About
Asteroids is a 1979 multidirectional shooter by Atari in which the player pilots a ship through an asteroid field, shooting asteroids and flying saucers while avoiding collisions and enemy fire. xhyperoid is a Unix/Linux/X11 port (via GTK+, with an alternative svgalib build) of Hyperoid, a 1991 Windows 3.x game by Edward Hutchins that itself enhanced the Asteroids formula. The port was originally done by Russell Marks in 2000 and later forked on GitHub by Andy Kosela in 2019, with both the X (xhyperoid) and svgalib (vhyperoid) builds compiled via 'make xwin' or 'make vga'.
How it differs from the original
As the readme notes, Hyperoid itself already added extra game physics and features on top of Asteroids' original arcade formula; this Unix port additionally adds sound, which the original Windows 3.x release lacked.
Getting started
Build the X11 version with 'make xwin' (requires GTK+) or the svgalib version with 'make vga', then install with 'make install' as root. On modern Linux systems using ALSA instead of the game's original OSS audio, run it through the alsa-oss compatibility wrapper, e.g. 'aoss vhyperoid'; the manual page documents controls and other non-obvious details.
History
Hyperoid originated as a Windows 3.x game by Edward Hutchins in 1991; Russell Marks ported it to Unix/Linux in 2000, and Andy Kosela forked that port to GitHub in 2019.
Known limitations
- audio: The svgalib version uses obsolete OSS and requires alsa-oss compatibility package to work with modern ALSA.