''Pingus'' is an open-source video game programmed by German developer Ingo Ruhnke. It is a clone of ''

Lemmings A lemming is a small rodent, usually found in or near the Arctic in tundra biomes. Lemmings form the subfamily Arvicolinae (also known as Microtinae) together with voles and muskrats, which form part of the superfamily Muroidea, which also include ...

'' with penguins instead of

lemming A lemming is a small rodent, usually found in or near the Arctic in tundra biomes. Lemmings form the subfamily Arvicolinae (also known as Microtinae) together with voles and muskrats, which form part of the superfamily Muroidea, which also includ ...

Gameplay

Pingus has 55 levels, grouped into 5 level sets, as well as 21 winter-themed tutorial levels. Pingus 0.7.2 introduced 'levelsets', which are lists of related levels; levels in levelsets usually must be completed in order. However, there are many more levels included with the game not accessible from its GUI, some with entirely different graphics.

Development

Work on the game began in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

. Version 0.6 was released in 2003 for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

, and featured new levels and a level editor. On February 11, 2006 the game began being

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

from ClanLib to

Simple DirectMedia Layer Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) is a cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in sever ...

(SDL). On August 27, 2007 version 0.7.0 (the first version to use SDL) was released. In addition to

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

and Linux, the switch to SDL enabled Pingus to be easily built on other platforms, including

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

's OS X. On September 23, 2007 version 0.7.1 was released with a new

level editor In video games, a level (also referred to as a map, stage, or round in some older games) is any space available to the player during the course of completion of an objective. Video game levels generally have progressively-increasing difficulty t ...

. On October 31, 2007, version 0.7.2 was released with a set of Halloween-themed levels. There is a Windows 0.7.6 and an Intel OS X binary of 0.7.2 available from the Pingus website. There is a PPC OS X binary of version 0.7.0, while version 0.7.3 contains minor bug fixes that allow the game to work better with the

GNU Compiler Collection The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is an optimizing compiler produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages, hardware architectures and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes GCC as free softwar ...

. The latest version, 0.7.6, adds additional

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

and Halloween-themed level sets. In July 2008, the game was relicensed from the GPL-2.0-or-later to the GPL-3.0-or-later.

Reception

This game was the first "Game of the Month" by The Linux Game Tome. Critics were favorable toward ''Pingus''. TechGage named Pingus among the "Top 10 Free Linux games" in 2006.

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

and

PC-Welt ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tec ...

ranked it as one of the best free games available for Linux. Thinkdigit 2009-05 ranked Pingus among the "Most addictive Linux games". Linux For You September 2009 ranked Pingus 5/5.Linux-For-You-Issue-80
in Linux For You (September 2009)

About.com Dotdash Meredith (formerly About.com) is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, home, food, finance, tech, beauty, ...

called it a great game, while acknowledging its debt to ''Lemmings''.

References

External links

Project home page

Pingus project
on

gitlab GitLab Inc. is an open-core company that operates GitLab, a DevOps software package which can develop, secure, and operate software. The open source software project was created by Ukrainian developer Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Dutch developer ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pingus (Video Game) 2003 video games Fangames Free educational software Linux games MacOS games Puzzle video games Open-source video games Windows games Video game clones Video games developed in Germany

Gameplay

Development

Reception

See also

References

External links