Tag Archives: gaming

Linux Gaming, Missing Linux Packages

FreeOrion for Fedora

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Introduction

FreeOrion is a turn-based space empire and galactic conquest (4X) computer game. But more importantly, it works on Linux! The good news is, I’ve already done all the heavy lifting for you and compiled the game in easy to install RPMs. In fact, there is absolutely no development knowledge or compilation requirements at all! The RPM files I’ve put together will specifically allow anyone (running Fedora) to go right ahead and enjoy the game!

FreeOrion Screenshot
FreeOrion Screenshot

The Goods

FreeOrion Ship Parts
You’ll need to have Fedora 23 or higher for this game to work due to the library requirements FreeOrion requires.

I packaged the whole thing up in RPMs to make your life easy. You can acquire the RPMs directly from my repository using dnf. But if you prefer, here is the direct link to the repository files:

Package Distro Description
freeorion fc23 / fc24 The core game files. This RPM must be installed in conjunction with freeorion-data.
freeorion-data fc23 / fc24 This RPM provides all of the data files used by FreeOrion

For those interested in building this themselves, you can access the source RPM here.

A setup could be as simple as the following if you’re hooked up to my repositories already:

# Install FreeOrion
# make sure you're connected to https://nuxref.com/repo
dnf install freeorion

Getting Started

FreeOrion - Fleet Move
After you’ve installed the RPMs, you’ll be able to launch FreeOrion from within the desktop search. You can also launch it from the command line by simply typing freeorion. You’ll be able to choose to create a new game from here and create your very first galaxy!

You can also launch the application up with some parameters that can tweak your experience:

/usr/bin/freeorion is the main application you’ll run. If you type it on the command line with the –help (-h) switch, you’ll get an incredible list of customization you can perform. For example:

# --show-fps 1     : Display frames per second while you play
# --fullscreen 1    : Start game in fullscreen mode
# --log-level WARN : The default logging mode is DEBUG which can add for
#                    quite a bit of extra overhead. setting this variable
#                    to WARN can speed things up a little.
freeorion --show-fps 1 --fullscreen 1 --log-level WARN

There are 2 directories you’ll want to know about:

Directory Description
~/.config/freeorion The directory all of your local configuration gets written to when the game is running.
~/.local/share/freeorion The directory that the system will write some variable data to (such as your saved games).

How Do I Play

This guide here is probably a good start. But in a nutshell, the first thing the game will do for you is generate you a galaxy filled with planets and stars. You will take turns with A.I. and/or other players (if doing Multiplayer) making choices. You might colonize a planet, gather resources, or maybe just move to another planet. You’ll encounter enemies that you’ll need to fend off too. The game can seem overwhelming and complicated at first. But in a few turns, you’ll pick up things you can do and only get better over time.

Sources

Note: All of the images seen in this blog were taken from the Libre Game Wiki and FreeOrion Wiki. All of the images used had no licenses associated with them whatsoever except the screenshot which is subjected to the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) v3.0.

Credit

Preparing the RPMs was the only tricky and original part of this blog. The rest of the information is available everywhere.

If you like what you see and wish to copy and paste this HOWTO, please reference back to this blog post at the very least. It’s really all I ask.

Linux Gaming, Missing Linux Packages

Brogue: A Roguelike Game for CentOS

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Introduction

Brogue is a fantastic roguelike game for most operating systems (Linux, MacOS X, and Windows). It’s completely open source (license and cost free) and available for anyone who wants it. The game has a huge following on their forum. It’s also worth pointing out that all the development credit in this game goes to the author Brian Walker.
Pixel Dungeon
I was inspired to look up Brogue and build it properly for CentOS/Red Hat (including Fedora 20) after playing Pixel Dungeon (GitHub/Wiki) which is available for all Android devices. Pixel Dungeon credits Brogue for all the success it’s had; therefore it only felt worth it to help the Brogue community out and package it for Red Hat based systems.

How Does It Work?

You start off as a character in a dungeon denoted by an at sign @. Using the arrow keys on your keyboard and/or mouse; you simply navigate your way around. Your goal is to reach 26th floor of it where a prize awaits you (The Amulet of Yendor). You’ll face monsters, starvation, curses and a lot of luck the deeper you go. All of the levels, gear, and monsters are randomly generated; so each time you play the game you will have a different experience. Some experiences are hard, some harder, and some virtually impossible. Roguelike games (like this one) imply that you will die. Most games are short; but each time you play, you’ll learn new things and make it further into the game. It’s important not to get discouraged; but rather give the game a fair chance. In fact, since each experience is different for every single play-through, you won’t be bored with the repetitive nature of rinsing and repeating what you’ve already done over and over again. It’s quite the opposite actually. You’ll learn things that didn’t work for you last time; but you may not get to apply that knowledge on the next play-through since you’ll be in a completely different dungeon.
Brogue Brimstone Battle
The in-game graphics could be considered impressive to some and not to others. But hopefully most people have come to realize that graphics don’t make a game and it’s the fun of it that truly fulfills the experience.

Again, I’ll state that when you first dive into this game it can be frustrating. You are going to die a lot until you grasp the concepts. The developer thought about those who just want to hack and slash and win every time the play the game. For this reason; he created a file called the seed catalog which dictates what will be available to you as you explore deeper into the dungeon. You can manipulate this catalogue and make your experience more enjoyable (that is… if enjoyable means easy). If you choose this route, perhaps overtime as you pick up new strategies, you can limit the catalogues contents or just use it’s defaults. It’s up to you!

Note: If you want to update the catalogue; it becomes available to you after you start the program up for the first time. It’s located as ~/.config/brogue/Brogue seed catalog.txt. You can adjust the content of a specific seed and choose that seed in the game by pressing <ctrl>-N on your keyboard. For example: <ctrl>-N and entering in 21 is known to give you a game that is fairly generous to new users. Apparently seed 1331532419 is a good one to start with too (source).

How Do I Get Brogue?

I thought you’d never ask; I’ve packaged the whole thing along with all of it’s dependencies. The easiest way to get it is from my repository I host.

# Visit http://nuxref.com/repo/ and set up a link to the
# repository I host, then run the following:
yum install -y --enablerepo=nuxref \
               --enablerepo=nuxref-shared \ 
           brogue

But if you want the required RPMs directly from this blog you can get them here:

Getting Started

After you’ve installed the game; you’re ready to begin playing it. It’s truly worth reading the tips to new gamers posted on the Official Brogue Website.
Gnome Launcher
You can launch the game from the Menu bar in Gnome, or you can simply type brogue on the command line. A script I prepared will automatically start everything up for you.
Brogue Main Menu

The only other thing worth noting is that all of your configuration and high scores are stored in the ~/.config/brogue directory.

Good Luck!

Sources

  • Official Brogue Website: I can’t encourage you enough to check this link out. Especially for the invaluable tips and playing advice it provides to new users.
  • Brogue Online Forum: A great place to meet new people and discuss the game. You can use this location to report any issues or pick up strategies of your own.
  • Official Brogue Wiki: This is a fantastic resource to learn the environment and about all the things that reside in the game.

I also want to give credit to the graphic I photoshopped as part of my title for this blog. It came from an author who goes by 88grzes who publicly posted it on DiviantART here.