Viewing articles by Hamish

Hamish Paul Wilson is a free software developer, game critic, amateur writer, cattle rancher, shepherd, and beekeeper living in rural Alberta, Canada. He is an advocate of both DRM free native Linux gaming and the free software movement alongside his other causes, and further information can be found at his icculus.org homepage where he lists everything he is currently involved in: http://icculus.org/~hamish

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Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 24: Mother Knows Best

By Hamish, Feb 6, 2023

My mother's favourite game on Linux is without a doubt Frozen Bubble. It is a casual game in all of the best ways; one you can dive into and learn at your own pace thanks to its simple but repeatable formula. Consider this to be a snapshot in time back to 2002, from right before the game was to take the world by storm.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 23: Ready, Set, Go!

By Hamish, Jan 30, 2023

If you look at the commercial Linux gaming catalogue at the turn of the millennium, in amongst all of the 3D shooters and strategic simulations being released, one glaring omission seems to have been the lack of any racing games. Loki Software never ported any to Linux, nor did any of the other porting houses. This left a void for the free gaming community to fill.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 22: Happy Hacking

By Hamish, Jan 23, 2023

Some of my first real experiences of using Linux as a child came through the use of Knoppix, one of the first distributions to popularize the use of Live CDs. This allowed me to explore a wide swath of Linux applications. One of these was a role playing game which I recall I never got to work well, but lingered on in my imagination regardless.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 21: Fluffy Bunnies

By Hamish, Jan 16, 2023

While their foray into interactive storybooks did fail to impress, it did help remind me of BlackHoleSun Software, one of the earliest Indie developers to create games with Linux in mind. Their most famous game Bunnies was released as shareware in 2001, providing a demo version you could later update through use of a retail key. Thankfully, the story does not have to end there.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 20: The Antediluvian World

By Hamish, Jan 9, 2023

Sold as interactive storybooks, these took the form of narrated picture books which went over the story from the film while allowing for a certain degree of user agency, typically by allowing a selection of quirky animations to play by clicking around with the mouse. UAV must have wanted in on this craze as well, and so Atlantis: The Underwater City - Interactive Storybook was born.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 19: SiNsational

By Hamish, Jan 2, 2023

Given the the company's current focus, the name Hyperion Entertainment seems an odd fit for the modern maintainer of AmigaOS, betraying its earlier status as an Amiga focused video game porting house. One of their ports, that of SiN, to this day remains from them an elusive Linux exclusive.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 18: Run Away and Join the Circus

By Hamish, Sep 12, 2022

Although being sold for Windows, I found a listing for a physical copy of the free game Circus Linux! as published by Alten8. At first I figured it would just be another keep case in my collection with "Linux" on the cover, but with the source code included, I decided it would be trivial to also build the game for Linux.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 17: The Llama Master

By Hamish, Jun 20, 2022

While first person shooters dominated the Linux gaming scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was still more than a place for the venerable strategy genre, with Ubi Soft entering the fray thanks to the work of Linux friendly Philos Laboratories.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 16: We Are All Doomed

By Hamish, Mar 14, 2022

The most appealing aspect of my QDI Advance 5/133 motherboard is its inclusion of AGP, PCI, and ISA expansion slots. By having both dedicated MIDI and 3D acceleration hardware I can dip my toes into two different eras of gaming. As for the actual MIDI tracks produced, well, they have personality at least.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 15: Square Cubed

By Hamish, Mar 7, 2022

John Carmack's generosity in releasing his older source code resulted in a proliferation of free first person shooters in the 2000s, but Dutch programmer Wouter van Oortmerssen rejected this path to forge Cube based in the same "just for fun" spirit with which Linus Torvalds first began work on the Linux kernel.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 14: Return to Na Pali

By Hamish, Feb 28, 2022

One of the selling points of Unreal Tournament pitched to the modding scene by Epic Games was its ability to load assets from the original Unreal into the new engine. After a few years this snowballed into a concerted community effort to make the entire Unreal single player mode playable from within its own sequel.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 13: Looks Almost Unreal

By Hamish, Feb 21, 2022

It is rare for Linux to see support from both sides of an industry battle, but that is exactly where we were with the release of Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament. With both games aiming to package the full breadth of the online multiplayer shooter experience into a standalone title, the competition between the two was fierce.

John Mullins walking in on Saddam Hussein

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 12: In Tremendous Pain

By Hamish, Feb 14, 2022

In 1998 developer Raven Software acquired the rights to Soldier of Fortune to make a video game inspired by the mercenary magazine of the same name. The plan was the make a realistic tactical shooter, with consultant John Mullins brought in to add both his insights and likeness to the project.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 11: Forgotten Heresies

By Hamish, Feb 7, 2022

Almost from the very start Raven Software and id Software had a symbiotic relationship. Given the Linux friendly atmosphere at id, it is no surprise that some of that would start to rub off on Raven, culminating in Loki Software negotiating to make a port of Heretic II.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 10: For I Have Sinned

By Hamish, Jan 31, 2022

At heart XEvil is a basic deathmatch, but it is the anarchic elements that keep it entertaining. There is no reason XEvil has to die a death, other than its modern obscurity. Another with the talent could revive XEvil and bring all of its features back home again.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 9: Ancient Archaeology

By Hamish, Jan 17, 2022

After the demise of Loki Software, one of their former employees found himself forced to work behind a cash register for a living. Desperate to get back to porting games, he found the email address of an artist working for the Croatian developer Croteam, creators of the game Serious Sam.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 8: Shovelware with a Penguin

By Hamish, Jan 10, 2022

After completing all of the boxed Quake games for Linux, I was left with indecision. So if I could not settle on a single game to play, why not try one hundred? Made for a time of slow internet speeds and limited storage, these kinds of retail collections allowed users to explore hundreds of freeware and shareware titles from the comfort of a single CD-ROM.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 7: The Arena Eternal

By Hamish, Oct 11, 2021

The bedrock of almost all the LAN parties played in my household, Quake III Arena also became a trusty reliable for when I felt the urge for a casual bot match. Whenever I felt the need for a fresh Linux installation, Quake III Arena always became the first game I would reinstall. This had as much to do with the game's technical achievements as my fondness for the gunplay.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 6: A Lone Marine Battled

By Hamish, Aug 2, 2021

In the same vein as Quake: The Offering, the next game in the series got a similar treatment for Linux with Quake II: Colossus from Macmillan Digital Publishing, containing Quake II as well as its two mission packs The Reckoning and Ground Zero.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 5: Quaking in My Boots

By Hamish, Mar 29, 2021

Dave Taylor can be credited with kickstarting the commercial Linux gaming industry with his ports of the games Doom and Abuse. Before leaving id Software he also graced us with a Linux port of Quake, which was later taken by Macmillan Digital Publishing to form the basis of their retail Quake: The Offering package.

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