FreeVikings

FreeVikings game reimplements the DOS game Lost Vikings.

One evening I was playing with toys like Emacs (my favourite text editor) and Ruby (my favourite high-level programming language) and I dreamed about playing one very nice game, Lost Vikings, on Linux. Without DOS emulator.

If only I had the source code... I would change it to run on my favourite operating system. But it's a commercial game and it's manufacturers don't want to make it free, although it's rather old (1993). "Let you make it from scratch." I said to myself and started writing my first game in Ruby.

Requirements:

� To get freeVikings running you have to have installed Ruby, SDL library and it's extensions SDL_image, SDL_gfx and SDL_TTF. For Ruby you also need some extensions. RUDL (version equal or higher then 0.7), REXML, Log4r, and script. You can find them all in Ruby application archive - RAA. Actually you can have received some of them with your Ruby distribution (very generous is the Ruby one-click installer for Windows).

What is new in this release:

• A corrupted file (preserving error already fixed before release 0.8) somehow got into 0.8. This release fixes that problem.

What is new in version 0.8:

• This release is again focused on the "core" and doesn't bring any new content, but improvements in user interface and configurability are significant.
• The most important new feature is possibly the user's configuration file.
• For the player's comfort, campaign selection can be done in a menu as well as through a command-line option.
• The order of the vikings can be changed as well as placement of the status panel.
• Double-clicking on an item in the inventory uses it.

What is new in version 0.7:

• This release contains man user-visible changes, and brings a new set of three levels in hopefully better graphic style.
• You will meet several new kinds of objects there (ladder, bomb, two species of troll).
• You may also find out what Thor, the vikings' god of thunder, thinks of Christmas.
• A subset of the controls from "Lost Vikings 2" is supported now (together with well known controls from "Lost Vikings 1").
• Proper visualization of drag-and-drop has been added.

What is new in version 0.6:

• This release contains a new demo level that shows many new features (a simple 'story-telling' engine and new game objects: a boat, piranhas, etc.).
• The amount of required libraries has been reduced.
• The menu has been slightly improved, i.e. mouse support has been implemented.
• A crash when freeVikings was run with RubyGems present has been fixed.
• A new manual for users should be helpful during installation and first playing.

What is new in version 0.5 / 0.6 Pre 3:

• Because Tiled 0.7 has been released and it uses a slightly different map format, support for this new format has been implemented.
• As a new feature, this version brings a teleport, which can move even some monsters.