maze such that the creeps are confined within your turf for the longest time and so on.

I made a modest score of 5238 at the expense of losing two lives in the Normal mode which has two lines of creeps. I was able to cover all the 45 levels too. The experts among you might be interested in trying out the hard mode or one of the challenging modes which are way too challenging (pun intended).

At the end of the game, you have the chance of saving your score. You can either save it in an already created group or create a new group of your own. I have created a group called 'linuxhelp.blogspot.com' and have saved my score in it. Once you have saved your score, you are provided with an image of your maze which you used to play the game.

This game is highly addictive and playing it, you could end up shirking your responsibilities and could lead to loss of productivity. You have been warned!!

Play this game to get 20% off on all Logitech products

Planning to buy a keyboard or a mouse or some other PC peripherals ? Then here is a good chance to get 1/5th of the price of the hardware you buy slashed. All you have to do is play this simple game - well it is not that simple; and complete 10 levels of the game. Once you complete the first 10 levels, you are eligible to get 20 % OFF on all Logitech products.

The game called Jelly Jumper is a simple game. You have to jump the lump of green jelly from point A to point B. The point B is highlighted in green color. But as I said, the feat is not as simple as it looks because in between, there are a lot of pitfalls which you have to avoid while crossing from point A to B. More over, you have to use less than the maximum number of jumps (highlighted in red) for each level to be taken to the next level. At the least even if you do not cross the 10 levels to be eligible for the 20% discount, the game is a good time killer. So you might as well give it a try if you have enough time to kill. Who knows, you might just qualify for a 20 % discount.

Fig: "All About Linux" blog author is eligible for 20% discount of all logitech products.

Note: The offer is available only in the European Union. So the rest of us residing outside have to contend with just playing the game and having a nice time.

A word of caution though... If you are indeed buying any peripherals, make sure they support GNU/Linux ;-).

FizzBall - A well designed enjoyable game for Linux

Anybody who has played games on their PC will be familiar with a classic game called Breakout where you have to bounce a ball with a paddle and smash all the bricks. While this game in its original make does not sport any special features, it has helped spawn a number of breakout clones which provide additional special effects such as power-ups that provide more power to the ball for a short while - and which make it far more entertaining and enjoyable to play. A couple of years back, I enjoyed playing a breakout clone called DxBall. But most of these so called breakout clones are developed to be run exclusively on Windows. And one of the standing grouse of Linux users is the dearth in quality professional games which run on Linux.

But that is bound to change as more and more professional game developers are seriously considering Linux as a viable platform alongside Windows to release their games. One such professional game development company is Grubby games - founded by Ryan Clark and Matt Parry, which has been developing games which entertain as well as educate the players.

FizzBall one of the games developed by Grubby games and released for Linux is a game with a little similarity to the classic Breakout game in that you have to bounce a bubble using a machine which has the same functions as a paddle in Breakout. But barring that, the game play is entirely different. The aim of the game is to collect all the animals from the wild by directing the bubble towards the animals. In the beginning of each level, the bubble will be small and will bounce off the animals which are larger than the bubble. So you have to collect food in the form of apples, coconuts, acorns and so on littering the area; and as the bubble gobbles up these things, it grows in size and is able to collect larger animals. The level is completed once all the animals are collected inside the bubble in which case, you are taken to the next level. There are over 180 levels in this game.

Fig: You have to break the crates to get to the animals inside.

Fig: Another game level.

What I really liked about the game is that the developers have kept a sharp eye for details. The game is gorgeously animated and illustrated. For example, the animals do not remain stationary but move around. When the bubble bounces off an animal, the animal emits a sound - for example if it is a cow, it moos, if it is a lion, it roars and so on. And if at all the bubble when it is tiny, hits a skunk, it will release a smell.The animals you have collected in each level are kept in an animal sanctuary. All along the game play, you get lots of money and power-ups which you have to collect by directing the machine to them. The money you collect helps you to hop from one island to another (there are seven of them) and also to feed the animals residing in the sanctuary.

Fig: Animal sanctuary

And the power-ups provide additional power to the bubble. Some of the extra powers that are available are the gravity bubble, energy shield, faster bubble, wacky weather ... just to name a few. There are bonus levels after every few regular levels which allow you to gain additional points and money. And each island has offbeat paths that introduce a new animal. And in some levels, you come face to face with an alien which shoots at you and the animals. And it is your duty to capture the alien by directing the bubble towards it.

Fig: View your trophies in the trophy room

The game has two modes - the regular mode and the kids mode. In the kids mode, you do not lose the bubble even if you miss hitting it with the machine. And each new level in the kids mode is preceded by a fun quiz. Just to give a taste, these are some of the questions I encountered in the fun quiz:

• Which baby animal can be called a kid? Goat
• A group of these animals can be called a Mob. - I forgot the answer ;-)
• A group of these animals can be called a pride. Lions
• Which baby animal can be called a gosling ? Goose
• Which animal's baby can be called a snakelet ? snake
• A group of these animals can be called a Parliament. Owl
  

It is clear to see that the developers behind this game, had dual purpose in mind while creating this game - which is, to educate and entertain. For instance, there are bonus levels in the game where the player has to break the numbered objects in the right order - a good way to teach the little kids how to count.

Fig: Break the numbered crates in order

The story is good, the game play is simple but entertaining and the graphical effects are outstanding which makes this game a very good one for both adults and children alike.

FizzBall game features

• Over 180 unique levels of game play.
• The game stage is automatically saved once you exit the game and you can continue where you left off the next time you start playing.
• Multiple users can be created and each user's game is saved separately.
• There are two modes - Regular mode and Kids mode. The kids mode does not allow you to lose the balls and includes fun quizzes between levels.
• If you lose all your bubbles, you can still continue with the game, though all your scores will be canceled.
• Get trophys for achieving unique feats. For example, I recieved a trophy for capturing an alien without getting hit by a laser :-) .
  

Running FizzBall in GNU/Linux

This game for GNU/Linux is packaged as a gzipped archive. And all you have to do is unpack the archive and run the script named run.sh and the game will commence.

Pros of the game

• Eye catching design and excellent graphics.
• Is educative for little kids as well as entertaining for all ages.
• Over 180 levels in both the regular and kids mode of the game.
  

Cons of the game
Is not released under GPL, with the full version of the game costing USD $19.95. A time limited demo version of the game is available though for trying out before buying. But having played the full game, I would say that the money is well spent.

The good news is, professional game developers are seriously eyeing the Linux OS alongside Windows as a viable platform to release their games, FizzBall being a case to the point.