Posts Tagged ‘game music’

KRaptor a Raptor free software (open source) arcade game clone for GNU / Linux

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Kraptor is another Raptor Shadow of Death free software, open source clone arcade game for GNU/Linux, DOS and Windows (98, XP etc.).

KRaptor main menu game screenshot Linux Debian Squeeze

The game is not under active development anymore since 2004. Kraptor features a powerful engine for creating quickly 2D shooter games, so the game should be a good learning curve for people interested into creation of arcade game shooter games.

The game just like Rafkill is built upon DUMB sound engine.
The game intro is quite entertaining 😉 The intro plays one by one the text:

Near Future:
Blobalization
Imperalizm
Corporations
Megalomaniacs
Money and Power. Slaves of the New Millenium!

KRaptor Bill gates like looking oppressor

After years of oppression, the slaved people of the world have raised against their masters. You, has a mercenary pilot, has been
contacted by the popular rebellion to fight against the forces of oppression.

In the morning, you jump into your cockpit and start up the engines. It's time to get airborne and start the attack. Get ready to
scramble the scum hired by the masters. Murder for freedom is the only way, you're on a mission, don't defraud us...

Like Rafkill, Kraptor is one man masterpiece created by a free software Argentinean geek known under the Kronoman artistic pseudonim. The game is really incredible for a one man work … a true masterpiece.
The game is licensed under MIT License.

Even though Kraptor is older game than Rafkill, the design is more resembling the original Raptor game. The game music is high quality stereo. Besides that music and fx sound effects are quite awesome. After each level you have a Raptor like weapons "blackmarket", where you can buy new weapons, recharge ship energy, upgrade ship etc.
The blackmarket implementation part of the game is probably the worst moment in the game along with the game menus (in my view).
Talking about graphics Kraptor supports really high number of resolutions ranging from 320×240 to 1280×1024! 640×480 is the standard resolution in which the game is running.

Kraptor raptor like Linux game plasma gun debian screenshot

Something I really like in the game is the number of multiple weapons your ship uses during play. Even if played in Easy mode it is taught.

There are game Saves after each level, so thanksfully you don't have to start again from zero once death.
At the end of each level there is a huge bad BOSS you have to destroy ;).
Kraptor the boss Debian GNU / linux

Installing Kraptor on Debian / Ubuntu and deb derivatives is with:

debian:~# apt-get install kraptor

On most rpm based Linux distributions, you can install the game by converting the deb package to rpm with alien or by building from source from Kraptor's sourceforge page

Its interesting the game name e.g. Kraptor is also a death / grind metal band name, (Maybe Kronoman is metalhead big fan of Kraptor and that's how he came up with the playful name. For all the old school game addicts there is the joystick support. I've tested it with my Genius analogous joystick and it works fine.

The game is lacking .desktop gnome definition and after once installed it only appears through Debian (section) GNOME menus and not in Applications -> Games :

Applications -> Debian -> Games -&act; Action -&t; Kraptor

Just like Rafkill on Debian the game exacutable binary is located in /usr/games/kraptor . Also like with the Rafkill case when launched the game has troubles with choppy sound and music caused by the stupid buggy! pulseaudio

Analogously like with Rafkill's case, the work around to the problematic music en sound is to use a little bash shell script like:

#!/bin/bash
pulseaudio -k;
/usr/games/kraptor
pulseaudio --start;

You can dowload Kraptor fix sound issues wrapper here

To install it on your Debian / Ubuntu and hence make the game sound play good issue with root:

debian:~# cd /usr/bin
debian:/usr/bin# wget https://www.pc-freak.net/bshscr/kraptor.wrapper.sh
...
debian:/usr/bin:# chmod +x kraptor.wrapper.sh
debian:/usr/bin:# mv kraptor.wrapper.sh kraptor

 

RafKill Raptor Free Software (Open Source) clone for GNU/Linux

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

I've earlier blogged on playing Apogee's Raptor Shadows of Death arcade on GNU / Linux with dosbox

All the old school raptor addicts will be interested to hear Kazzmir (Jon Rafkind) a free software devotee developer has created a small game resembling many aspects of the original Raptor arcade game.
The game is called Rafkill and is aimed to be a sort of Raptor like fork/clone.
Originally the game was also named Raptor like the DOS game, however in year 2006 it was changed to current Rafkill in order to avoid legal issues with Apogee's Raptor.

The game is not anymore in active development, the latest Rafkill release is from January 2007, anyhow even for the 2012 it is pretty entertaining. The sound and music are on a good level for a Linux / BSD shoot'em'up free software game . The graphics are not of a top quality and are too childish, but this is normal, since the game is just one man masterpiece.

Rafkill Level 1 Debian GNU/Linux

Rafkill is developed in C/C++ programming language, the game music engine it uses is called DUMB (Dynamic Universal Bibliotheque). By the way DUMB library is used for music engine in many Linux arcade games. DUMB allows the Linux game developer to develop his game and play a music files within different game levels in "tracked" formats like mod, s3m, xm etc.

The game is available in compiled form for almost all existent GNU/Linux distributions, as well as one can easily port it as it is open source.

To install Rafkill on Debian, Ubuntu, Xubuntu and Linux Mint en other Debian based distros

root@debian:~# apt-get install rafkill

Installing on Fedora and other rpm based is with yum

debian:~# apt-get install rafkill
...

Once rafkill is installed, in order to start it on Debian the only way is using the rafkill (/usr/bin/rafkill) command. It appears the deb package maintainer did not wrote a gnome launcher file like for example /usr/share/applications/rafkill.desktop
Just to explain for all the GNOME noobs, the .desktop files are a description file GNOME reads in order to understand where exactly to place certain application in the (Gnome Applications, Places, System …) menu panel.

Even though it miss the .desktop, it is launchable via Applications menu under the Debian section e.g. to open it from the GNOME menus you will have to navigate to:

Applications -> Debian -> Games -> Action -> Rafkill

This "shortcut" to launch the game is quite long and hard to remember thus it is handy to directly launch it via xterm:

hipo@debian:~$ rafkill

Rafkill raptor like native Linux game main menu screenshot Debian GNU / Linux Squeeze

or by pressing ALT+F2 and typing rafkill :

Rafkill Linux game gnome launcher screenshot

Rafkill Debian Linux Level 5 power weaponscreenshot

Starting the game I got some really ugly choppy music / sound issues.
My guess was the fizzling sounds were caused by some bug with the sound portions streamed through pulseaudio sound system.
To test if my presume is correct, stopped pulseaudio and launched rafkill once again:

hipo@debian:~$ pulseaudio -k
hipo@debian:~$ rafkill

This way the game was counting on ALSA to process sound en the sound was playing perfectly fine.

I solved this problem through small wrapper shell script. The script did kill pulseaudio before launching rafkill and that way solve gchoppy sound issues, once the game execution is over the script starts pulseaudio again in order to prevent all other applications working with pulseaudio.

Finally, I've placed the executable script in /usr/bin/rafkill :

Here is the script:

#!/bin/bash
pulseaudio --kill
/usr/games/rafkill
pulseaudio --start

You can download rafkill.wrapper.sh here
Or write in root terminal:

debian:~# cd /usr/bin
debian:/usr/bin:# wget https://www.pc-freak.net/bshscr/rafkill.wrapper.sh
debian:/usr/bin:# mv https://www.pc-freak.net/bshscr/rafkill.wrapper.sh rafkill
debian:/usr/bin:# chmod +x rafkill

Interesting in Ubuntu Linux, rafkill music is okay and I suppose the bug is also solved in newer Linux distributions based on Ubuntu. Probably the Debian Squeeze pulseaudio (0.9.21-4) package version has a bug or smth..

After the change the game music will be playing fine and the game experience is cooler. The game is hard to play. Its really nice the game has game Saves, so once you die you don't have to start from level 1.

Rafkill Load menu screenshot

  I've seen rafkill rolling around on freebsd.org ftps under the ubuntu packages pool, which means rafkill could probably be played easily on FreeBSD and other BSDs.

Enjoy the cool game 😉

Geki2 and Geki3 a Xenon 2 Megablast like games for GNU / Linux and FreeBSD

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

Do you remember the old arcade spaceship shooter Xenon 2 Megablast? I do 😉 For all those who are too young to remember, here are two screenshots:

Xenon2 Main game Screen PC DOS ver

Xenon 2 megablast PC DOS level screenshot

Even though Xenon 2 Megablast original can now be played using dosbox DOS emulator. Its interesting to mention I've found two Linux games that more or less can be qualitified to resemble Xenon 2.
The games are Native Free Software games and existing in package repositories of most Linux distributions and *BSD port trees.

Geki 2 and Geki 3 are of a less quality to Xenon but still, the game experience is nice and is among the Arcade shooter games to bring you fun in the boring days if you're on GNU / Linux or FreeBSD Free OS platforms.

Installing Geki2 and Geki3 on Debian and Ubuntu Linux is standard with apt:

debian:~# apt-get install geki2 geki3
...

On Debian GNU / Linux , after installed the games would not create GNOME Applications -> Games -> game startup shortcuts, however the game startups will get added in GNOME Applications Menu under:

Applications -> Debian -> Games -> Action -> Geki 2
and
Applications -> Debian -> Games -> Action -> Geki 3

The games can be launched also manually with commands:

geki2

Geki 2 Linux Xenon 2 like game Main Menu

or

geki3
Geki3 gameplay screenshot Debian Linux

Geki 2 is a way closer to Xenon 2 as it has similar look and feel and the same vertical direction the spaceship is navigated.
In Geki 3 still the shoot 'em' up spaceship like arcade is present, however instead of penguin you have to fly a flying penguin, as well as the spaceship move direction is horizontal.

 Both the games have the same sound and music effects. The game music and effects are not of top quality but are not bad. In general  the games surely gives some of the arcade atmosphere.

Geki 2 GNU Linux Xenon 2 like vertical shooter arcade
Geki 2 Xenon 2 Megablast like on Debian Linux

In the tradition of the arcade games at the end of each level in both games you face the Level Boss Enemy, you should destroy.

Geki3 Level boss Debian Linux Screenshot
As you can see in below's screenshot the overall graphics of GEKI 3 is poorer while compared to GEKI 2

still GEKI 2 gampley is fun and addictive and I would say not less enjoyable than GEKI 2.
 At times I even think that Geki 3 is more fun because it is more dynamic.

 Maybe other reason, why I enjoyed more Geki 3 is also the fact that Geki 2 is a way harder to play. Dying only 3 times in the game you get  GAME OVER  and the next game you're started from the beginning of the same level you died in …

Geki2 Linux different shooting Screenshot

 Something really annoying that affects both the games; there is no option to play them in Fullscreen mode! ARGH!

Game controls for Geki2 and Geki3 are identical as follows:

Up - Arrow up key
Down - Down arrow key
Right - Right arrow key
left - Left arrow key
Shoot - z or Space
Pause - s

Geki2 and Geki3 are fun and can kill some time, but definitely aren't that (professional) as other spaceship shoot'em'up arcades for Linux and BSD. Games like Starfighter , Critical Mass or  powermanga .
 Lest that they are two worthy to install and play on your Free Software OS.