Tremulous - 1.3 Alpha

I had no idea Tremulous was still being developed. The classic humans vs aliens FPS got forked into much more modern games like Unvanquished a long time ago and I thought it was left unattended. But now it seems it's still going strong, with an 1.3 release scheduled for April 27. The release notes mention an OpenGL2-renderer, multi-protocol support, LUA integration, a new installer and updater as well as tons of bug fixes.

Overview of a small base in Tremulous.

Arcmage

Todays update brings something a bit different: Arcmage - a collectible card game. Yep, you read that right. It's a non-digital game with cards that you can print out and play with. I still think it fits on this blog though, not only is it Free and open source, it's also playable online in a digital variant. I do enjoy deckbuilding, and I must say it looks like a lot of work has gone into artwork for this project, so if you fancy an alternative to Magic the Gathering and the likes this might be for you!

An example card from Arcmage.

SDLPoP

I just found an open source version of Prince of Persia. More childhood memories! I was very young when I played this in the early 90's, but I can still remember the layout of the entire first level. ;) This release seems to include necessary data, so it's just to download and play! If you want music you need to download it separately though. Check the instructions for that here.

Back in the day, these animations were very impressice due to their smoothness. They still look good today.

The Dark Mod - 2.05

While stealth-gaming has never been my favorite genre, I have always regarded The Dark Mod in a special light since it's such an impressive project. This new release further reinforces that belief, with a crazy changelog. How about hundreds of new, high-quality models? If you feel like creating new scenarios for the game this is a perfect opportunity with so much fun stuff to play around with. There is of course already loads of finished scenarios to play, with a brand new one included in this release. There are allo several engine optimizations and other smaller fixes and improvements.

I believe this is an older screen, but The Dark Mod has always looked impressive. Even more so in this new release.

Also, you ought to watch the release trailer:

Thrive - 0.3.3

Some breaking news here! Super-cool evolution game Thrive has got a big new release. It looks fun, highly polished and I appreciate that it tries to adhere to know scientific theory, possibly making this into a great learning tool as well as a great game. New in this release is a complete overhaul of the interface (it does look very nice and sharp), the simulation now accounts for creatures mass, a much more realistic approach to reproduction, a new system for health and much more. Again, to understand how much thought has gone into many of these things you need to read up on this yourself. Have a look at the changelog or the new feature video!

Various organisms swimming around in Thrive. You ought to see this in motion.

Urban Terror 4.3.2

Urban Terror - the FPS that favors fun over realism but still has a bit of the latter, is now on 4.3.2. While the team is working on a new game improvements are still coming to this long lasting FOSS shooter. There are several improvements to the InstaGib and GunGame modes, engine optimizations, some interface improvements, a bit of balancing and more.

Spectatin a street-corner battle in Urban Terror.

Freeciv WebGL 3D

You might have heard of Freeciv, the Free empire-building strategy game inspired by the history of human civilization. It's a very fun and complete game, with some vey fine 2D graphics. But if you fancy something looking a bit more modern, or simply prefer polygons to tiles, have a look at Freeciv WebGL 3D! It let's you play Freeciv with full 3D graphics, directly in your browser. While I would personally prefer a downloadable native version, this approach let's anyone try the game out easily without installing anything. A rather advanced computer is required though. This is the first non-beta release, but work is still ongoing, so expect more improvements in the future!

3D does make the landscape come alive in Freeciv WebGL.