Crack Attack!
| Crack Attack! | |
|---|---|
 Crack Attack! 1.1.14 | |
| Genre | Puzzle, Tetris-like |
| Latest release | 1.1.14 (Announcement) |
| Release date | May 14th, 2005 |
| Platform | GNU/Linux, Windows, macOS |
| Developers | Daniel Nelson, Andrew Sayman |
| Code license | GPLv2[1] |
| P. language | C++ |
| Library | OpenGL, GLUT, SDL, cairo |
| Homepage | https://www.nongnu.org/crack-attack/ |
| Contribute | |
| Crack Attack! is a free game. This means that the source code and media files are available to be studied, modified, and distributed. Most projects look for help with testing, documentation, graphics, etc., as well. | |
 Debian:
|
crack-attack |
|---|---|
 Fedora:
|
crack-attack |
 FreeBSD:
|
crack-attack |
 Gentoo:
|
games-arcade/crack-attack |
 Mageia:
|
crack-attack |
 openSUSE:
|
crack-attack |
 Ubuntu:
|
crack-attack |
Crack Attack! is a puzzle game by Daniel Nelson and Andrew Sayman, a clone of Nintendo's Tetris Attack. It is written in C++ using OpenGL, and also relies on GLUT, SDL and cairo. It runs on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, and is licensed under the GPL. The last stable version, 1.1.14, was released on May 14th, 2005.
Gameplay[edit]
The playfield keeps filling with coloured blocks pushed up from the bottom, and the aim is to stop the stack from reaching the top. Moving a cursor, the player swaps neighbouring blocks; lining up three or more of the same colour, in a row or a column, clears them. Clearing groups back-to-back or triggering chain reactions dumps "garbage" onto the opponent — or onto oneself in solo play. The whole thing gradually speeds up as a round goes on.
Available modes are a solo score attack, a two-player duel (shared screen, over a network, or against the computer), and an X-treme variant that adds further block and garbage types to raise the difficulty.
Development[edit]
The game was started by Daniel Nelson around 2000 and had made its way into Debian by the end of 2001. Andrew Sayman took over maintenance at release 1.1.10 and put out what turned out to be the last stable build, 1.1.14, in May 2005 — bringing a soundtrack by Miguel Ángel Vilela, a cut-down graphics mode for weaker hardware and a computer opponent.
A 1.1.15 alpha appeared in June 2006, chiefly to trial a new ENet-based network layer, which broke compatibility with older clients; Thorbjørn Lindeijer lent a hand on graphics and networking around then. That build never reached a stable release, and in 2012 Sayman wrote on his blog that he had let the project go.[2]
Ports[edit]
Mac OS X was first handled by Jeff Disher; Daniel Aarno later put together a more rounded port, Mac Crack Attack!, adding sound, a full-screen mode and a Cocoa front-end. Aarno's version far outlasted the original — a 2021 build still runs on recent Intel and Apple-silicon Macs.[3] The game also reached the Wii through a homebrew port by Alberto Mardegan, released on the Open Shop Channel in 2024.[4]
Contributors[edit]
- Daniel Nelson: original author;
- Andrew Sayman: maintainer (from version 1.1.10);
- Miguel Ángel Vilela: sound;
- Thorbjørn Lindeijer: rendering & networking;
- Kevin Webb: co-developer.
Reception and distribution[edit]
Packages exist for most large Linux distributions, and the game is still looked after in Debian by the Debian Games team.[5] It shipped out of the box on the Asus Eee PC, showed up on plenty of magazine cover discs between 2004 and 2010, and had a listing on The Linux Game Tome. In its 2025 farewell issue, Linux Format picked it — alongside Unreal Tournament — as one of the magazine's two informal favourites.[6]