That is good news.

However, Freeablo is now a dead project, and I worry about it.
I'm not sure if license issues were sorted out. It's annoying that we had all these Diablo projects and Diablo 2. Now, they are all inactive projects.

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Can I use it to play Desecrated Lands?

I hope that they add support for Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest. I can't find any active projects that support this game.

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Quoting: Hamish

Quoting: gbudnyThese activation keys that require a server connection are annoying and make some games useless. On the other hand, it probably won't be an issue if you have a backup of the hidden folder from the activated game.

Sadly in the case of the Ignition DRM that was included with Marble Blast Gold not even that may be an option, as it also ties itself to your specific hardware configuration.

That is terrible. I hope that would work with Marble Blast Gold if you could use the hidden folder with the exact PC configuration (not the same computer).

Does it check only your motherboard or more hardware in your PC?

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These activation keys that require a server connection are annoying and make some games useless. On the other hand, it probably won't be an issue if you have a backup of the hidden folder from the activated game.

I hate when companies abandon games and don't sort these out issues with the activation.

Developers of Tribal Trouble had done it properly when they decided to release a file with a key for their game. Unfortunately, they didn't do anything with Tribal trouble 2, which you could play only in a web browser, which is a shame.

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Quoting: Hamish

Quoting: gbudnyI see it on their website, but it's hard to say if it was included on the CD with the game.

Looking at more eBay listings it seems that the boxes that were published by Eagle Games (including the Annie Duke endorsed "Collector’s Edition") just have the Windows and Mac version on the disc, although I suspect the activation keys would also work on Linux, but a later "Tournament Edition" distributed by Encore (and endorsed this time by Phil Gordon) does actually mention Linux directly on the box.

I don't like when companies remove the Linux version from the disk.

Quoting: HamishDoes this mean I have to learn how to play poker now? :neutral:

Maybe.

Reel Deal Slots contains so many games that you can find in a casino. I think it will be more challenging than this Poker game.

It was so weird when I started Reel Deal Slots for the first time, and I had so many games to play.

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Quoting: Hamish

Quoting: gbudnyWhere did you find it?

It was actually stumbling across an eBay listing for Tournament Poker 2005: No Limit Texas Hold 'Em which was a retail variant of DD Poker that led me to Donohoe Digital that led me to War! Age of Imperialism.

Pretty sure only the Windows and Mac versions were actually included on that poker disc, not that it matters since DD Poker is a freeware game now.

Thank you for the answer.

MobyGames mentions the Linux version of this game. I don't know if this information is correct:

https://www.mobygames.com/game/172494/dd-tournament-poker-2005-no-limit-texas-holdem-collectors-editio/ [External Link]

I see it on their website, but it's hard to say if it was included on the CD with the game.

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Thank you for the article.

I have never played it. I'm not even sure if I read about it. The title of the game sounds vaguely familiar, which is weird.

Where did you find it?

I don't see it on happypenguin.org, but it's a game from 2003.

It looks interesting, and we can still run it because you found this hack.

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Quoting: Valck

Quoting: gbudnyI remember that even in 2010, we didn't have commercial car simulations for Linux

Off the top of my head I can't speak to the "commercial" part of that statement with enough confidence to confirm or refute it; however, even long before 2010 we had Rigs of Rods [External Link] (although I didn't look at the current site since it won't work at all without Javascript).

The latest version I have is from 2009; I kind of lost track of it around that time, mostly because even back then Sourceforge had already become a neglected garbage dump of a site (there seems to be a bit of a common pattern here... is accessible web design really that difficult?)

I was delighted to see that RoR still seems to be under active development, with regular as well as dev builds over on itch.io [External Link].

Turns out Liam even had an article a while ago that I must have missed somehow.

It's great that you mentioned Rigs of Rods.

We also had Torcs, VDrift, Maniadrive, etc., and freeware games like Racer. Unfortunately, we had companies before 2012 that were creating amazing games from almost every genre. However, driving simulations were this weird area where companies porting games to Linux didn't do almost anything for us.

We had Turbo Sliders, and some lucky people had a chance to play unreleased Bandits: Phoenix Rising. That is the reason why Odyssey by Car was such a unique game among many others from different genres.

This small company filled this gap with Odyssey by Car for Linux. Oliver Hamann probably wasn't aware of his notable contribution to commercial Linux games.

I checked the history of GGI, and it's a much older project than SDL from 1998.

Andreas Beck and Steffen Seeger founded The GGI Project in 1994 after some experimental precursors that were called "scrdrv".

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

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Quoting: HamishMy usual bevy of links can now be found on the dedicated Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer website:
https://icculus.org/~hamish/retro/part29.html [External Link]

Quoting: gbudnyI was trying to play Odyssey by Car on Ubuntu 20.4, but there was an issue with the fullscreen mode. I didn't spend too much time trying to sort it out. I switched back to playing Odyssey by Car on Suse 10.1.

Yeah, the issue there is that the game talks directly to the XF86VidMode Extension, hence why the later update of the game calls libXxf86vm.so.1 instead in an attempt to maintain this. As far as I can tell, the game does not use any kind of abstraction layer such as SDL to handle things.

Thanks for the links.

I see the script for libXxf86vm.so.

It's weird how some early commercial games were created without using SDL. On the other hand, Oliver could use LibGII as Futureware 2001 did with Wuerstelstand, which would be even more surprising.

https://ibiblio.org/ggicore/links.html [External Link]
https://www.futureware.at/ewurst.htm [External Link]

However, these technical details are just tidbits. I am always surprised when these classic games work on modern Linux distributions, which is far more important

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Thank you for the article.

It's cool to see the usage of the racing wheel in this game. I didn't expect to find that in this article.

The trees in this game look odd, but the rest is fine if we compare it to the other classic games.

I remember that even in 2010, we didn't have commercial car simulations for Linux. We had airplane simulations, hovercraft races, and the closest game was Turbo Sliders. Unfortunately, I wasn't a big fan of the top-down perspective used in Turbo Sliders.

I read the article about Odyssey by Car on the website happypenguin.org many years ago. It was unavailable for sale back then. I didn't suspect that Oliver Hamann re-released this game for Android with a different title. I contacted him when I looked at screenshots of the 3D Turbo Car Driving Odyssey for Android.

https://happypenguin.altervista.org/sheet.php?gameid=612 [External Link]

I was trying to play Odyssey by Car on Ubuntu 20.4, but there was an issue with the fullscreen mode. I didn't spend too much time trying to sort it out. I switched back to playing Odyssey by Car on Suse 10.1.

README file:

https://jmz113.tripod.com/jmz11/odysscar/readme.htm [External Link]

I hope that users leave comments about Odyssey by Car on itch.io. For 18 years, we never had anything similar to this game if we think about commercial games for Linux before 2012. It's a fascinating piece of history. I hope that users get a chance to play it on Linux.

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