Yesterday I promised to get an Ubuntu version out soon knowing very well that we'd be very busy the next few days. I woke up a little earlier than planned and managed to find about 20 minutes to build, package and release an Ubuntu Linux version of the update I released yesterday for Windows. The sharp-eyed among you will note in that the .deb file contains an older revision number 1.0-1 - this isn't a regression, it's an artifact of how I'm putting together the .deb files (I'm using a template and manually editing things). I simply forgot to change the version number to something higher. I did test the .deb release and it installed over top the previous 1.0-4 release and ran perfectly.

I started looking at the "Debian" way of building software, but I think I need to read a lot more on the subject. For the moment I'm just trying my best to release both the Ubuntu and Windows versions in parallel - or at least as close to parallel as possible.

So what's the difference between the .deb and .zip file? Besides the size, the .deb file is install-able and takes care of the libcurl4 dependency. The .deb file will also remove any old (.deb) versions of Fasteroids. The .zip file when uncompressed is a stand-alone version of the game which you can unzip and run from any directory. If it doesn't run for you on your Linux platform try opening a terminal, changing to the directory where the fasteroids executable lives and run:

./fasteroids

This should spit any errors on to the screen. This was how I discovered libcurl4 was needed. Libcurl4 - what the heck? As I've compiled Fasteroids it depends on the GameMaker Studio (GMS) virtual machine to run, it's the GMS VM that requires the libcurl4 - I suspect because of network functions that GMS is capable of.

This update adds an updated menu system that's a bit more clear. I've also added a placeholder for some future options (one of which will let you choose game play setting: easy, normal, hard). Lastly the Asteroids now have a slight rotation to them. These are all small feel hacks that just make Fasteroids feel a bit more polished. I hope you enjoy the game and please feel free to comment here or message me on Twitter (@chaslinux) about Fasteroids.