Triknet Systems

Aquaria Open Beta

Ryan �icculus� Gordon, Linux game porter extraordinaire, has announced that the award-winning action game Aquaria has just gone into open beta:

Aquaria, the indie hit from game makers Bit Blot is now available for Linux as an open beta.

This build features the full game, and is playable until mid-January.

Bug reports can be sent to i.o�s Bugzilla and the discussion list is here.

So go grab the Linux installer and have fun!

Grappling Hook: Beta avail for Linux & MacOSX

Grappling Hook is a fantastic first-person puzzler which is very much in the same light as Valve's Portal. Armed with a lazer grappling hook which can only attach itself to green surfaces, players navigate metal chambers in the hope of getting back to Earth.

Like with Portal, the use of momentum and timing is crucial to success. Many puzzles involve letting go of the grappling hook at just the right time to propel yourself to safety, while others require firing in mid-air and latching onto surfaces that may not have been visible when firmly on the ground.

It's wonderful stuff. Starting off at a slow pace, you're giving the opportunity to get used to the grapple gun before the more taxing situations come into play. Just check the video above for examples of just how difficult it can get - perfect, precision play is essential for making sure you land on the required platform and not across the other side of the room instead, and later levels love asking you to jump into the unknown, seemingly destined for death but then a glimmer of green emerges and, with a skillful aim, you're back on track.

With great gameplay comes style too. An Arnie-sounding announcer will constantly give you the thumbs up, shouting 'good job!' and 'excellent!' as difficult puzzles are bypassed. There are also a whole bundle of achievements to collect, for all you achievement nymphomaniacs out there (including myself!). Then, once you're plugged your way through normal mode, there's a hard mode too - just in case you wanted to rip some more hair from your head. Each level has challenges too, ranging from 'complete level quickly' to 'don't die'.

You're looking at around 90 minutes of gameplay from normal mode, then probably about 5+ hours if being a completist is your kind of thing. The full game is $22.94 (�15.63) to buy which is possibly a little steep, but only a bit. Your best bet is to try out the demo (which includes 5 levels) and see what you think.

Link for Linux Beta

Shadow Grounds For Linux Released

Shadowgrounds Survivor is a third-person/top-down action game where the player takes control of three characters and faces monstrous alien invaders. The acclaimed atmosphere and gameplay mechanics of the original Shadowgrounds make a triumphant return armed with a new feature set, including detailed physics simulation and many gameplay enhancements, such as the devastating Mech and special attacks like the Napalm Flame or the mighty Brute Slayer. In addition to the thrilling Campaign mode, players can try to outsmart the aliens in the Survival mode. Gear up and get ready!

Now available at Linux Game Publishing

Rise Hive comes to linux

Rise Hive a fast pace RTS game comes to linux.
Hive Rise is a high speed real time strategy game full of action. The ideal pastime!
Compete for free against thousands of other players and decorate yourself with great trophies!
Game Play includes
* High Speed Strategy
* Thousands of Players
* Huge Maps
* Play with your Buddies
* Tactical Depth
* 12 Play Modes
* Cool Upgrades
* Collect Trophies
* Watch Game Replays
* Listen to Web Radio in Game

Direct Donwload Link www.hiverive.com
Web Page http://www.hiverise.com>

Caster Demo available for Linux & MacOSX

Caster, the third person indie shooter from Elecorn, has gone gold (thanks Svartalf). Episode 1 is currently available; if you purchase it, you receive subsequent episodes as they�re released for free (there�s also a demo). There�s a review of the game at the Independently-Speaking blog.

Demo is available at [http://www.casterthegame.com]

Metal of Honor: Allied Assault Beta 3 Port

From the group that brought prey to linux have been working on bringing the EA game - Metal of honor also to linux.. Its not complete yet but theres a beta 3 installer available..
You can find the direct link to the site hosted on icculus.org on this link
http://icculus.org/~ravage/mohaa/
I Will be posting a mirror link and a small review regarding this beta later..

Blog Post: Why you should support Mac OS X and Linux

Last I checked, Mac OS X had around a 5% market share, and Linux had much less than that (among consumers). I can feel that many PHBs look at this small number and think �5%? Why should I support a whole new platform when I could just blow some more money on brand advertising?� Obviously supporting Mac OS X and Linux means you tap into another platform and expand your potential market base. That much is clear. But surely adding an extra 5% is negligible, right? Wrong. Not all five percents are created equal. I�m not an economist, just a humble engineer, but let me take a stab at an explanation. Full blog pots here: http://blog.wolfire.com/2008/12/why-you-should-support-mac-os-x-and-linux/

Prey for Linux Retail Now Available

We have released the retail version of Prey for Linux. You will need our downloadable installer, a valid and unique CD key, and a copy of the game. You can use either the three CD-ROM version, the Collector�s Edition DVD-ROM, or a preinstalled copy of the Windows version, such as you would download from Steam.

There is no boxed version for Linux, but any existing Windows version of the game disc will work.
We have also updated the demo installer with fixes for all reported bugs.
Details and downloads are here. Prey 12/07 Demo:
[ Atomic Gamer
icculus.org ]
Prey 12/07 Retail Installer: [ Atomic Gamer
icculus.org ]

Open Office 3.0 Released...

* start: News on OpenOffice.org This page provides you with the latest on what is happening in the world of OpenOffice.org. For those who want to be most up to date, visit the Developer Blogs, subscribe to our Newsletter, read our Marketing and Native-language Confederation Planets. We have always have up-to-date resources on major deployments of OpenOffice.org and its market share. Our stats also give you some insight into who uses OpenOffice.org and how popular it is. And last but not least, we have for you a compilation of independent reviews. Tired of this news? Make your own or tell us about something you find interesting! Send a note to the webmasters. OpenOffice.org 3.0 is hot 26 Oct 2008: Our download thermometer shows how hot OpenOffice.org is! Note: the thermometer uses data obtained via our download page. It does not show downloads via other sources - e.g. Linux users who obtain OpenOffice.org 3.0 directly from their Linux distribution. OpenOffice.org 3.0 is available now 13 Oct 2008: Following three years of continuous improvement, OpenOffice.org has now reached the landmark version 3.0, with a host of new features including native support for Mac OS X users. Head to http://download.openoffice.org to download the en-US, da, de, fr, it, ja, ru, sv versions, and monitor the platforms and languages page for details of the availability of other versions.

Ubuntu Linux: 8 Million Users and Growing

""In terms of numbers we're very confident this is an 8 million plus user base of active users," Chris Kenyon, director of business development at Canonical told InternetNews.com. "That is a hard thing to count and there are lots of issues about methodology for counting but I have seen nothing that sheds doubts on that." "Other Linux distributions, like Red Hat's Fedora, for example, use the Smolt system, which counts users based on the number of unique IP addresses that get updates. For the current Fedora 9 release, Smolt has counted 1.2 million unique IPs." [Complete Story]