Dward Fortress learning curve

If you enjoy state-of-the-art ASCII graphics, infinite gameplay, endless game possibilities and want to spend most of the rest of your life trying to understand how to play this game , you’ll certainly enjoy it!

The game page is here, and if you want a direct link to latest Linux version it is here. Ohh, and if you want some a bit more user-friendly UI, check out here.

• Nexuiz
• OpenArena
• Doom3
• Quake4
• World of Goo (this one actually managed to keep me awake until 5am for a few days)
• Caster
• Cube
• …

and, besides those, we still have wine which plays most of the games just fine (except some of the bleeding edge ones, and the ones which are hurt by the the-f**ing-hating-mouse-rotation-bug like call of duty 4).

But.. even with all that progress, I miss the good old games. Of course, Crysis, Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty 1/2/3/4, Dead Space and all other thousands of recently released games look pretty amazing, but I feel that most of modern games are not even close to the old ones. I still remember being awake for 24+ hours playing Baldur’s Gate, and loosing some of the faculty exams because of the Baldur’s Gate 2. And I’ll probably never forget how scary it was to play Doom on a 386 in a dark room. Nor wolfenstein 3d on a 286 for the first time. And, speaking about game story, few games came close to Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1/2, Final Fantasy VII (a.k.a. how-you-felt-when-Ariel-died??)/VIII..

But, speaking of 3d-shooters. The best so far (at least, for me) are: Doom, Doom 2, Heretic, Hexen, Duke3D/Blood/Shadow Warrior, Serious Sam 1/1.5/2, Half-Life, Prey, Quake1/2/4, …. Most (all?) of those games are based on the same concepts we have seen in early 90ths. I could mention Halo/Gears of War, which introduced some changes in the gameplay, but not that much to say that it was a break-through. You still keep walking around, grabbing new weapons (and dropping less useful ones, like in Medal of Honor/Call of Duty/Halo/…), killing stronger and more stronger enemies, and that’s it. Occasionally there are some innovations, like portals and gravity (Prey) or maybe some sort of character development (Daikatana, Call of Duty, Unreal Tournament) or time/physics manipulations (Half-Life 2) and environment interaction (Doom 3, Unreal Tournament), but nothing ground-breaking.

So far, I am feeling like the progress stopped in the way the games are developed. We have new physics, graphics, sounds, polygons and so on, but few games are introducing something truly new. On the other hand, maybe we have reached the point when everything is already implemented, and the games just have to focus on the state-of-the-art graphics only, and forget about all other items..

So, if you read so far, what do you think about that? Are there any modern games which are truly outstanding (and run on Linux – either natively or using wine)? I promise to test all the suggestion and post my impressions on this blog.

• Flashback
• Civilization
• Colonization
• Dune 2
• Eye of the Beholder 1 e Eye of the Beholder 2. Mmm….
• Gobliiiins
• Indianapolis 500
• Jungle Strike. Também existe Desert Strike e Urban Strike, vou procurar depois..
• Blood! “I live.. Again!!”, “Rest in pieces”… Cabal forever!
• Prince of Persia e Prince of Persia 2
• Cannon Fodder
• Crusader: No Remorse e Crusader: No Regret. Esse jogo tem a melhor trilha sonora que eu conheço.
• Cyclones
• Descent!!! Isso sim é para perder a orientação no espaço..
• Grand Theft Auto
• Lion King
• MDK
• Raptor
• Strife
• Terminal Velocity! Como eu jogava isso…
• The Lost Vikings
• Wolfenstein 3D
• Alone in the Dark e Alone in the Dark 2
• UFO: Enemy Unknown
• X-Com: Apocalypse
• Master of Magic. Ahhh…
• Battle Isle 2
• Castles! Castles, castles!! 286, CGA, “Dig Moat”, “Congratulations! You have defeated the enemy!” Quero voltar a ser criança…
• Command and Conquer
• Heroes of Might and Magic
• Lords of the Realm
• MASTER OF ORION! Um dos melhores jogos já criados!
• Populous
• Settlers
• Stronghold
• Syndicate e Syndicate Wars
• WARCRAFT. O original e único.
• Warlords 2
• Lands of Lore
• Menzoberranzan
• LBA
• Pirates! e Pirates! Gold
• Aladdin
• Golden Axe
• Mortal Kombat e Mortal Kombat 2
• One Must Fall 2097. Melhor jogo de luta. Nova rules.
• Quarantine. Need a ride?
• Stunts. No comments necessary..
• SimCity. Original.

E os que eu queria encontrar mas não achei:

• Dark Sun
• Shadow Warrior
• Duke Nukem 1 e 2
• Ravenloft
• Freespace e Freespace 2 (será que eles são abandonware?? a empresa faliu faz tempo..)
• Fallout e Fallout 2
• Towers
• Heretic, Hexen, Heretic 2 e Hexen 2

Todos precisam do DOSBOX para rodar. Ou de um windows 98 ou DOS instalado… Será que é possível rodar eles no palm/celular? Eles já tem mais memória e CPU do que os micros daquele tempo…

Finalmente vi o BLUE funcionando (em 802.11b; ou melhor, QUASE-802.11b – com plaquinhas meia-boca hehehe).

Achei uma péssima hora para ficar viciado no hero online… Mas o Baldur’s Gate terminei (e fico me perguntando nessas horas – será que foi a última vez que cheguei a jogar ele nessa vida?)

Well, rock’n'rolling