Stars

Stars!

Stars! is a turn -based galactic conquest game that actually runs okay under Wine. It was one of the reasons I started looking at the demo, got hooked, and bought it. I'm willing to bet the next version, Stars! SuperNova, won't run worth a dang on it, but I probably won't even buy that version. Why, you ask? Well, allow me to answer that question in the form of shameless self-promotion: I've been plugging away on Stellar Legacy, a multiplatform game of similar purpose at http://stellarlegacy. sourceforge .net . Stars! does run on Wine, but every time it starts up, it says, "Hey, your machine configuration changed! Re-enter your serial number." This is a pain, and it's really, really weak copy protection. Figure 17-7 shows the basic screen, happily running under the January 12, 2001, version of Wine (20010112).

Figure 17-7. Stars! main screen.

The trick is not to watch any of the combat scenes. They'll hang up Wine right quick, though they worked about four months ago. This is unfortunately the way Wine works sometimes. It's just as well, really. If Stars! worked flawlessly under Wine, I'd never have finished this chapter, much less the book. Thankfully, Rogue Spear doesn't run at all under Wine! Interestingly enough, when Stars! bought the farm (that is, the copy running under Wine crashed hard), it took AIM down as well ”but stealthily. AIM appeared to be working fine, but it wasn't sending or receiving anything.