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They're called Silicoids http://www.warpcore.org/~sirian/moo1/average-races.html, you insensitive clod!

People tend to avoid free games so here are some links: http://wz2100.net/ excelent RTS. http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/ Quake like FPS with fancy graphics. http://www.warsow.net/?page=home Fps with emphesis on acrobatics. Freespace 2 open http://fs2source.warpcore.org/install.html . http://www.wesnoth.org/ a very highly rated turn based stratagey game.

Seriously, there is something about those two scenarios that have a sense of personality. They have a sense of uniqueness, not the typical "patrol-n-kill" missions you see in most space sims/shooters.

While that's true, and it's certainly why those battles are continuously revisited, they've simply been done way too many times. I agree that the typical "patrol-n-kill" missions are boring, and escort missions suck even worse (at least, when the game doesn't give you an adequate chance of your escort surviving, which few games have ever gotten right -- the Freespace series is the best I've seen so far for escort duty). For me, the best space sim series has to be Freespace. It has a great story-driven approach like the first few Wing Commanders (okay, 1 and 2), excellent flight mechanics a la X-Wing, and a completely new and interesting universe. As well, the graphical effects were (and still are!) simply stunning.

I want a good space sim, not another Rebel Assault clone. Maybe one in the post-OT time period, or heck I can live with an X-wing v Tie Fighter remake :)

If you can pull yourself away from the Star Wars universe, and haven't done so already, you should check out Freespace 1 and 2. Simply the best space flight sims available today, and you should be able to find them in your local bargain bin. The source for FS2 has been released as well, though I haven't had a chance to play with any of the community projects spawned from that. I've got a few days off work coming up this week, so perhaps I may have to fix that. Now I wonder where my FS2 discs got off to ...

3 dimensions imply '6 axes':
3 standard directional
3 standard rotational

ie in flight:
directional: thrust/reverse, sideslip, altitude
rotational: roll, pitch, yaw

Descent let you move around any and all of these axes at the same time.

so:
"semicircular strafe" : 2 axes (yaw while side slipping - at least. you can actually do a great strafe with 4 axes with lots of practice)
"while also ascending" : 1 axes (in order to keep this as a 'semicircular strafe' while doing the ascention, you need to add the previously mentioned 4th axis of pitch to keep facing the target)
"and accelerating towards the target" : 1 last axis

= 5

and of course get a joystick with a twistable handle (woo, sidewinder 3d pro) or somesuch and you can roll while you do all of the above for a nice 6 axes.

Descent rules!

Well, I personally couldn't get it working.

As Khalek mentioned it 'should' work and shouldn't require the original .dat.

1) Download and unpack the latest Linux client (2.60)
2) Download and install Allegro 4.1 if its not already installed.
3) Rename current.exe to ac2game.dat
4) Run ./ags-setup to set ags up
5) Start the game with: ./ags
6) If it complains about a missing liballeg.so.4.1 then you may need to simlink/copy the 4.1 version of liballeg.so to whereever your system keeps its libs.

The game hangs X for me when I do this, maybe an older version of Allegro might help.

If you get it working let the version numbers of the libs and core program you used.

Although the game was written in Adventure Game Studio (which has a Linux client) the Linux client requires the raw .dat file, which the author hasn't supplied.

The win32 version 'runs' under WINE but the mouse code in win32 AGS doesn't play nice with WINE, to the point of making the game unplayable. :(

No you won't be able to run this under ScummVM, it uses the closed source Adventure Game Studio system not SCUMM/SPUTM or any other engine we support. That said there is a Linux port or the AGS interpreter available, although going on what others have said I believe that doesn't work with this remake for whatever reason.

Descent is a game where you pilot a spaceship through a mine inside an asteroid that has been taken over by robots. The object is to destroy the reactor and exit the mine before the reactor explodes. The Descent projects are the D2X Project and the D1X Project.

I doubt Maelstrom was all that difficult. But porting any game really has more or less the same problems, and it also depends on how the game is written.

The main detail when porting any game is to make sure anything that is system specific; that is, input/output code, is heavily abstracted. If abstraction layers already exist, it is fairly easy to add in new code. If they don't, then it's still not all that difficult to split out the code and rewrite it.

Descent didn't have proper abstraction, mainly since the code was a mess. It is still not a terrible lot of work to go through abstraction, because most of it is just mad grepping and replacing.

Other problems include endianness (usually not hard to compensate for; just stuff some macros or defines to byteswap things on load), and word size. And let's not forget depending on large protocols, like D3D, that don't exist in other operating systems.

On the whole, though, no, it would not be more work to start over than it would have been to port. Writing a game is a LOT harder than rewriting graphics and interface code. I should know.

- aoiushi, #sdl

There's another good example (one of the regulars of the Lounge): Sirian's Diablo II Page

I have been watching the development of SDL since I first saw it mentioned on Freshmeat (at 0.7). I have been on the SDL mailing list ever since, and I can tell you that SDL is probably your best bet for a fast, lightweight, cross-platform game programming library that's not going to get in your way. Right now it runs on (Source compatible) Linux, FreeBSD, Windows (Using Direct X), BeOS, and Mac. I can also tell you that there are tons of people on the SDL mailing lists, and they're not all Loki employees.

I took a look at a lot of other game programming libraries when I was first investigating SDL, I didn't just jump blindly into it. SDL isn't the answer to all game writing woes, and it could even be too low level for what a lot of people want, but it is fast, light, and since it's written in C, it can be incorporated into most anything.

If you want more information on SDL, I would recommend checking out their website: libsdl.org. It lists quite a few of the projects (Both game and otherwise) that SDL is being used in. I counted more than a hundred. A few of the highlights:

Most of the Loki games.
Descent 1x, 2x
Freecraft
OpenUT
Several DOOM and Quake projects

Also, for those of you who want something a little higher-level, SDL has several game programming libraries built on top of it:
BUILD Engine
GUIlib
PowerPak

d1x has made it possible for me to be happy with gaming under Linux. I will be first in line to buy DIII for Linux.

The programmers have worked hard on these, and I'd hate to see them go to waste.

i'm a hardcore descent adict, so i'm still in windows (dont kill me here.. take it to the mines :P ) but now with d1x (the open source version of descent 1 ) AND d3 ported to linux, i'll have a much easier time switching.

(btw.. d1 is the best, even tho outrage did a GREAT job on d3)