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Burning copycat apps who are ripping off your game is a different issue

That depends. Several years ago, Taito published a video game called Bust-A-Move (Puzzle Bobble in some markets). Should Taito (a Square Enix company) take action against the developers of free software such as Frozen Bubble , which has the same rules?

Heard of Frozen bubble?

I'm 62, I don't really use my mobile [to the great exasperation of younger members of my family and certain friends, yes I do have those] except for emergencies and uncertain rendez-vous arrangements. I don't have an ipod or mp3 player either. I have plenty of computers at home.

By now you are thinking, here's an old luddite, an idiot, aren't you? But I like to sit on a London bus and stare into people's gardens or read a book on the tube [that's the subway or MRT to most of you] rather than scrunch up my face with some tiny game, even frozen bubble: http://www.frozen-bubble.org/, my all-time favourite. I find a lot of time to play the guitar, program and paint too.

To me, most of smartphone world is just a drain on money and time for trivialities like facebook and other social media. The telecom companies are encouraging it all, because it's revenue from 'apps', bandwidth, premium services etc. I don't need any of it minute by minute. If I'm reading a serious book on public transport, I'm learning stuff, if I'm staring at things randomly I find that problems are getting solved in the background, same with running which I [obviously from above] do without the obligatory mp3 player.

I'v been messing with computers since about 1975 and I really enjoy most of the modern world, but, I assure you, real conversations, real downtime, staring in space here and there is part of the mix, life isn't just pokes, tweets and 'friend' requests.

Frozen Bubble.

I want Frozen Bubble!

On your last point: Asus, Acer, and Dell are pretty smart not to try to be a major player in the game console market. The market is crowded as hell (3 huge competitors with a several-year lead in install base and minimum 8/9 year lead in mindshare for Xbox, decade and a half for PlayStation, and decades for Nintendo), their competitors have a pretty big back library, and you're talking about hardware companies that don't generally develop software (and when they do, it tends to suck). Licensing an engine isn't cheap, and building a good game around it isn't any easier: there are a bunch of UE3 licensees that put out crap games, including Too Human, Stranglehold, Area 51, etc. The best these guys could do is to pay id to have Rage on their systems day-and-date, and then pick up on the scraps of gaming on Linux (and as a Linux fan, I know how scrap the games tend to be). Remember: game consoles aren't bought based on the hardware or OS inside them, they're bought on whether or not there is a big library good games for it.

TL;DR version: crowded, competitive market won't be overtaken by the likes of Frozen Bubble and Warsow.

Frozen Bubble Slogan: "You need this game." Not sure I can endorse the slogan, but it's hours of fun. In fact, too many hours for me... the game sucks me in, and I just keep playing "only one more level" until I beat level 100 and finally stop. I'm careful now when I let myself start playing this.

Solarwolf An updated version of an Atari 2600 game! Easy to learn, addictive, fun.

KGoldrunner A modern remake of the classic LodeRunner from the Apple ][ and other computers of that era. They urge you to use the mouse, but I find I prefer the keyboard.

Stella An Atari 2600 emulator. I have ROM images of many of the games in my collection, and I still enjoy the streamlined play of classic 2600 games. My favorite is Millipede. Stella runs nice and fast even on a very old computer.

Frozen Bubble

Great for all ages and skill level

http://www.frozen-bubble.org/

Frozen Bubbles. Fun, and teaches some geometry.

http://www.frozen-bubble.org/

Frozen Bubble is fairly mindless but endlessly entertaining. I believe it comes pre-packaged with some distros. There is also a Java port.

http://www.frozen-bubble.org/

Don't miss Frozen Bubble. It also run on my Symbian S60 3rd edition phone (Nokia N73).
http://www.frozen-bubble.org/

In particular, it seems a shame to pigeonhole Perl. Using Perl and readily available libraries, one can develop console programs, GUI programs, daemons, or web apps. With Tk, SDL, OpenGL, WxWidgets, curses, GTK, Win32::GUI, or Prima, few languages have as many options for interface libraries last I checked. Just because Perl is very useful for web development doesn't mean it's not useful in other areas.

If you like snood you should also get Frozen Bubble, a free open-source version of bust-a-move. It looks and plays really well, I played through all 100 levels last night in fact...

It's controlled with the keyboard but if you have bluetooth and a wii remote you could get a tilt control version going on your PC with some hacking around.

Or you could play the java in-browser version, it might even work in Opera on the Wii already.

Battle of Wesnoth
* http://wesnoth.org/

SuperTux
* http://supertux.berlios.de/

Frozen Bubble
* http://www.frozen-bubble.org/

The new Frozen Bubble with network play is the update that restarted my addiction.

Fun ones

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. But on Linux you've got to try Frozen Bubble - the latest version offers multiplayer mode with up to 5 players, over the Internet or LAN.

• bzflag http://www.bzflag.org/
• armagetronad http://www.armagetronad.net/
• warsow http://www.warsow.net/
• alien arena http://red.planetarena.org/
• xmoto http://xmoto.sourceforge.net/
• tumiki fighters http://tumiki.sourceforge.net/ this is a port of a win game tho
• frozen bubble http://www.frozen-bubble.org/
• sturmbahnfuhrer http://www.sturmbahnfahrer.com/
• globulation 2 http://globulation2.org/wiki/Main_Page/

Frozen bubble 2 was just release a few days ago (10.27)

http://www.frozen-bubble.org/

No Windows port for the moment ;)

No, not entirely. It's the PC gaming business that they say is suffering, not PC gaming. There are plenty of games that are free from the onset that are fun. http://tuxracer.sourceforge.net/
http://www.frozen-bubble.org/
http://asteroids3d.sourceforge.net/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lynn
http://toppler.sourceforge.net/
http://blockattack.sourceforge.net/
http://source.bungie.org/
http://www.secretmaryo.org/
http://www.realtech-vr.com/nogravity/
http://www.classicgaming.com/worminator/
http://www.nexuiz.com/
http://www.armagetronad.net/
http://www.meatfighter.com/
http://www.bzflag.org/
http://wesnoth.org/
http://cubeengine.com/

Does this bring http://parsec.org/ to mind for anyone else?

In terms of a grand promise of "commercial quality" without commercial backing, this one was a complete failure as well.

Folks just need to come to terms with it, there is just no such thing as a "commercial quality open source" when it comes to the bigger titles...

I'll admit, you have things like frozen bubble every once in a while, but nothing on the huge scale of today's console games.

Yeah Frozen Bubble is Da Perl-written Game!

http://www.frozen-bubble.org/ example of a nifty game written with sdl_perl

Perl doesn't do games? Really?

Here's a few "Good" open source games. There are quite a few others out there. Sure, there may not be UberLeetHardcoreGamerOrgyOfTheMonth, but there are high quality ones out there if you look, plus Opensource ports of many classic games (not listed)

Planet Penguin Racing- http://projects.planetpenguin.de/
FlightGear- http://www.flightgear.org/
Armagetron - http://armagetron.sourceforge.net/
Vega Strike (see also the WC Privateer remake)- http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/
Frozen Bubble-
      http://www.frozen-bubble.org/
      Live java version- http://glenn.sanson.free.fr/fb/play.html

Quake 3 - http://liberatedgames.org/game.php?game_id=90
Scorched3D - http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/
ChromiumBSU - http://www.reptilelabour.com/software/chromium/

This is just what I could think of in a few minutes- There is a really great 3d Nascar style game on the Suse 9.2 DVD, but I can't remember it's name while I'm at work.

Lincity on a few linux laptops. I was really addicted to that game for a few weeks. It's better than any game that comes with windows. Install frozen bubble on there too http://www.frozen-bubble.org/

Set up Xfce with these and other games. Maybe the Gimp. Even Vlc (Videolan) with some porn movies. Hey, I think I have a project for home...

The Linux community claims that being "open source" encourages innovation. Why, then, are all their games just rehashes of commercially-successful games like Tetris and Puzzle Bobble?

Sincerely,
Darl Turlington
President, Product Development
Electronic Arts

Embedded Java systems can run in as little as a few hundred KB of memory

... there is a Perl SDL game called Frozen Bubble. It's pretty fun, you should try it sometime. Admitedtly, it's not 100% Perl, there's also some C in some places too. Y'know for optimization, kinda like back in the day you'd optimize your C or Turbo Pascal code with some inline ASM. Well at least I used to do that, for my putpixel algorithm and other low-level gfx functions. ;)
Anyway check it out: http://www.frozen-bubble.org/

Parrot already has SDL bindings, and it should be relatively easy to add in anything that has a C API, thanks to NCI.

As for maturing, well, I'd consider parrot to be of at least beta quality; it isn't stabilized yet, and many things are still subject to change, but on the other hand, it promises to be at least on par with (and in some cases substantially faster than) php, perl, ruby, and python as far as VM performance goes.

However, Perl 6 I'd consider to be alpha quality; more of its design is in flux, and although there is a proof-of-concept compiler for most of it, the real one has yet to be written. Although you may or may not see Parrot get mature in the next year, I doubt you'll see Perl 6 by that time as well--although I wouldn't mind being proven wrong here. :)

Modern games will always try to max out your CPU/GPU. That doesn't mean scripting languages don't have a place in games, but critical portions of them, or their libraries (like a 3D rendering engine, heh) will probably stay written in C/C++. However, there are already games written in scripting languages, and some of them are quite fun.

I agree that 3D is over-used. It doesn't *have* to be used to create fun games -- all of these play on Linux, and most (maybe all?) play on Windows and other platforms as well.

SuperTux is a Mario Brothers "clone" that's really quite nice. Apparently it was the Linux Game Tome Game of the Month for March 2004, which is like Extreme Makeover for Linux games. OpenGL acceleration is nice (gives me about 30fps extra on my AMD64 3200+ with nVidia FX5900XT card), but it runs pretty decently without it. You should note that to make Tux run or shoot fireballs in the game, you need to hold down the left Control key... I didn't know that and ended up cheating with the level editor. I finally discovered the key-mappings, and I'm currently slightly addicted to it... :)

Pingus is a cool, open-source, penguin-themed (of course :) Lemmings-like game that doesn't require any kind of acceleration, just a decent system. There aren't many levels available yet, but it's a good-looking game and fun to play around with.

Project: Starfighter is also pretty good, although I find the levels a little too hard for my liking. Hardware acceleration is pretty much required, unfortunately.

And there's always the venerable and *highly* addictive Frozen Bubble... that game has wasted so much of my time... and I've enjoyed every minute!

I've been really impressed -- there seems to be an explosion of good, free games for Linux lately, though it could just be that I'm finally finding out about them. Although I don't have too much of a problem with 3D, I knew Neverball was getting to me when I started dreaming about it...

...i nearly always install on new systems:
CoreWar: simulation game where a number of warriors try to crash each other while they are running in a virtual computer.
Battle for Wesnoth: fantasy turn-based strategy game.
BZFlag: multiplayer 3D tank battle game.
Crimson Fields: tactical war game in the tradition of Battle Isle.
Crossfire: cooperative multiplayer graphical RPG and adventure game.
Enigma: inspired by Oxyd on the Atari ST and Rock'n'Roll on the Amiga.
FlightGear: Flight simulator.
FreeDroid: clone of the classic game "Paradroid" on Commodore 64.
Frozen Bubble: puzzle-bobble clone.
Globulation 2: Real-Time Strategy.
LinCity: city/country simulation game.
LBreakout 2: breakout-style arcade game in the manner of Arkanoid.
NetHack - Falcon's Eye: mouse-driven interface for NetHack that enhances the visuals, audio and accessibility of the game, yet retains all the original gameplay and game features.
netPanzer: online multiplayer tactical warfare game designed for FAST ACTION combat.
Pathological: enriched clone of the game "Logical" by Rainbow Arts.
Project StarFighter: xy-axis star fighting game.
SuperTux: classic 2D jump'n run sidescroller game.
XKobo: astpaced multiway scrolling shoot-em-up.
XRick: clone of Rick Dangerous.
XScorch: Scorched Earth clone.

Have fun!

Linux support is sketchy for dual-view in my experience

No doubt. I had a Matrox Parhelia triple-head card with 3 LCD monitors. (Screenshot/Photo Screenshot/Photo) [MS Flight Simulator 2004 under WinXP Pro]

Linux support for the Matrox card was deplorable, so I sold it and bought an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. The ATI card's dual monitor capabilities were very quirky. Too much B.S. to explain. Plus the UT2K4-demo ran like crap under Linux (low framre rate) and looked like ass compared to Windows.

I was told NVidia was the best option for Linux. Their drivers were allegedly way better than ATI's. Sounded good to me.

So I got rid of the ATI card. (It burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.) Actually I didn't get rid of it, I just put it in my wife's computer. Let me tell you, Frozen Bubble and LBreakout really stress out that card. What a great value. (I'm kidding, in case you couldn't tell.)

So then I bought an NVidia 5700 Ultra GeForceFX for my machine. The dual-head video works (basically), but X has never been slower. I can't believe how DOG slow X is. I dual booted over to WinXP a couple of weeks ago - the first time I had seen Windows in many, many months. I was sickened at how increadibly fast it is. Almost enough to make me give up on my Linux fantasy.

Fortunately for me, I'm so blinded by my hatred for Microsoft that I'll continue to suffer under Linux. Things will get better some day. Right? [sigh...]

1. she has NOTHING backed up [1]
   
2. the guy who 'fixes' her PC is an M$-certified fanboy and would wipe the machine in 10 mintues if Linux found it's way onto the Windows XP boot menu[2].
   
3. the PC is technically her husband's gaming (Bonzi buddy and other crapware) PC.
   

#
# Yes it uses Perl, you non-believer :-).
#

That has to suck... or maybe we're just smart enough to have our web browsers lie and say, we're running MSIE 6.01 WindowsXP, 1600x1200 24bit color.. eh? :)

XP is better as an emoticon anyways.

Here's teh offtopic part, and a shameless plug for a really awesome Window Manager. Try XPde out. It's really awesome at the look and feel of windows, especially when you want to move someone over to Linux without telling them.

Now I know that sounds evil, but hear this story out. My sister wanted me one day to fix her "slow" computer. Turns out that she has 100's of spyware, literally, running on her computer. Not to mention trojans and viruses. I did a backup of her documents, put them on a zip disk and virus scanned that on my comp, just to make sure. Then I installed Slackware Linux, and used XPde (quite successfully I might add) as the WM. Installed Gaim, OO.org, Mozilla, software firewall, gimp, and misc games (frozen bubble rocks!) Total install in just around 250mb. No crashes, no viruses, nothing and it's locked behind a NAT that allows no incoming/outgoing ports except what's specified for IM services and outbound httpd traffic.

She didn't know she was running linux for a few months until she went to install a program! (Insert WineX installation at this point. Went well too!)

My point. Most people dont care what they use, and if the conversion is successful (I do many like this, only with people I really *KNOW* and trust me), they'll learn to champion linux to people who are easily intimidated by "techies" and zealots who want to install linux for you because MS is "7!^3" (evil)

To summarize this success story by my sisters quote: "Windows SUCKS!, where's my cute penguin?"

----zoloto

No, but you can run XBill and Frozen Bubble. Those games, along with thousands of others, are even better than any you'll find in Windows.

Don't believe me? Read the source code. You can.

Some of it comes with the base debian install:

GCC,G++
<flamewar>vim/emacs</flamewar>
links-ssl/curl-ssl-wget
ssh
Perl

Then a whole lotta debs for Gnome/KDE...

Then the actual desktop GUI:
GDM
IceWM
Idesk
Endeavour 2


Then the base apps
Anjuta (C++ IDE)
Gedit Notepad
Mplayer + plugins
XMMS + plugins
ALSA framework
Frozen Bubble!
the GIMP
Open Office
Thunderbird+Firefox
GAIM
Gnome-meeting

And the latest 2.6.x kernel

I've created a CD which will give you all the above in one disk. Automatic installations. Just create a linux/swap partition, and it will install to the largest available 'nix partition, also adding any windows partitions to the lilo.conf

ALSA Sound support is ready (though you must edit /etc/modules with whatever soundcard module you have)

X GUI starts in SVGA mode (best to xf86config and choose your GUI)
USB mouse support through /dev/input/mice

I'm considering putting it up online, but at about 620MB for the ISO I'd need some decent hosting space for that. So far we're using it at work to convert windows desktops to dual-boot... it's XP themes so the windows lusers can figure it out rather easily.

It's also configured to build the base menu structure when a user logs in... and idesk will mount a CD+browse with endeavour on doubleclick, or unmount+eject on a right-click.

Sorry ID, you've lost me.

I downloaded Frozen Bubble the other day and haven't looked back.

=)

Cheers
Stor
p.s. OK so I'm kidding about never looking back but I gotta say: it's a fun little game!

Tetris Attack also used the shape-color system, presumably to help with colorblind. It pops up most frequently in games where color matters heavily, but still not nearly enough. The freely available CrackAttack (a GPL knockoff) plays much like Tetris Attack, but does not offer shapes in addition to colors on their pieces. It might be worthwhile to redo the blocks, since even the author admits they're about 500 vertices as is. After seeing this article, I found a nifty webpage discussing design issues for many sorts of disabilities. Interestingly, the author recommends ignoring adolescents, because they prefer social games. I would have thought that incorporating multiplayer aspects would have been a wiser choice, since it only broadens market appeal, and makes you look at game balance harder.

#1: Kobo Deluxe - addictive overhead space shooter
#2: nethack - THE RPG. Prepare to not get any work done.
#3: Frozen Bubble - A clone of Puzzle Bobble (aka bust-a-move) that's so good, I think it even outdoes the orginal. The music is just plain awesome... my friend burned it onto a CD and we listen to it in the car whenever we go driving.
#4: Armagetron - It's like... Tron lightcycles.... except in 3D... and so much more awesome.
#5: Ur Quan Masters - This is basically Star Control 2 released open source. What are you waiting for? GO!!!!
#6: Pingus - Lemmings for Linux, really. Includes functional level editor. Really, I couldn't ask for anything more.

These people have never played Frozen Bubble or Nethack.

I currently have a level 8 male gnomish wizard on Level 5 and 6 (I go back and forth, the last (and currently only) merchant is on 5). I'm kinda stuck on 6 because there are no secret doors to be found (searched the walls of every room four times over already) and now way further down.

BTW, Nethack 3.4.2 is out!

Strategy:
Civilization III (and the Play the World expansion) is extremely good, and addictive. Better than cheesy poofs. The month will have passed before you notice if you get it ;-)

RPG:
Also, as another poster has written, Planescape Torment is good. D&D-based RPG, in a totally weird and twisted world. You can get it very cheap, but it's definitely a good game. The Baldur's Gate series is good too. Icewind Dale is not, it's got a plot more linear than a yard stick. Fallout and Fallout 2 are good too.

RTS:
Starcraft (with Broodwar) is good, even though it's old. Don't play it on Battle.net, the people there generally suck. Warcraft III is good too, but it seems quite a bit harder.

Puzzle:
Frozen Bubble is very addictive.

Sorry, but I don't know much about action games, because I hardly play them, but you might want to check out the Grand Theft Auto series. I kinda liked GTA.

You mean Frozen Bubble, one of the most addictive games ever? The game the two player mode of which can keep grown up men playing with balls for hours and hours? That Frozen Bubble? Yeah, I guess it would be cruel to post a link to it.

You mean Frozen Bubble, one of the most addictive games ever? The game the two player mode of which can keep grown up men playing with balls for hours and hours? That Frozen Bubble? Yeah, I guess it would be cruel to post a link to it.

1). tomsrtbt Linux on a floppy - essential!
2). Windows 98SE boot floppy
3). Knoppix 3.2 bottable Linux on a CD.
4). Memtest86 bootable CD for testing RAM - excellent!
5). DOS freeware F-Prot and recent virus definitions
6). Norton's DOS utilities
7). Various HD setup utilities (eg: Western Digital, Seagate boot floppies)
8). Freesco Linux router/webserver on a floppy
9). Sample linux config files (eg: XFConfig-4, fstab, etc)
10). Frozen-Bubble bootable CD for times of stress

I haven't given her Internet access on her computer, she has to use mom or dads, which means supervised.

While she has been using Red Hat a lot lately, it may simply be because that's what dad runs all the time.

Like many bad elements in life, I can't keep her from being exposed to Windows, but I can educate her so she knows when its ok to use it, and when to say no if pressured to use it by her peers.

I use Linux because it has one of the best games ever: Frozen Bubble.

(OK, so that's only part of the reason, but it's a good one.) :-D

Frozen Bubble
This game does all the code in perl using the SDL perl bindings (which makes the code as short as possible and easy to change) with special effects written in C (.xs file). Works like a breeze (besides it's addictive).