Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   I’ve got two simulation games for you today (Tuesday), well three or even four actually, though one was already posted in the forums, but not as part of this project and one is the original version of Lin City-NG which is now abandonware. I’m posting this a little early to free up some time so that I can spend the whole of Tuesday with my children instead of working on what I was going to post. They return to school on Wednesday after a long summer break, so I thought it would be nice to do something with the family instead of sitting in front of the computer all day.

   I've not given a seperate section to Simutrans, just a link at the bottom of the thread, plus a link to the original source on these forums.

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   Lin City - NG (30.9Mb)

   LinCity-NG is a city simulation game. It is a polished and improved version of the classic LinCity game which you can also get for free from one of the links below. In the game, you are required to build and maintain a city. You can win the game either by building a sustainable economy or by evacuating all citizens with spaceships.

   Download

   This game is available for all the major platforms. I’ve posted a link to the windows version then included a link that gives you access to all the others:

   http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/wiki/index.php/Download/Installation

   The only video I could find about the game was a how to install video which you can see:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySWDRwHfFI0

   download link for all platforms:

   http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/wiki/index.php/Download/Installation

   or

   http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2929&release_id=15730

   The original Lincity can be downloaded from the following link:

   http://www.acid-play.com/download/lincity/

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   Here’s another similar project called Unknown Horizons, though instead of developing a city you're developing a world trading route. If you missed the Steam deal last week for 1701 AD then this may compensate a little as it’s based on that particular series of games.

   Unknown Horizons: (40.7Mb)

   Unkown Horizons is based on a game series by Sunflowers/Ubisoft. The first game of the series was "Anno 1602: Creation of a New World" or in the USA, Canada and Australia "1602 A.D.". Anno is with 4.4 million sold copies the most successful game ever created from the German-speaking world. There were two sequels, "Anno 1503" or "1503 A.D.: The New World" in North America and "Anno 1701" or "1701 A.D.". The third sequel will be released as "Anno 1404" in 2009.

   The player starts with a ship somewhere amid an archipelago. The goal of the game is to found some cities on the islands and to earn money. The player is able to trade with indigenous people or competitors or to attack them with his armada or army. He's able to build among other things production lines and residental buildings. All buildings need money and materials like wood or stone as building material. The inhabitants need basic stuff like food and a church in their neighbourhood. The player have to build companies to produce this stuff. The more stuff the inhabitants have, the higher would be their cultivation. The scale ranges from pioneers to aristocrats (in total five gradations).

   Reference: http://www.unknown-horizons.org/site/index.php?page=game accessed Aug 09

   Unknown Horizons Manual:

   http://www.unknown-horizons.org/site/index.php?page=manual

   Download Link: (versions for Windows and sub versions of Linux)

   http://www.unknown-horizons.org/site/index.php?page=download

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   There’s a third sim game called Simutrans (5.15Mb) that was mentioned in the forums several months ago by Campy :

   http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4032#post-43358

   but hasn’t been included in this project before so I thought I'd tag it on at the bottom of the thread. This is another take on simulation games, though instead of developing a trade routes and cities your developing transport links. All three are worth checking out imo, though i'm busy with Anno 14014 and 1701AD at the moment, so have only dipped into these games to see if they were suitable for the project. You can find details and a download link via the following link:

   http://www.simutrans.com/

   =======================================================================

   Posted 15 years ago #
2. 

   thenameipicked
   Member

   Wow...these are skipping my to-do folder, straight to my desktop :P Thanks!

   Posted 15 years ago #
3. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   Glad you like them. All three are excellent freebies.

   Posted 15 years ago #
4. 

   pavid
   gamer extraordinaire & knowledgeable computer nerd who likes to argue, but is still a very nice guy

   Unknown Horizons was recently mentioned by MakeUseof.com. Their information about the game is as follows:

   Unknown Horizons is a free colony simulation game that lets you experience what it would have been like to start a colony – to strike out in search of unknown horizons.

   Game Start & Settings

   What impressed me about this game is that even though it is free and open source (available for either Windows or Linux) – you get the impression that it’s a commercial game. The graphics and the soundtrack are enthralling, and will immediately draw you in. From the main menu, you’ll see a ship steering wheel with options to configure the settings, view the help menu or start playing a game session.

   

   Keep in mind that while this game is a fully functioning colony simulation, you’ll come across a few premium features, like multiplayer mode, that aren’t implemented. With that said, the core of the game offers an awesome game playing experience. The settings menu lets you define the resolution, colors and rendering engine that works best on your machine.

   

   When you start a new game, you can define whether you want a defined “campaign” or just free play. Random map isn’t active yet. In Campaign mode, you have certain goals to reach before moving on to the next map. In Free Play mode, you simply land on a massive island and work indefinitely toward building a strong and thriving colony.

   

   Landing & Founding A New Settlement

   Once you launch the colony simulation game, you’ll find yourself just approaching new land. The control system to the right displays a world map, all ships, and all of the controls.

   

   Once you locate a good area that looks like it has plenty of trees and wildlife (you’ll actually see animals walking around and grazing), go ahead and press the little “anchor” button on the control menu under the picture of your ship. You’ve just founded your first settlement!

   

   Remember to unload the supplies (food, lumber and tools) off your ship, or life won’t be easy for you! Also, even after your settlement has started, your ship is still useful for trade.

   

   You’ll immediately want to start building the basic structures for survival. Specifically, you’ll set up a lumberjack to start creating lumber so you can build structures, and you’ll want a central village area where members of the colony can come to exchange supplies. Toss up a few tents and you’ve got yourself the early beginnings of a colony.

   

   Once you get rolling, you’ll quickly discover that the real trick of this game is to master the balance between supply and demand. Your colonists will produce lumber, food, tools, textiles and bricks (in time), but they’ll also consume as well. If anything gets off balance, you’ll watch your funds sink faster than a brick in a pond. All of these balances are displayed at the top of the screen.

   

   At each stage in the game, you’ll have available structures you can build, which add to the productivity or serve the needs of the colony. These show up under the build menu on your control panel. Every level opens up a new build menu (labeled with I, II, II, etc..) which allows for new and more advanced structures.

   

   Part of the balancing act also comes from making efficient use of the land. Each structure you build will show you the area of land that it can manage. Here, you can see that the farm can manage about one square of land all the way around it. If you build farmland or sheep grazing anywhere outside of this range, it will go untended. Build other structures on available farmland (as I’ve done here), and you’ve just wasted precious farmland.

   

   Unknown Horizons is one of those few games that I could see spending many hours playing some Sunday afternoon, just to pass the time and relax. It’s fun to watch your colonists toil away, and to watch the colony goods multiply. Make the wrong decision, and you could watch the entire enterprise fall apart before your eyes.

   Posted 14 years ago #
5. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   Thanks for the update pavid. Thid game is constantly being updated as well. Cool game. Thanks for adding the images. :)

   Posted 14 years ago #
6. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   Thanks for the update pavid. Thid game is constantly being updated as well. Cool game. Thanks for adding the images. :)

   Posted 14 years ago #

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