FOSSwire

It's been some time since the last Games post here at FOSSwire. Free software isn't all work and no play, right?

We have briefly mentioned both subjects of this Games post before, in a round-up of 13 great open source games, but never in much detail.

Neverball

First of all, to Neverball.

If you've ever played a certain game containing the words Ball, Monkey and Super, but not necessarily in that order, you'll be right at home. The aim of the game is to direct the ball on screen to collect the coins and then get to the targeted exit.

You control the ball by moving the mouse, which tilts the 'board' and hence makes the ball move across it. It sounds simple, but on the harder levels quickly becomes challenging. If you tilt too much, the ball starts moving very quickly and is very difficult to precisely control!

It's a simple concept, dangerously addictive and it might even cause you to tear just a little bit of hair out at times.

Neverputt

Neverputt is based on the same engine and Neverball and is often packaged together with it. As the title suggests, however, Neverputt is a golf game.

To be more precise, it is more of a mini-golf/crazy golf game with an arcade feel. There are three different courses available, each varying in difficulty.

Again, the gameplay is refreshingly simple. You just aim the mouse in the direction you want to drive, pulling it back for more power and click to make your shot.

Of course, I mentioned 'crazy', so as you progress through, you will meet different obstacles which will make getting the ball into the hole a little more interesting.

Neverputt is personally my favourite of the two, especially when you make use of its hot-seat multiplayer feature. Just make sure you play alone for a while to get some practice first!

How and Where Can I Play?

Neverball and Neverputt should be available in almost all modern Linux distributions in one package called neverball. Search for that in the software management program and choose to install the package (or try clicking Install Now at the top if you're on that machine right now).

You will need a machine that is configured to have 3D acceleration enabled and a reasonable level of graphics horsepower, as both games make use of fancy OpenGL graphics.

Windows and Mac OS X versions can be downloaded from the Neverball website.

Interestingly, there's also a version of Neverputt available for the iPhone and iPod touch platform. It's not free (£0.59 here in the UK store or I'd imagine $0.99 in the US) but it is based on the open source Neverball engine and is created with full permission of the original author. It can be found on this iTunes Store link.

TechCrunch IT are reporting that Nokia has bought Symbian Ltd, the software development company famous for creating the proprietary operating system for mobile devices, Symbian OS.

The important part of this story is that Nokia plan to release the Symbian OS under the open source Eclipse Public Licence. This is obvious a great move from an open source point of view, and will truly open up the Symbian platform.

Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO announced today their intent to unite Symbian OS(TM), S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform. Together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone they plan to establish the Symbian Foundation to extend the appeal of this unified software platform.

I find the 'one open mobile software platform' line quite ironic, as this looks suspiciously like a direct response to the Google-backed Android project, to develop a free, open source mobile platform.

This move clearly underlines how important the mobile software space is becoming, and how the open source development model is playing a very significant role in the innovation of this upcoming technology.

I'm by no means an expert on this, but it really does now look like there are four serious competitors in the race to build a mobile device and software platform:

• Windows Mobile
• Apple iPhone*
• Android
• Symbian

Cruically, the last two of those efforts are now open source. This should prove a real-world test as to whether the advantage of the open source development model can mean it will win over the proprietary offerings.

Some healthy competition between the newly open Symbian and Android should help drive innovation, but this could also lead to unnecessary duplication of features and functionality across the two competing systems. On the flip side, if licensing issues can be addressed, there might be a good opportunity for a certain level of collaboration and cooperation between the two.

So, let the games begin.

* Apple's model is a little different, as they are again going to retain control over both hardware and software for their platform (just as they do with their Macintosh computers). Time will tell whether this hardware-specific approach or a software licensing approach will work best.