5 Unusual games for Linux

We often hear that there are no games on Linux, or that are much worse than their counterparts for windows, so today I want to show some unusual games that run perfectly on our favorite operating system.

Caph

Caph is a sandbox game, based on physics. The game target is to make contact red object with green object. You can use various objects, solid, wire (rope), and bendable objects. Gravitation will help you.

Caph available as C source code, and can be compiled on any suitable GNU/Linux distribution.

Available on http://www.playdeb.net/software/Caph for Ubuntu dafrom release 9.10.

World of Goo

Available at $20 on the producer site (there is also a demo).

Extract of a great review from eurogamer.net

“Physics has given us many gifts. Paint cans that pelt across the room when you walk into them, fallen enemies who collapse into difficult yoga positions, see-saw puzzles, cowboy hats flying off, oranges you can throw at a soldier – physics has given us all these things. If the Large Hadron Collider does cough out a couple of black holes, on balance the end of the world will be acceptable payback for all the fun physics provided along the way.

Physics’ latest, purest, and most brilliant gift is World of Goo. A game so utterly charming, so pregnant with charisma, and so simple in concept, that it belongs in another era. An era when everyone got a little bit excited about video games; when you’d find coin-op machines in your local pub, and everyone played them. An era when Pac-Man made the women put down their Cointreau, hoist up their petticoats and fling ten pees every which way but loose. An era before William’s Defender arrived and scared off the lightweight with all those buttons.

So, World of Goo is simple. Levels begin with a small structure, and this is where you begin. Crawling along the struts of this structure, or sleeping around the level, are balls of goo. Pull off a goo and place it nearby and it’ll eagerly attach itself to the main building. You simply repeat this process until you reach the level’s goal – usually a pipe that hoovers up any balls of goo that come near it. That’s it. Use goo balls to build to the pipe. Easy. …”

Toribash

Toribash is a turn-based tactical martial arts fighting game using ragdoll physics, created by Hampus Söderström, a Swedish software developer. Toribash was a “Best Game Idea” finalist at the 2006 Swedish Game Awards.

The game is freeware, and is still under development with updates. A WiiWare version has been released in the PAL region on July 9, 2010 and in North America on July 12, 2010.

The game is played by relaxing, holding, extending or contracting the various joints on your character and hitting the spacebar to advance time by a user-specified amount, the default being ten frames. When properly manipulated, one ragdoll will strike the other, and if enough damage is inflicted with a single blow, a limb or body part may be dismembered, or fractured. Through careful manipulation of the ragdoll’s joints, arbitrarily complex attacks can be performed.

The goal of the game is to score as many points as possible during a fight by landing blows on the opponent’s ragdoll, with points being awarded based on the amount of damage inflicted.

I recommend the following video to understand the potential of the game:

Osmos

Osmos is a puzzle video game developed by Canadian developer Hemisphere Games for different systems as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. It is available on-line for $10 USD or £6.99 GBP.

The aim of the game is to propel yourself, a single-celled organism (Mote), into other smaller motes to absorb them. Colliding with a mote larger than yourself will result in being absorbed yourself, resulting in a game over. Changing course is done by expelling mass. Due to conservation of momentum, this results in the player’s mote moving away from the expelled mass, but also in his/her own mote shrinking.

There are three different “zones” of levels in Osmos: In the sentient levels, the goal is to prevail over active motes of various types that hunt and absorb other motes, including the player. Hunting them typically involves absorbing as many inactive motes as possible before chasing down the active ones with the extra mass one has gained.

In the ambient levels, the player’s mote typically floats in a large area surrounded by inactive motes, and must become the largest or simply very large.

In the force levels, special motes (Attractors) influence other motes with a force similar to gravitation. The player has to take into account orbital physics when planning movement in order to save mass when changing course.

GBrainy

gbrainy is a brain teaser game and trainer to have fun and to keep your brain trained.

It provides the following types of games:

* Logic puzzles. Games designed to challenge your reasoning and thinking skills.
* Mental calculation. Games based on arithmetical operations designed to prove your mental calculation skills.
* Memory trainers. Games designed to challenge your short term memory.
* Verbal analogies. Games that challenge your verbal aptitude.

gbrainy provides different difficulty levels making gbrainy enjoyable for kids, adults or senior citizens. It also features player’s game history, player’s personal records, tips for the player, or fullscreen mode. gbrainy can be also extended easily with new games developed by third parties.

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