Regardless of the select game type, only play money games are supported by PokerTH. When it comes to local poker games against the computer, users can select the total number of players for the poker table, the starting cash, blind progression settings and a game speed.

There is no difficulty setting available, at least none that is configurable on the front end. Network games use the same configuration settings with the difference that timeouts for player actions and delays between hands can be configured as well.

There is no option to create a tournament online or change the game mode from Texas Holdem to another poker variant. A click on Internet game opens a log in screen where users can log in with their account or as guests.

The lobby displays all players and games. A click on Join any game joins one of the available games. It is possible to create games, even as a guest. Games can be protected with a password which is nice if you only want to play with your friends. The remaining settings are exactly the same as the local area network poker game settings. Game Type is listed but not selectable, at least not as a guest.

One of the issues in play money games are users who go all in all the time. This makes some games unplayable. It is usually a better idea to play against the computer or friends who take poker seriously.

Registered users are automatically added to an online leaderboard where scores, win and loss, percentages, trends and other stats are displayed.

A couple hundred players are usually online at any time of the day. That’s a small number compared to the big poker rooms with tens of thousands of players.

Still, poker players who prefer to play offline or in a lan may find that PokerTH is a very suitable program for that purpose. The latest version of the program and its source code can be downloaded at the developer website.

The gist of this game is simple: You are placed on a screen and you must control your ship as a never-ending horde of objects come at you. Although not up to the 3D graphics of today’s games, the graphics for Gridwars are quite beautiful to behold. The colors and the never-ending onslaught of pixels will satisfy even the worst ADHD cases. Let’s install it and play it.

Installation

Installation used to be very simple. But as of Ubuntu 10.04 the .deb is no longer included in any of the repositories. So you have to download a file as well as install a dependency. First, the dependency.

The dependency is libstdc++5. To install this, follow these steps:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install libstdc++5.
3. Enter your sudo password.

Allow the installation to complete. Now you need to download the Gridwars file. From that page, click on the lin link to download the Linux file (You can also download a binary for Windows or Mac here as well).

Once you have that file downloaded (It will download to ~/Downloads), go back to your terminal and do the following:

1. Change to the ~/Downloads directory with the command cd ~/Downloads.
2. Unzip the file with the command unzip gridwars_lin.zip.
3. Change into the newly created ~/Downloads/gridwars_lin directory.
4. Issue the command ./gridwars to start up the game.

Usage

Figure 1

When you start the game Gridwars will be in full-screen mode (I have shown the game in window’d mode in Figure 1). You can either control the game from the mouse or the keyboard. To set up all aspects of the game click Esc and then use your up/down arrows to move the cursor to Settings. Once on settings click enter and then navigate to what you want to change.

I set up Gridwars to use the keyboard. The default keyboard controls are:

• a – left
• w – up
• s – down
• d – right
• Fire left – left arrow
• Fire right – right arrow
• Fire up – up arrow
• Fire down – down arrow
• Bomb – Space

Basically you must move around the window and shoot everything that comes at you. Every once in a while a circular object will float out. If you see one move to it and touch it to give your “ship” extra power. Allow the screen to fill up with as many objects as you can and then hit the Bomb button to blow everything up on the screen.

Final thoughts

Gridwars is one of the best ways I have found to kill time on a computer, while at the same time shutting off my brain. It’s a fun game that will not get your adrenalin pumping or put your marriage at risk.

Update: The Gridwars website is no longer available.

The game is a side-scrolling space-themed shooter that is very fast-paced and exciting. In fact, the creator of the game intended it to be very challenging and each game to only be about 15 or so minutes long. And that is exactly what it is. Chromium brings back memories of some of my favorite arcade games from the 80s like Galaga (although with far better graphics, sound, and action). So if you like such games, Chromium B.S.U. will be right up your alley.

Chromium is written in C and C++ and absolutely requires hardware acceleration. If, after you install the game, you encounter very slow game play, you know your Linux installation isn’t up to par (or your graphics card can’t handle HW acceleration). As a general rule of thumb, if your machine can handle Compiz extra effects your machine can handle Chromium. So let’s get this sucker installed and start playing.

Installation

The installation of Chromium is simple. Just follow these steps:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool.
2. Search for “chromium” (no quotes).
3. Mark chromium-bsu (not chromium-browser) for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

That’s it. The installation will pick up any dependencies necessary. Okay them and you’re good to go. Once installed you will find the game in Applications > Games > Chromium B.S.U.. Fire it up and get ready to rock.

Game play

Figure 1

When you first start it up you will be at the main selection screen (see Figure 1).  From this screen you can manage all of the options for your game. I prefer to play the game in window’d mode. If you prefer to play in full screen click on Screen size and adjust the resolution of the game. You select items by simply moving your mouse and clicking on the option. Which brings me to game play.

To start a new game simply click the “new game” option in the main screen. When you do this you will find your ship at the bottom of the screen. Immediately you will start getting bombarded by enemy ships that range from slow moving vessels to faster, smaller ships.

As you play you will receive power ups, shields, better weapons and the like. Even little Tux’s will fall from the sky giving you more power. Shields aid you in your quest to destroy the enemy. If you are getting inundated with enemy attackers, and you have shields, you can run into the enemy to destroy them (as you shoot the other, oncoming enemy).

You shoot by holding down the left mouse button. In fact, you pretty much don’t let up on the button after the game starts. So it’s just shoot and dodge and see how long you can last.

Final thoughts

I am confident you will find Chromium B.S.U. as enjoyable a time waister as I do. It’s fast, it’s furious, and it doesn’t last very long. What a great way to take a break from all of that hard work.

Although Linux is not nearly the Game trove that Windows is, it is not without its share of time takers. It’s been a while since I mentioned a game on Ghacks, so I thought maybe I should bring up the topic again. This time around I will visit two games. One of these games is one of my all time favorite second sucker – Frozen Bubble. The other, gnubik, is sure to frustrate you for hours. Let’s take a look at these two gems.

Installation

I’ll get this out of the way quickly. Both of these games should be found in your distributions standard repositories. So just open up your Add/Remove Software tool and search for both “frozen bubble” and “gnubik” (no quotes) and install both. There will most likely be dependencies to install, but those will go off without a hitch.

And now, let’s waste some time.

Frozen Bubble

Figure 1

As I mentioned earlier, Frozen Bubble is one of my favorite ways to kill time. It’s a simple arcade game with an obvious taste for Linux. Frozen Bubble features:

• One or two player game.
• Network game play.
• 3D graphics.
• Catchy soundtrack.
• 100 levels for single player game.
• Level editor.

Figure 2

The game is played like this. You have a “gun” that you angle either to the left or to the right with your arrow keys. This gun (see Figure 2) . The “gun” shoots different colored marbles. The goal is to shoot the marble to a similarly colored marble above you to knock them down. The rows of marbles slowly lower so there is a time limit.

You can bounce the marble off the sides to get creative with your play. And, naturally, as you get higher up in levels the marble placement gets more difficult and the marbles drop faster and faster.

The level editor is also quite easy to use. Open it up, select the color marble you want to add, and click where you want the marble to go. You can also select the speed at which the marbles drop.

Gnubik

Figure 3

Gnubik, of course, hearkens back to the ’80s and the Rubiks Cube craze. Gnubik offers up a very simple way to attempt to solve that elusive puzzle. When you open Gnubik up (see Figure 3) you will have an unsolved cube waiting to be solved.

To move a section of the cube you place your cursor on the edge of the side you want to move. Say you want to move (as shown in the picture) the side facing you clockwise. To do this you would place your cursor on the outside of the upper left horizontal line of the side. When you see the cursor change to an up arrow (in this case) you could click your left mouse button. You can also rotate your entire cube by clicking and dragging the black background. As you drag the background around the cube will rotate on all three axis.

Eventually you get the hang of how to move your cubes’ sides around. And hopefully, much more quickly than I, you will solve your cube.

Final thoughts

How much time do you waste with little applications like Frozen Bubble and Gnubik? Or have you found a better application to waste your time on? If so, share with us.

Before we get into this you should know the hardware requirements of this game. For it you will need: a minimum equivalent 3DFX Voodoo2 8MB. No ATI Rage cards. You will also need a minimum of a PII 233MHz processor, with at least 96MB of RAM. If you meet those requirements, prepare to install and blow away your opponents.

Installation

Installation of OpenArena is actually quite simple. You will be shocked to know the steps are as follows:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool.
2. Search for “openarena” (no quotes).
3. Select OpenArena for installation.
4. Click Apply.
5. Sit back and watch the progress bar.

I will warn you, the files to be downloaded are quite large, so the sitting back portion of the installation will take quite some time.

Once installed, you will find OpenArena in your Games sub-menu of the Applications menu in GNOME.

Tricks for running the game

Figure 1

It’s not really necessary to get into the mechanics and play of the game. Most people know how to play a first person shooter. There are some things you will want to know when playing this game in Linux.

If you’re like me, you don’t generally play games in full-screen mode. By default OpenArena runs in full screen. To get OpenArena in windowed mode (see Figure 1) you need to hit the the <Alt>Enter key combination once the game has loaded. After you have switched to windowed mode, you will have to manually switch back to full screen, otherwise the game will always run in windowed mode.

Figure 2

When you are running in windowed mode you will notice you can’t get your cursor out of the game window. The only way to manage this is to get the OpenArena console window to drop down. To get this hit the Shift<Esc> combination which will lower the console onto your screen (see Figure 2).

Connect to server

If you want to play some multi-player action all you have to do is, from the main window, click the Multiplayer option and then click the Specify button. From this new window you will enter the address of the server you want to join. For a list of servers take a look at the server listing on the OpenArena site.

Final thoughts

It’s not WoW but at least you can get your first person shooter thrills without having to run a game through Wine or a virtual machine. OpenArena is a fun game that, for many, will be nothing more than nostalgia. No matter the reason, you should give this game a go.

Now this game isn’t your standard, free, GPL fare. This game allows you to download a demo but to get the full blown fun you need to purchase the full version. The good news is that the full version will only set you back $19.95 for the download version. You can also purchase the CD version for $39.95. Believe me, this game is worth the price of the download version. Let’s take a look and see why.

Features

• Tile-built, turn based game where nearly every move is determined by roll (automatically done for you).
• Plenty of items and creatures to make the world interesting. Many items are randomly generated making replay value high.
• Unlimited character development.
• Non-linear story.
• Epic adventure for single player.

The feel of this game will take you back to the good old days of Ultima or Might and Magic. If you hearken for the days where game play and story were more important than 3D graphics, this is your game.

Getting and installing

Figure 1

Playing Eschalon in Linux is simple. Download the demo file (or the full version if you have purchased) which will be a compressed tar file.  If you are using the demo you will have to execute the following commnads (we’ll assume you are executing the command from within the directory the demo was downloaded to):

• tar xvzf eschalon_book_1_demo.tar.gz
• cd eschalon_book_1_demo
• ./eschalon_book_1_demo

The final command will open up the Launch Menu where you can select your Graphic Renderer, Color Depth, and Screen Preferences (see Figure 1).

I prefer to run the game in Windowed mode but you might prefer a full screen option. Once you have chosen your options click the Start button to begin your game.

Gameplay

Before you actually begin playing Eschalon you will have to create your character. In one version of the demo I downloaded there was a random character generator button. In another version of the demo there was not. It’s not a big deal because character creation is part of the fun.

Once you have created your character you will be, like most good RPGs, tossed into your world waking up to see your world is not how you last left it.

Figure 2

The gameplay of Eschalon will take zero time to get used to for anyone who has spent any time at the helm of an RPG. As you can see, in Figure 2, the interface is clean and easy to use. You have the usual arsenal of spells, weapons, items, and more at your fingertips.

At the bottom of the screen is your story window. There is no voice acting to cause the game to seem hokey, so you will have to read to see where the story is going. The story window automatically updates for you so you will want to keep watch out for what is going on.

So far Basilisk Games has III books planned for the Eschalon series. I would encourage any Linux user longing for more games to purchase all three books to make sure Basilisk Games continues to develop for the Linux platform.

Final thoughts

I have yet to complete the demo of this game. I am thoroughly enjoying my experience with the game and plan on purchasing the full version once I have completed the demo. And based on my experience with Book I, I will be purchasing Books II and III for Linux as soon as they hit the interwebs! Keep up the good work Basilisk Games!

One of those games  really stole my .25 and my attention more than any other. That game? Tempest. If you’ve never played the original Tempest you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s a wireframe pseudo 3D game that would have today’s game players yawning with boredom. So you can’t imagine my joy when I found an updated variation on the Tempest game installed on my Elive distribution. That game? Torus Trooper. This game is a fast-paced, scrolling 3D shooter that takes place in, you guessed it, a Torus.

A Torus is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three dimensional space. Otherwise known as a 3D ring or, better yet, a donut. Now in this game you are inside this donut shooting at oncoming ships and dodging oncoming barriers. It is fast, it is timed, and it is addictive.

Getting Torus Trooper

If you open up Synaptic or gpk-application (or which ever GUI tool you use for installation software) do a search for “torus” (no quotes). You might wind up with three different results:

• ttrooper
• torus-trooper
• torus-trooper-data

Install the latter two and you will be ready for some action packed fun. If you don’t find Torus Trooper in your repositories, never fear. Download the tt tar file from the Torus Trooper Sourceforge download page. Once you have this file downloaded unpack it with the command:

tar xvzf tt-XXX.tar.gz

Where XXX is the release number. Change into the resulting tt-XXX (Again where XXX is the release number) directory. To run the game issue the command:

./ttrooper

which will start up Torus Trooper. You can copy this file (ttrooper) into /usr/local/bin so the game can be run from any directory, the run dialog, or even a menu entry you create.

To start the game installed from your Add/Remove Software utility just go to your Games directory and click on the Torus Trooper entry.

Gameplay

Playing Torus Trooper is fairly straight forward. You use the left-right arrow keys to move side to side while using the “z” key to shoot.

Figure 1

When the game starts up you will be on the welcome screen (see Figure 1) where you will choose your difficulty and begin. You choose from Normal, Hard, or Extreme difficulty. Once you have chosen your difficulty click the “z” key to begin.

The game is simple – just blow away everything and don’t get hit by various objects. Oh, and remember this is a timed game. You can control your speed by pressing the up arrow (to go faster) or the down arrow (to go slower).

Figure 2

Figure 1 shows standard gameplay for Torus Tooper. If you look closely you can see where your torus is leading you. You can also see the small red-ish circle coming to the left of the shooter – that is a trap the enemy drops which you have to avoid. At times the screen can get full of them. You can’t just shoot them, you have to get out of their way. This makes game play even more of a challenge.

Final thoughts

When you first start playing Torus Trooper make sure you play on Normal mode. Extreme mode is, shall I say, rather extreme. The last time I attempted Extreme mode I think I lasted less than 10 seconds.

Torus Trooper is a lot of fun. Give it a go and you’ll find yourself quickly becoming addicted to this simple game.

So now and then I am going to add to ghacks an article about a fun Linux game that you can install and enjoy quickly. I will try to cover all types of genres of games. And remember – these games won’t stand up to the graphics of many of the games you will find on retail shelves as these games will be open source games that are created by users just like you.

20,000 Light-Years Into Space

This first game I discovered while scrolling through Synaptic on my Debian-based system. 20,000 is a steam-punk themed strategy game where you have to manage a steam system to power a city. During this game you will build steam plants that power your city via steam pipes. As the game progresses you will have to over come natural disasters and aliens that do everything they can to take down your pipes and plants.

The game is played in 2d from the top down and offers very simplistic game play in either full screen or windowed mode.

Getting and installing

If you use Ubuntu you are in luck: Just open up Synaptic, do a search for “lightyears”, select the results, and click apply. You can also issue the command sudo apt-get install lightyears to install. If you use Fedora you can follow these directions:

• Install python and pygame with the command yum install python pygame (as the root user)
• Download Lightyear tar ball
• Untar the package with targ xvzf lightyear-XXX.tar.gz Where XXX is the release number.
• Change into the newly created lightyears-XXX directory
• Issue the command ./lightyears to start the game.

If you install on Ubuntu you will find the game in your Games directory or you can issue the command lightyears from the command line.

Basic play

Figure 1

The main window is where all of the game play takes place. As you can see (in Figure 1) you are on the surface of another planet and your task is to supply your city with steam. Around the surface of the planet are steam pockets that you have to build nodes on in order to pump steam into the city. So you build nodes and then pipes to get the steam to the city.

If only it were that easy. The game depends heavily on the efficiency of the nodes’ and pipes’ ability to get enough steam to the city. So you have to upgrade nodes and pipes, place nodes strategically so longer pipe runs, when destroyed by aliens or earthquakes, will not completely deplete your city steam pressure.

Games tend to be fairly short lived. My max game so far has been around twenty minutes. This is mostly due to the nature of the game – having to make sure you are as effient as you can be in creating enough steam to get to the city.

Final thoughts

Although Lightyears seems very simplistic it will challenge you and keep you interesed in the way many of the tower wars games have done.

AssaultCube

AssaultCube is a quite simple 3D FPS available for Linux, OS X and Windows, which just reached version 1.0 about a week ago. The graphics are not very advanced, but a benefit of this is that it’s easier to run a server and that it can run on nearly any machine.

The best aspect of AssaultCube is the online play; there’s always a few busy servers available where one can play capture the flag, deathmatches or variations on those modes. AssaultCube is limited to seven weapons: sniper rifle, assault rifle, handgun, grenades, knives, shotgun and submachine guns.

Maps can be created for AssaultCube quite easily.

Sauerbraten

Sauerbraten is an FPS built on the same engine on which AssaultCube is built but has much more sophisticated graphics and is built in a fantasy world as opposed to a real one.

In Sauerbraten, weapons include crossbows, guns and rocketlaunchers. This is definitely a more interesting variety than AssaultCube! Once again, CTF and deathmatch are popular game modes.

The game notably lacks a crouch mechanism and struggles to run at higher resolutions on my MacBook Pro. However, it is an amazing open-source game with many fantastic maps.

Once again, Sauerbraten is orientated towards online pay but the CPU games are much better than AssaultCube’s.

Interestingly, the game can also be played as a 3rd person shooter!

Nexuiz

Nexuiz is an FPS with quite fictional weapons, like electricity guns etc. The game clearly belongs in the realms of fantasy, being set on a space station where one must shoot aliens.

I find the game difficult to play. Movement is far too fast compared to Cube engine games and it really does require quick reflexives.

The game isn’t smooth either. Before a game starts, there’s a text-only screen telling me what is loading etc. and the menu at the start looks terrible, especially at my screen resolution.

It’s still a fantastic game to play, however.

AssaultCube

Sauerbraten

Nexuiz

Needless to say there’s scores of other good games, these are just my favourite free (as in beer and freedom) shooters.