Friday Fun

The Battle for Wesnoth is a well-developed turn-based strategy battle game. It offers single-player, multi-player, and network modes and has a easy-to-use and engaging hextile user interface. It's a lot of fun to play -- but easily addictive.

What I find most impressive about this game is the size and activity of its community, which has developed extensive documentation, a built-in tutorial, nice artwork, a large number of maps, and a great soundtrack, and maintains very active forums and game servers. Open source at its best!

Note: The main package, wesnoth, appears in the Browse view of the Fedora 8 Pacakge Manager (Pirut), but don't miss the optional wesnoth-server and wesnoth-tools packages which do not appear in the Browse view -- these packages provide a network server and a game editor.

Thanks to Gayathri Swaminathan for suggesting this package!

Installing from the command line: yum install wesnoth
Installing using the graphical installer: Applications > Games and Entertainment > wesnoth
Menu location after installation: Applications > Games > Battle for Wesnoth
Command: /usr/bin/wesnoth
Upstream website: http://www.wesnoth.org/

Quarry is a multi-purpose graphical game board for playing Go, Amazons, or Reversi. By itself, it permits users to play against each other, but the addition of GTP (game text protocol) game engines such as gnugo or grhino enables play against the computer. Quarry's features include timed moves, timed games, the loading and saving of games in standard formats, annotations, game tree view, and more -- plus, of course, a nice graphic presentation of the game.

Adding a game engine is straightforward:

1. Find and install a suitable GTP engine for your game. Fedora includes gnugo (Go) and grhino (Reversi).
2. Determine the command line for the GTP engine which will start it in GTP mode:
   - For gnugo: gnugo --mode gtp
   - For grhino: gtp-rhino
3. Click the Preferences button in the Quarry Control window, then select GTP Engines, then click Add.
4. Enter the command line in the appropriate field. Click Add, then click Close to close the Preferences window.

You can then select the GTP engine as a player (or both players!) when setting up a new game.

Installing from the command line: yum install quarry
Installing using the graphical installer: Not available in the Browse view; use the Search or List views to install quarry
Menu location after installation: Applications > Games > Quarry
Command: /usr/bin/quarry
Upstream website: http://home.gna.org/quarry/

Thanks to cvr for suggesting this package! If you have a package you'd like to see covered, please suggest it using the form on the right side of the main page.

I admit it -- I've never understood the appeal of Sudoku. But I'm the only person in my family -- or extended family -- who doesn't play it, so I'm plainly the odd man out.

Ksudoku is a Sudoku game included in Fedora. It can generate Sudoku puzzles and many variants, including Roxdoku (3D) and Samurai (5 overlapping grid) versions. These may be played online, or any of the 2D versions can be printed out for traditional cordless pencil-and-paper play.

Installing from the command line: yum install ksudoku
Installing using the graphical installer: Applications > Games and Entertainment > ksudoku
Menu location after installation: Games > ksudoku
Command: /usr/bin/ksudoku
Upstream website: http://ksudoku.sourceforge.net/

Super Tux Kart is a simple but fun go-kart racing game (similar to some that you may have played on an older-generation game console). One or two players race against other cartoon drivers in a go-cart. This game features simple 3D graphics (using OpenGL), easy controls, and the option of picking up powerups and money along the course.

Installing from the command line: yum install supertuxkart
Installing using the graphical installer: Applications > Games and Entertainment > supertuxkart
Menu location after installation: Applications > Games > Supertuxkart
Command: /usr/bin/supertuxkart
Upstream website: http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/

BZFlag is a team-based multiplayer 3D capture-the-flag game. You manouver your tank between pyramids and block buildings within a walled arena, shooting enemy tanks and collecting flags -- either to win the game (capture-the-flag mode) or to gain additional capabilities (free-for-all mode). You can play a local game on your LAN or compete against opponents on the Internet.

Installing from the command line: yum install bzflag
Installing using the graphical installer: Applications > Games > bzflag
Menu location after installation: > Applications > Games > BZFlag
Command: /usr/bin/bzflag
Upstream website: http://bzflag.org/

Author's note: I posted an article about another package earlier today -- but accidentally chose a package from a 3rd-party repository. My apologies for any confusion caused, and a thank-you to Finalzone for pointing out the mistake.

TaxiPilot is a strange 2D game where you become the pilot of a space taxi in the year 4017. You must pick up and drop off passengers without landing on the passengers or crashing your vehicle. The faster you complete each trip, the more you make in tips, but inertia and gravity conspire against you. Comets, switches, doors, the gravity of secondary objects, and zooming obstacles all add to the challenge.

Written for KDE 3, TaxiPilot is loosely modeled after the SpaceTaxi game on the Commodore 64. A variety of missions are provided, ranging from ugly-but-helpful tutorials to beautiful, sometimes-humorous, and sometimes nearly-impossible levels contributed by several different authors.

Installing from the command line: yum install taxipilot
Installing using the graphical installer: Applications > Games and Entertainment > taxipilot
Menu location after installation: > Applications > Games > Taxipilot
Command: /usr/bin/taxipilot
Upstream website: http://taxipilot.sourceforge.net/

The Really Slick Screensavers (RSS) -- OpenGL screensavers originally developed on Windows -- have been ported to work with X and integrated into the GNOME and KDE screensaver systems. RSS provides a number of fun visual effects, but the most impressive is probably the Skyrocket fireworks hack, which provides a full helecopter view of a fireworks show complete with smoke, clouds, and stereo sound effects.

Since the screensavers have been integrated into the GNOME and KDE screensaver systems, there are separate packages for each of the desktop environments.

Installing from the command line: yum install rss-glx-gnome-screensaver OR yum install rss-glx-kde
Installing using the graphical installer: Desktop Environments > GNOME Desktop Environment > rss-glx-gnome-screensaver OR Desktop Environments > KDE (K Desktop Environment) > rss-glx-kde
Menu location after installation: > System > Preferences > Look and Feel > Screensaver OR Control Center then Appearance and Themes > Screen Saver
Command: (none)
Upstream website: http://rss-glx.sourceforge.net/