All about the beta!

Beware traveller. I am here to slay your computer. Unstable fun awaits, betas with bits that may break your bit cruncher. That's what open source is about. Blowing up people's PCs with untested, untried, untrustworthy alpha and beta amateur programmer software! Well, perhaps some of the programmers are not amateurs...

Good news, settlers of the new world! (Or those who feel like settling new worlds but were born in the wrong period of history.) FreeCol 0.10-alpha has been released. Get it from the unstable version download area of their website (the current stable version is 0.9.5).

Speaking of Free* games, did the latest FreeCiv beta get a mention? FreeCiv 2.3.0-beta1 supports gigantic maps and over a hundred simultaneous players.

Development of VDrift is, as ever, ongoing. You can test out build 3030 put together on the 25th Jan. After a period of suffering regressions, some changes have been sidelined to bring the main development branch back to a more stable, playable state. It plays well, although - after the being seeing the deforming crashes on Rigs of Rods - I'd like to see the cars sustain damage. I know, I know, lots of work, little gameplay gain. I'm fickle.

OpenTTD is ramping up to another major release with 1.1.0 beta4. OpenTTD 1.1.0 seems to be really focusing on a combination of network play enhancements and compatibility with the Transport Tycoon Deluxe modding community. Free free to correct me if I am wrong.

MegaGlest continues to enjoy rapid development with 3.4.0 beta2. They embody the, "Release early, release often!" philosophy that I like to parrot.

Cool websites for projects? MegaGlest has one coming. UFO2000 has a sweet homepage. Peragro Tempus too. What are your favourites?

P.S. no screenshots or videos today, sorry!