PD World
Paul Brett with the latest freeware and PD releases for RISC OS.
Welcome back to our regular flick through all that's new for RISC OS. We are making a slight change this issue and as such, instead of us concentrating on serious applications I am delighted to say that this time the PD coumn will suffer a glorious reformation and will, for one issue only, turn into GamesWorld.
As regular readers will recall the lack of new gaming releases for RISC OS meant that I had to reluctantly end the GamesWorld series at the ne of Volume 8. However I did say that it would return if there were enough new RISC OS gaming releases for use to cover. Well GamesWorld is back, which must mean there are more games to play. Indeed there are, so lets start with a new version of an old favourite:
SuperDoku Version 1.16
This updated version of SuperDkou introduces a new type of puzzle: colour-coded. These are similar to standard Sudoku puzzles except that some squares are coloured to indicate that they can only contain a smaller range of values. A key is provided so that you can see what range of nunbers applies to each colour. In addition draw file versions of the puzzles can also be exported in full colour, earlier versions only allowed files to be exported in black and white.
SuperDoku
I am sure that most readers will have heard of SuperDoku, but for those that have not it is an advanced Sudoku generating and solving program. Users can type in your own puzzles, or have puzzles created at three levels of difficulty. SuperDoku will provide hints on how to solve puzzles and for the trult lazy can also sole them for you. Incomplete puzzles can be saved so that they can be completed at a later date.
A wide variety of different shapes, sizes and styles of puzzle are available including all the usual sizes. In addition there are 5 puzzle types including, Normal, Killer, Comparison, Hidden word and the new Colour Coded puzzles. The demo version which I have included provides over 1000 different puzzles. The full vesion costs £5. Full details are provided in the archive.
AlephOne
AlephOne is a 3D first person shooter engine. It is not a game in itwelf, but allows various freely available 3D fist person shooters to be played on RISC OS. I've included a copy of Marathon1, but further games can be downloaded from a number of sites, including http://trilogyrelease.bungie.org.
Aleph1 playing the Marathon 1 game
The SDL games played by Aleph One are based on versions of various games by Bungie Software. This new version has been tested on the Iyonix, but shouddl still be suitable for fast StrongARM RiscPCs and for VirtualRPCs. It should also, although I have not tried it, run on an A9. This release of AlephOne is an updated version and replaces the one that was released some time ago by the Unix Porting Project.
Battle for Wesnoth
Finally here is an updated copy of Battle for Wesnoth, the popular free turned based strategy game with a fantasy theme. There have been a number of improvements to the RISC OS version of this game by Christopher Martin, including a number of speed improvements.
Battle for Wesnoth
At 134Mb this version is almost twice the size of the previous release and includes all the official scenareos for the game. As this is a big game you will need to be patient when waiting for it to load. It can take several minutes, even on an Iyonix. In the case of any problems the game automatically saves your current session so you can re-start from where you left off easily.
This release has only been tested on an Iyonix, but should work fine on the A9.
Paul Brett