Quoting: Technopeasant

It's an interesting opinion from a person who created SDL, and we didn't have most of these games for Linux without his project. Everyone can agree or disagree.

It would be an interesting opinion for him, but unfortunately I meant Scott Draeker. I got my S names mixed up.

https://web.archive.org/web/20020202221402/http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/01/24/2118235 [External Link]

Thank you for your response.

I know that LGP also planned to publish the original game for Linux, but they have never finished it. I wish to see a screenshot of it one day.

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Thank you for your response.

Quoting: TechnopeasantThe main issue is that Linux has never really had any exclusives. For most of our history we have been a very small fish in a large pond, so the majority of our commercial titles have been ports or developed cross-platform.

We didn’t have too many exclusive titles for Linux, but we had some commercial games developed on Linux and ported to other systems.

I switched to Linux because I noticed that I can play commercial games on this system, and I didn’t have many games from Windows that I wanted to play. I didn’t have these issues because I couldn’t be an experienced Windows gamer after more than a year of using it.

In 2004, I noticed that I could play Serious Sam, SOF, Heroes of Might and Magic III, Majesty and many companies were releasing new games for Linux every year. Many source ports for AVP, Duke Nukem 3D, Hexen, and others were available for Linux. It wasn’t a system for users playing the very specific genre of games, including World War 2 first-person shooters, because we had a few of them. I had to be less picky and choose between different genres of games if I wanted to have a better experience with Linux. Next, it wasn’t a system for users interested in playing AAA games every month. Rather, some of them + indie games.

Sadly, we didn’t have the online store with more than 40 games because everything was fragmented, and the majority of companies had their own online store with 1-3 games. Desura and USC partially fixed this problem, but they didn’t survive.

Quoting: TechnopeasantMeanwhile, our independent games have largely been free and open source (Tux Racer, SuperTux, Tux games in general), which is objectively great, but it does mean that most of these also saw releases on Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, and your toaster.

Indie games are a very interesting topic when it comes to commercial games for Linux.

Let’s focus on Linux without looking at Windows, Mac, AmigaOS, Morph OS, AIX, or even HP-UX with two commercial games (SimCity and Dominions). We had some well-known titles released for Linux between 1994 and 2000, with some rare releases of indie games. I only focus on comparing games released for Linux, including triple-A titles and indie games, released every year.

In 2001, indie games had become more noticeable on Linux with Mobility, Bunnies, Odyssey By Car, Absolute Patience, and many others. From now on, small companies have started releasing more indie games than commercial triple-A titles for Linux. Back then, every company released one or two indie games for Linux. Meanwhile, the popular games had been published mostly by LGP, Runesoft, ID, etc., and some of them were frequently ported to Linux by Ryan Gordon. They gradually became a minority among indie games.

Companies like GarageGames and Absolutist were among those with the highest number of indie games published for Linux. The general growth of commercial games continued to 2010-2011. In 2010, we didn’t have any triple-A titles for Linux, but just indie games, and we had many more of these.

For example, Kristanix Games released 11 games for Linux, which was incredible.
Many new companies joined, including Blendo Games, Kot-in-Action, Lost Luggage Studios, and Red27 Studios, among others. The success of HIB and the availability of Desura and USC probably motivated Valve to release Steam for Linux.

Quoting: TechnopeasantThe only ones that didn't were either games that were never popular enough to begin with (and so were forgotten regardless), or titles that were directly tied to Linux/Unix only libraries such as the early X11 games (which were mostly clones of arcade games anyway). Simply put, there has never been a reason by and large where you HAD to run Linux in order to experience a given game.

What was more important for me was whether Linux had more or fewer commercial games released every year. For example, Voltley, which was exclusively available for Linux, was an interesting tidbit. However, we had some games developed on Linux, including Inner Worlds, Professor Fizzwizzle, and, less popular, The Last Sorcerer. Maybe, more.

Quoting: TechnopeasantMeanwhile, Mac OS had a shareware scene even during the darkest of times for that platform, through the likes of Ambrosia Software and similar (most notably early Bungie), not to mention all the amateur games made in Hypercard. The Amiga meanwhile had developers that adopted it when it was genuinely a leading game platform (and had many releases where the Amiga version was considered the superior version to the DOS release), and even in its twilight its attempts to keep up with the PC were still unique, such as Doom-clones like Gloom and Alien Breed 3D.

I don't think it's necessary constantly look back at other systems. Many users are unfamiliar with commercial titles released for Linux in the past. In this discussion, you found a game, Last Defender, which I never heard of during 22 years of using Linux.

Comparisons to other systems are important and interesting, but are too well-known topics for many who read these comments. I can give you more examples. However, it's difficult for me criticize companies for just trying to port more games to Linux. Many other systems existed years before Linux.

Sam Lantinga and Loki developed libraries that became more successful for other systems. Linux has survived many difficult situations, including the disappearance of major companies like Loki or LGP, as well as the loss of interest in porting games by notable developers such as ID Software or Runesoft. There were many others, but it's not part of this discussion. I appreciate every one of them for doing what they could and helping me play many great games.

Quoting: TechnopeasantLoki's Sam Latinga even touched upon this when he admitted that if he were to do it all over again he would have developed original Linux games instead of ports. Maybe he was right.

It's an interesting opinion from a person who created SDL, and we didn't have most of these games for Linux without his project. Everyone can agree or disagree.

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I suspect that flash drives will become expensive as the next thing in line because of the AI boom.

Perhaps Blu-ray Discs will become popular, and we will start recording data on them. 128 GB isn't bad for me, but it's better than keeping data on a used HDD/SSD if I don't have a choice to buy a new one.

It's an opportunity for computer stores to make money by refurbishing hardware and selling it. I hope people will stop throwing away old computers or broken hardware because it doesn't improve this situation.

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Hamish1999 (my fifth birthday)

None of my business of course, but as I see this...

All those games and systems are not your own good olde times? What made you investigate them so deeply?

Well, Hamish answered it.

I started using Linux in 2004, which means more than a year after I got my first computer at home. Loki and many other games for Linux aren't part of my childhood, too. Hamish is really making something amazing by publishing these articles, and I can learn more about the history of games for Linux.

The commercial games helped many of us keep using this system, and I wish it were a much bigger community. You can see huge communities of retro users constantly talking about games for Windows, Mac, Amiga, and Atari. etc. So many incredible companies sacrifice their time and risk their money to help Linux users play commercial games.

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Thank you for your response.

Quoting: HamishOur federal institutions are obligated to provide services in French, and commercial packaging bears both French and English labels (what I like to call "cereal box French"), but beyond that you would be hard pressed to ever need to learn or use French in Alberta where I live.

That's interesting. I always thought that people learn foreign languages because they want to read books, watch movies, or browse websites in those languages.

I have to admit that I don't know the regional language called Kashubian from Poland, but it's even smaller in population than the Francophone minority in Canada:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashubian_language [External Link]

Quoting: HamishThe MS DOS version of Inner Worlds was made explicitly freeware, and the Linux version has been found and distributed on the Internet Archive, but I do intend to try and get in touch with Sleepless Software at some point to clarify the legal status of this before I would cover the game for an article.

The DOS version is still on Steam, which is weird. I know that some parts of this game aren't freeware, like the editor, even for DOS users. It's great to hear that you plan to do it, and I hope you receive a positive response from Sleepless Software.

Quoting: HamishLoading up the binary distributed from old SunSITE archives displays the following message:
"LinCycles v2.1unreg by Oliver Richman.
(C) Copyright 1996 Five Wheel Horse Software.

This program is Shareware! The trial period is 30 days.
If you like LinCycles, then please register it. For only $5,
we will send you the registered version of LinCycles, plus our
nifty FWH software catalogue! Source code for all programs are
available. (see the read.me file for more information).
PLEASE REGISTER LINCYCLES! ALSO ASK ABOUT OUR REALLY COOL PDSOFTWARE CATALOG!"

We have probably lost the commercial game for Linux, and I didn't find any information about this game on his old website:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010104235100/http://www.pathcom.com/~simex/opr/index.html [External Link]

I also noticed that YiJing was a commercial application rather than a game created by Oliver Richman:

YiJing ::
Thousands of years ago in Ancient China, wise men discovered the oracle
bones. These bones were used to tell the future and gain advice into
the nature of humanity itself. The wisdom and poetry of China, and more!
Featuring chinese (ZW/HZ) support, and many useful command line options.

YiJing 0.5beta binaries .............................. $29.99 CAN.

None of these games or applications is actively developed, which is terrible.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyWell, overall, it kind of is. But French speaking in Canada is really quite geographically concentrated--masses in Quebec which has a large population, a couple of other enclaves like the Acadians, pretty much none everywhere else. That said, in British Columbia where I live, school programs offering French immersion are quite popular . . . but North American language teaching just doesn't seem to be as effective as, say, European language teaching. I don't think most of those French immersion kids end up fluent in French once they've been out of school a few years.

Thank you for sharing it. It's always great to learn something new about a different country. In my view, students decide what they are going to do with the basics of any language taught in schools.

Quoting: TechnopeasantPage mentions a shareware arcade game called Last Defender by Wouter Scholten, but this old LSM listing says it was first listed in November 1996 so close but no cigar.

https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/docs/LSM/LSM.1999-08-30#:~:text=Last%20Defender%20demo%20Version:%201.0.5%20Entered%2Ddate:%2019NOV96%20Description [External Link]

https://web.archive.org/web/19990218154129/http://www.spinne.com/x/games/ldefender/ [External Link]

Unfortunately ibiblio does not seem to still preserve the demo, so hopefully its on an old CD somewhere.

Thank you so much for finding this game.

I found a demo version, and I have to try it:

http://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/games/arcade/ldef1210.lsm [External Link]
http://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/games/arcade/ldef1210.tgz [External Link]

Quoting: TechnopeasantSo according to MobyGames the game Terroid was released for DOS in 1996 but ported to Windows and Linux in 1997, if that counts (which since you counted SimCity, it should). Game was shareware.

Thank you for finding it!

I know about this game because I found it two years ago, but I still haven't played it. It's so cool that someone is mentioning this game for Linux. The Linux binary dates back to 1998, and I hope the older version is still available.

I disagree about SimCity for Linux because it was a different story.
SimCity was a commercial title for Linux and many other Unix systems, including HP-UX, IRIX, and other systems. It was a commercial game for over a decade for Linux, and I couldn't run the demo version back then in 2005, when I found out about it. I have never bought it. I read it had a very restrictive copy protection, which made your keys useless on a different machine.

Quoting: TechnopeasantThe final complication is that the Linux version of Terroid appears to have been freeware ("Download the full game for Linux"), so one could argue that game was not commercial when it comes to our platform. Nevertheless, Terroid seems the best candidate for our list in 1997.

It's still a Freeware game, but only for Linux, which happened a few times with other games.

1994 Doom, Doom 2
1995 Abuse, SimCity, Maelstrom (a Freeware game only for Linux)
1996 Inner Worlds, Quake, LinCycles, Last Defender
1997 Terroid (a Freeware game only for Linux)
1998 Quake 2, Ultima Online

It looks much better now.
I suspect that we have more of these games, but it would be difficult to find them. I guess 1996 was the best year for Linux users because companies released four commercial games.

Quoting: TechnopeasantSimilar to Maelstrom which started out as shareware for Mac OS in 1992 but was brought to Linux for free in 1995 by Sam Latinga when he was given the source code, and later became fully free and open source.

Thank you for mentioning it

I wonder if the old website for the Linux version from 1995 still exists at archive.org

@Hamish

Do you plan to write articles about Terroid, Maelstrom, and older versions of LinCycles?

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Thank you for your response.

Quoting: HamishDo you learn French in schools in Canada?
It varies based on which province you are in, but not as a general rule no, although it is often offered. The irony of my household is that the only person who has a working understanding of French is my father, who was born and raised in New Zealand.

That's interesting.
I thought French was more popular in Canada because many native French-speaking people live there.

Quoting: HamishMy understanding is that the Linux version was only ever available through mail order from them directly or through a few select vendors, which is part of the reason it is so difficult to find on the second hand market.

The list of vendors for the Linux version of Hopkins FBI was long, but I don't know the exact situation with this game. The Linux version was much shorter because the 3D levels similar to Doom aren't part of this game.

Quoting: HamishSame with Abuse and Inner Worlds.

You are probably right because it's hard to find information about the Linux version of Abuse.

I don't understand the situation with Inner Worlds because people played this game in the 90's, and the Linux version should be on the CD. I don't have it, and I only saw a version without the Linux binaries on one of the auctions.

Maybe you should contact Sleepless and ask about the Linux version of Inner Worlds. I don't think they have a CD, but maybe they could help you obtain the archive for your article. I didn't ask them about it.

That Freeware go-cart game was available on a CD with source code, but I didn't find any information about it on archive.org

Can you share your opinion on the license for LinCycles for Linux?

The README file mentions payments and the availability of the source code for an old version. I'm not sure if it was a commercial title that was re-released as freeware because one of the comments from an author is odd.

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Thank you for your response.

Quoting: HamishI do not think that is entirely fair to be honest; as you yourself pointed out, the bigger issue was Loki's tendency to over invest and stretch their resources far further than their income stream could support. Them ordering way too many Collector's Edition tins was just a symptom of a wider problem.

Yes, Loki definitely spent too much money on many projects that were interesting for a small group of users.

I think it would be better if Macmillan Digital Publishing were also a publisher for Quake 3 for Linux in 1999. We probably get a set of rpms packages on the CD, which is weird and problematic on many Linux distributions. On the other hand, Loki could survive as a company if it didn't publish this game.

No one mentioned Quake: The Offering and Quake II: Colossus for Linux as financially problematic for Macmillan Digital Publishing. Of course, Macmillan didn't publish any other games for Linux after it. It was a good deal for Linux users to pay for a base game plus two mods in one box. It wasn’t possible to do something similar with Quake 3 for Linux in 1999.

Quake 3 is a great game and the best-looking product created by Loki, but sadly, users voted with their wallets, and this game lost. Nobody mentions their other games that caused so many financial troubles for Loki. The low sales of Quake 3 didn't help Loki survive, and also scared away many companies. I understand it's difficult to accept what happened with Quake 3 for Linux because it's a bizarre situation.

The availability of the Quake 3 engine gave us a chance for some great games. From a financial perspective, it doesn't change the fact that Quake 3 for Linux wasn't a success for Linux as a platform.

Quoting: HamishRegardless, by black sheep, I meant more Call to Power's standing in relation to the rest of the Civilization franchise more than its standing on Linux. Although based on the small sample here, it does seem to have a more positive reputation among at least a subset of Linux gamers than I have seen elsewhere. Quite effusive in fact.

Ok. I didn't think about comparing it with more modern games.

Quoting: HamishThere are separate patch installers for both version upgrades and language conversion listed:
https://www.lokigames.twolife.be/products/civctp/updates.php [External Link]

I was able to change my Linux install from English to French and then to German. That may have been useful for me to experiment with before as there were several cheap German boxes of Call to Power for Linux listed on eBay, while the English version I did finally buy cost me quite a premium, while also still being shipped from Germany ironically enough. Too late now though.

Thank you for correcting me.

Interestingly, they allowed users to change the language in Civilization: Call to Power for Linux. I guess that my non-English games can stay in a shrink wrap for another year. The language support for German in many Linux games was quite good compared to other languages.

Robin Hood - The Legend of Sherwood for Linux also had a separate German and French release.

Can someone publish screenshots of the French version of Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood for Linux?

Quoting: HamishI did pick up a very cheap French copy of Call to Power for Windows just for the CD audio to prevent further wear on my expensive Linux disc; the eBay listing never mentioned that it was in French, but it was from a Quebec seller and you can see French text if you really squint at the picture of the jewel case, so caveat emptor I guess. By copying over the English data from my Linux install and modifying the civpaths.txt file was able to convert it over myself manually, although again, the CD audio was all I was really after. No idea why French versions of older games sell for as cheap as they do to be honest.

Do you learn French in schools in Canada?

In Poland, we usually learn English or sometimes German, and later both. English is the most popular foreign language here. French was a third language in some specific types of schools, and it was more popular in the past in some countries.
I agree it's easier to find many new games in German, French, Italian, etc. than in English because more people want to buy these English editions.

Quoting: HamishI have never really thought of it in those terms before, but I certainly can not think of any off the top of my head. You certainly listed all of the notable ones from that period.

I hope someone released more games for Linux back then.
Finding simple indie games from that period of time is a challenge.

It was horrible to play all these popular games and then get stuck on Linux without any upcoming games for over a year.

I thought that LinCycles from 1996 was a commercial title, but a comment from the author is odd, and I have some doubts:

https://happypenguin.altervista.org/sheet.php?gameid=57 [External Link]

Quoting: HamishOn a separate but related tangent, whether Call to Power was the first or second Linux game to be sold at retail is somewhat muddied by the fact that Macmillan Publishing announced their boxed Quake releases on May 13, 1999 (my fifth birthday) while Call to Power did not start shipping until May 15, 1999 despite being announced months earlier.
https://web.archive.org/web/20081005014949/http://happypenguin.org/html/qlinux.html [External Link]
https://web.archive.org/web/20011201235040/http://www.lokigames.com/news/archive.php3?051999 [External Link]

So you might need to get into an argument over store stocking, logistics, pre-orders, and the like.

I don't know it. I think MP Entertainment released Hopkins FBI for Linux in April 1999. I'm not sure if it was available in stores like Walmart in the U.S. Maybe some Americans remember it.

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Thank you for writing this article!

I always thought that Quake 3 was a black sheep among games for Linux. I wish this game hadn't been released because this decision could have saved Loki from bankruptcy.

I know it's an important game for Linux, but I didn't spend much time playing it. It's on my list of games that I have get back to playing.

I appreciate that Loki ported Civilization: Call to Power to Linux. Some games created by other companies from 1999 didn't always support the fullscreen mode: Quake: The Offering, Quake II: Colossus, Hopkins FBI, Theocracy, etc. You can use failsafe session to force a fullscreen mode in them.

Weirdly, the first Loki game had some unresolved bugs because they invested a lot of time and money in building installers for Linux x86/PowerPC/Alpha/Sparc. Additionally, they created boxed versions of games that support four different language versions, and I don't even mention other releases. It was a huge investment made by Loki for a system like Linux, with one or two games released every year between 1994 and 1998. I don't know any other games that have so many boxed versions for Linux. The list of patches is also long, and some names are confusing:

CivCTP-1.2-alpha-german.run
CivCTP-1.2-alpha-europe.run

I even see patches for the Italian version, but I'm not sure if the box version for Linux was published.

Does anyone have the Italian version of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux?

@Hamish

Loki also bolted on extra multiplayer modes, as well as putting out a sprite editor and installers for switching languages.

I could be wrong about it because I didn't check it out. I have other language releases of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux, but I only opened the English version. I suspect that you can't use any of the French/German/Spanish installers with your English version. These boxes are a bit smaller than the English version of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux.

For example, you probably need the French version of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux to use installers and patches for this specific version, but you can't change it to English. Please correct me if someone tried it.

LGP didn't make this mistake, and they always released one patch for all architectures, and their games frequently had different language versions on the same CD/DVD.

@Hamish

Did you find any commercial games for Linux published in 1997?

It's the only year when I didn't find any commercial games released for Linux. I hope it's not true because it would be depressing to wait for over a year for Quake 2 and Ultima Online:

1994 Doom, Doom 2
1995 Abuse, SimCity
1996 Inner Worlds, Quake
1997 Nothing?
1998 Quake 2, Ultima Online

Maybe someone remembers it.

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Free in the Dark still exists support the GOG version, but not too many people use it:

https://github.com/yaz0r/FITD [External Link]

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Thank you for your response.

Quoting: HamishThe changelog just mentions it was "rebuilt using futureproof libraries" so I don't think there were any internal bug fixes and the newer libraries might actually be counterproductive on a retro system.

It's still a commercial game, and I don't know what they fixed with many of these patches. You can't access a bug tracker anymore, and it's one of the companies that tested their games on much older systems. You can see the software requirements, which aren't demanding.

I understand that you don't want modern features released many years later, and I played older versions of games myself for fun. However, it could be an interesting tidbit for other users if you want to include it.

I think it's still the retro version of the game if LGP created patches for older systems. Of course, they did it many years after releasing it.

Quoting: HamishIt reminds me of when I tried installing my Desura version of the Penumbra Collection on a period system that did not have SDL 2 built for it. The original binaries would have ran fine but not the update.

I had to upgrade my system to play the first version of Penumbra many years ago. Some companies focus only on the current distributions, which is bad.

I played some other games when the installer was much more modern than the game.

I won't reveal too many details because it could be a subject for your articles. For example, I played the LGP game from 2005 on a Linux distribution from 2003, and the other one was from 2009 running on a system from 2006 with patches from 2012.

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