skill

Linux Games that require some Skill

If you are put off by the various shoot ems as in the previous section you might like to know there are plenty of games that require skill to achieve the end result. It is not necessary to visit any of the sites listed on this page unless specifically requested to do so. Please follow the installation instructions provided for each of the games listed.

Billard-Gl

Billard-Gl is not the classic English Snooker as this is played on a smaller but similar table. For a start this game has less balls but the same skill needed to play is still there and perhaps great fun without getting the adrenalin and rush of the shoot ems to run, so more relaxing. FooBillard was considered but Billard-Gl can switch to different screen sizes to suit the player with various options only a good graphics card can give you.

#> sudo apt-get update #> Password: #> sudo apt-get upgrade

Before installing any package you should ensure the package data is complete and upto date.

BillardGl.de German website which is also available in English or you can find and click on flag to suit your language preference.

#> sudo apt-get install billard-gl

You will more than likely require a decent rather than fast NVidia or ATI graphics card for this game, however FooBillard is available from the main repository and can be used as an alternative with almost any graphics card, this appears as a window on your screen the size of which you may not be able to alter.

Nice though this game undoubtedly is it lacks in a number of areas.

Although it has a two player mode as you would expect it seems each player needs to be local to the PC network gaming is not possible.
If it had a Network feature it lacks the ability to chat to your opponent.
However the biggest problem that we can see is that you cannot choose between Billards and Snooker which would make this a more attractive game to us brits.

FooBillard

What can we say "FooBillard" is back in the running whilst the version available on the Ubuntu repository leaves a lot to be desired. The home web site shows some clear intent to adapt and improve, FooBillard like its counterpart "Billard-GL" is now using OpenGL technology (we hope we have that right) in addition unlike its counterpart the game supports good old "Snooker", again you would do best to have a decent Graphics Card. The current version we are looking at is Version 3.0a and only available as "Source" or "RPM" from the website links . Their is no package installation on Ubuntu for this latest version yet. If you have the know how however you can install from source code. Obviously FooBillard has developed and on we could go straight into producing a meaningless install procedure. We don't work that way very often we like to install things from a standard base installation, either a "LiveCD" or fresh install to disk, that way any problems we encounter we place a fix within the procedure we produce.

http://foobillard.sunsite.dk

FlightGear

We are at SoSLUG very lucky to have a Pilot (Paul) in our SoSLUG club has given a review of this game software see what a rel Pilot thinks of this application, which should appear either as a comment or bellow this article somewhere. Again available through the main repository, however we recommend the use of a good graphics card such as NVidia or ATI as with all games you should check with the various forums for card type and specification the best experience possible.

English Website also available in French | Japanese | Polish | Portuguese | Spanish

Our own SoSLUG pilot Paulhas given flightgear a spin you can read his review right here
flightgear-review Sun, 25 November 2007

#> sudo apt-get install flightgear

GL-117

An alternative flight simulator game to that of the above we make no claims as to which is best. GL-117 is an action flight simulator for Linux/Unix. Enter the Eagle Squadron and succeed in several challenging missions leading though different landscapes. Five predefined levels of video quality and an amount of viewing ranges let you perfectly adjust the game to the performance of your system. Joystick, mouse, sound effects, music...

http://www.heptargon.de

#> sudo apt-get install gl-117 gl-117-data

Opencity

Not quite sure that Opencity is what we would call a skill game or not however it has been included because it is a 3D simulation game. OpenCity is a full 3D city simulator game project. It is written in standard C++ with OpenGL and SDL from scratch. It is not intended to be a clone of any famous city simulator from Max*s. So, if you are looking to download a free SimCity 4 then this is not it.

http://opencity.sourceforge.net

#> sudo apt-get install opencity

OpenTTD

OpenTTD is a clone of the Microprose game Transport Tycoon Deluxe, a popular game originally written by Chris Sawyer. It attempts to mimic the original game as closely as possible while extending it with new features.