Tagua, a generic boardgame for KDE, is approaching version 1.0, and the developers decided it's time to get the word out on this exceptionally cool application by releasing a first Alpha. Read on for more!

On May 1st, the KDE games developer community held its monthly IRC meeting. This time the major topic was discussing which games would stay in the kdegames module for KDE 4 and which ones would have to be removed because they don't meet our self-imposed quality standards. Read on for a discussion of this decision.

Atlantik will adopt KSVG to render game boards. KSVG, KDE's implementation of the Scalable Vector Graphics specification, will be included in KDE 3.2, adding support for a growing technology. KSVG has been maturing in the kdenonbeta development module for a long while and the enthusiasm of the developers is spreading to other parts of KDE. Atlantik, the leading open-source game client for Monopoly-like board games, is one of the first KDE applications slated to adopt KSVG for more than fancy icons.

After a bit of a hiatus, Boson (screenshots), the Real Time Stragegy game for KDE, is back in swing. Since development restarted in late 2001, the game has been completely rewritten and ported to libkdegames. As a result of the recent development, Boson 0.6 has been released. The full announcement is below.

It's a well-kept secret that KDE games are no longer toys but maturing entertainment applications. Games such as KMines (link updated) demonstrate the concept of global highscores as well as general plans to provide an online gaming framework. We're pleased to announce that the GGZ Gaming Zone, an open alternative to Microsoft's Gaming Zone, adds to the arsenal of KDE gaming resources with the 0.0.4 release. KDE frontends and games are now available (screenshots), with more planned in the future. Read on for an overview of GGZ in the KDE context.

KBattleship is a TCP/IP-based boardgame similar to the common game played on a sheet of paper, where two players try to battle the other's fleet. KBattleship has just been moved into the KDE Games package and will be publicly available with the KDE 2.2 release. For the moment, you can only get it via APPS.KDE.com, anonymous CVS, CVSup, or a recent kdegames snapshot. Check it out!

Martin Heni, the reigning master of games.kde.org, sent this note for our readers interested in game development: "Josef Spillner has arranged the opening of a
new KDE mailing list called kde-games-devel@kde.org
which has its mailman webpage
here. It is intended for all discussions related to games development
under KDE/Qt."
They are looking for ideas and developers regarding current as well as new KDE games. Artists are also needed. Further information is available at games.kde.org.

On Monday, October the 30th, the real-time, multiplayer strategy game Boson
will be released in its newest version, 0.5. Although the game's playability
is still quite limited, this release represents a major milestone since it now is based on QT 2.2.1 & KDE 2.0 and features many
enhancements plus new graphics. The Boson Team hereby invites you to our IRC release party on the
date mentioned above at around 1800 GMT on channel #boson in the Open Projects
IRC network (i.e. irc.kde.org).

Last week we reported on the launch of the KDE Games Center. The site designers continue to build the site and it looks to want to satisfy both gamers and developers. Yesterday they added a news section and today launched a "Top 10 KDE Games" section. Bravo, Martin and Andreas! If you're interested in games (and who isn't), maybe you can help out -- a nice "Help Wanted" list can be found here.

Surfing the official KDE website, I found the budding KDE Games Center where you can find a list of games based on KDE (and not only those included in KDE). There are also several links to developer resources such as AI, network programming,...
If you develop a game for KDE, then please contact Martin Heni with the info.