I love Metanets N game (you know, the one with the ninja), but for too long their official Linux release had problems: sound issues, poor performance on powerful machines etc...
I waited for them to update, One, year, two years, and by the third year I got tired of waiting. The last Linux release was in 2005, and you could barely get the ancient flash player to run (you needed to download some out-of-date libC libraries, etc..) so I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I got the latest Windows release, decompiled it, stripped out the game and repackged it into Adobe's latest Linux Flash 9 player. Once I did this the game become much better for Linux. These are some of the benefits of this version:
Once I did this, I was unsure about releasing it. I gave a few copies to friends, who all agreed that it was a hell of an improvement on the official release, but I never put it onto the internet. I emailed the people at Metanet software about what I had done and asked if they would be ok with me distributing it, even maybe helping them maintain the Linux version, but I got no answer :(
After trying to contact them over the course of another year, I gave up and posted it here, figuring that if they really hate what I have done, they can contact me and tell me to remove it.
Just to be clear though. I am in no way claiming ownership of this game or any intellectual property/copyrights/etc.. from it. All I did was repackage it in a way so that it is more acceptable to the Linux community. The game is identical to Metanet's version (no unofficial changes) and they still hold all the rights to it. (sorry for this paragraph, just wanted to cover all the bases, you know...)
So, you interested? Download link below!
The download is a binary flash file (flash being proprietery and all), so save it somewhere and double-click on it to run (you might need to set it executable). That's about it really.
Well, the forum topic over at the Ubuntu forums ended up being the most active of all of them, so it has transformed into an unofficial support thread, you can find it here. Unfortunately it is unlikely I will ever be on the official Metanet forum ( I can't log-in or even register with them, are their forums locked or did they just block me? Email me if you can use their forums) and as such, I will mostly hang around the Ubuntu thread.
UPDATE: The Ubuntu thread has been archived, so I cannot post any more replies :( I may have to switch over to another forum.
I will probably move it to the archlinux forum, so you can post questions/issues there Scratch that, Just contact me if you are having issues.
Update: Some people emailed regarding issues getting window focus (I.e. things like keys being unresponsive). This is due to interaction issues between the Flash player and certain window managers. It can also be caused by the compiz renderer and sometimes in fullscreen mode. Sorry but as the underlying flash player is still proprietery I can't do much to fix the bugs.
I can recommend trying different window managers, disabling compiz effects for this app alone and not running fullscreen (try maximised instead).
2010, and still people play the game :) Always nice to see. It's damn addictive! :P This game must be old now, when did it come out? like in 2002 or something? I was still in school when it did!
If you have taken it upon yourself to maintain a package for your distribution of choice, get in touch and we can post your details here, along with the link to the rpm/deb/etc... for others to use.
Update, I think ArchLinux has a binary packager, I remember seeing it in AUR at some point.