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Open-Source, Free Games
For those of you who may be too poor to afford the latest AAA titles, or just don't want to support policies like micro-transactions and "If you're offended, just don't buy it", there are many open-source and/or free games that can tide you over. Some of my favorites are:
- FreeCiv: A civilization building game based on Sid Meier's Civilization 1 and 2
- OpenTTD: A transport network building game based off of Chris Sawyer's Transport Tycoon Deluxe
- Dwarf Fortress: Not Open-Source - fortress colony management simulator with an additional RPG gamemode
Do you guys have any other free, possibly open-source games that you would recommend?
Nethack is an open source dungeon adventure that's been around for over 30 years now and was one of the first games to be called "roguelike", long before the word acquired a slightly new meaning in the late 2000s. Despite playing it for almost three decades, I've never been able to complete it (I've been close twice!) and I still discover new secrets when I play.
The Ur-Quan Masters is an open source port and update of the classic Star Control II, a game that among other things inspired the Mass Effect series. Absolutely brilliant and quite funny!
The Battle for Wesnoth is a lovely fantasy strategy game somewhat reminiscent of the Warlords series from the 90s.
Nethack is also actively antagonistic toward player success, gleefully ignoring so many lessons of good game design and letting the player actively put themselves into a situation where they either cannot win or will die. I would absolutely not recommend it as someone's first roguelike because of how much it actively wants the player to suffer. Nethack was my first roguelike and it was so unkind that it convinced me I hated roguelikes. Then I tried some others and learned that, no, it's just Nethack.
You are absolutely correct that Nethack is not everyone's cup of tea and I'm certainly aware that this topic really divides players, like Coke and Pepsi or something. Sorry, I'm getting my liquid metaphors all mixed up here.
Anyway, my experience has been pretty much the opposite from yours. The Moria-based roguelikes like Angband just never really clicked with me at all. I'm not exactly sure why, but I suppose it's probably because I feel Nethack is more of a randomly generated puzzle game than a real RPG, because of Nethack's humour, because of Nethack feeling less grindy than for instance Angband, because I'm a bit allergic to Tolkien, and because for these reasons I simply played it more early on and therefore feel more at home in that world now.
Similarly, while I have checked newer iterations in the genre and can recognise the qualities of games like Linley's Dungeon Crawl and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, they just always make me return to Nethack in the end. I guess partly out of habit by now.
There was one exception, though. In fact, I may actually have spent more combined time in my life playing ADOM than Nethack. There was a period when I got really, really sucked into it, but for some reason I haven't touched it for close to twenty years now, whereas I still dip into Nethack at least once a year. Nethack's Android port is actually one of the first apps that I install on a new phone, even if I rarely play it there (the controls are quite horrible on a touch screen) other than when bored on an airplane or something. It just feels good to know that it's there.
I have occasionally looked at the Steam page for the new ADOM, but haven't taken a bite yet. I probably should, if only to pay the creator for the countless hours that I spent with his game back in the day. I did send him a postcard in 1996 though, so I feel I have done my part in supporting the development (or maybe not).
As for Nethack's alleged antagonism towards the player, it doesn't bother me. I suppose it's because of the way I see it as a sandbox puzzle game, and not as something to be completed. I just like to jump in, make a run and enjoy what happens, while making note of how far I managed to get this time.
Because of this, the game's later levels are also quite beyond me. In order to really git gud, I should probably read spoilers and guides, but that's not why I enter the dungeon. For me, Nethack is like Pacman, I turn it on and play, and no matter how well I do, ultimately I die. And I really like that game loop.
Any recommendations of good rougelikes? Nethack was also my first and since then, I don't enjoy them. Roguelites are fun though.
First, thank you for differentiating between roguelike and roguelite, especially in this discussion.
To answer your question, it depends upon what you like! Probably the biggest question is: how do you feel about fantasy settings? Lots of roguelikes have a fantasy setting, but a few don't. What are you looking for in a roguelike? That's another important question. Does the game need to be in active development or are you okay playing something frozen in time?
edit: tyop
I'm a fantasy guy primarily, as well preferring graphical as opposed to ASCII style games.
I didn't actually know that roguelite was a thing, constantly thinking it was a typo. Just learned what it meant a few months ago, despite having played roguelites.
I should point out that I prefer ASCII graphics, so while I'm going to make suggestions that have graphical options, I haven't tested them extensively so can't comment on them.
First, there are the suggestions in this post. I really like Angband, but Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup has a lot of good ideas as well. Angband has a lot of Tolkien inspiration, whereas DCSS has its own original world. TOME used to be called Tales of Middle Earth (as a derivative of Angband), but moved to its own world. If you want something with more of a sense of humor and you're fine paying a few dollars, Dungeons of Dredmor offers more complexity than just about anything I've mentioned already. It's a truly graphical roguelike in that it's not just randomly-generated with permadeath like the roguelites but it's also turn- and grid-based with a focus on tactical combat, etc., all the stuff you'd expect from the Berlin interpretation.
Is there a non-fantasy roguelike that you would particularly recommend? I've never found a good one but would love to try one again!
Sadly there aren't many. :( Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (also mentioned in this thread) is probably the only one that meets the open source and free criteria. It's survival horror-themed, with Lovecraftian elements (which you might consider fantastical). Cogmind definitely meets the non-fantasy criterion, but it's neither free nor open source. The Wikipedia list of roguelikes doesn't even have much outside of that. If you sort by the setting column (click / tap it), you'll see that almost everything on the list has fantasy elements.
This is definitely an untapped combination of setting and mechanics if any prospective game developers are reading!
edit: If you're interested in roguelites, I can give you a number of good suggestions, but non-fantasy roguelikes are very rare.
Thanks! I think I'll give Cogmind a try.
I have this very vague memory of playing a sci-fi roguelike in the early 90s, but can't for the life of me remember what it was called or whether it really existed. I did a bit of googling and it could in theory be JauntTrooper, although in my head it had ascii graphics. Or I could be getting my decades mixed up and it was actually ZAPM, which I definitely have played at some point.
Anyway, here are a couple of other sci-fi roguelikes that I encountered while doing research: Ascii Sector, Prospector, Eversector, AliensRL, and Xenomarine. I haven't played any of these.
I've seen ToME, Angband, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, and several others mentioned - all free and worth a spin.
I shall. Thanks!
The Ur-Quan Masters is fantastic! We should mention Ur-Quan Masters HD, which is the more or less a modernized version of the same game.
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, a roguelike set in a modern, post-apocalyptic world plagued by zombies. It has a huge amount of depth, despite the fact that Z-levels have yet to land in the latest stable release (ignore it, 0.C is from 2015, just use experimental).
Edit: also, The Powder Toy. It's a falling sand game/physics sandbox game with heat, electricity and pressure - you can literally draw a nuke, or a nuclear reactor, or even a CPU. I wasted a lot of time in my second year of uni with this, had a lot of fun, and I was working on my own calculator (I had gotten an adder done).
Edit II, the return: oh! I'm not sure if OpenMW really counts as FOSS (you still need the assets from the original game IIRC), but the engine itself definitely is - and probably a better way to play Morrowind under Linux than going through Wine.
Edit III, revenge of the edit: as of 2019-03-27, Cataclysm: DDA apparently moved from the
en.cataclysmdda.orgsubdomain to a barecataclysmdda.organd added HTTPS. They also released a new stable version on 2019-03-08, 0.D (Danny), consisting of the 37k+ commits made in the last three-four years.I came here to suggest Cataclysm. It is an absolute blast, and the stories that come out of it are fantastic. One of my favourite moments was when my character was drinking a smoothie made out of his former friend, reading a book by the light of a fire fuelled by the rest of that same guy.
I fell in love with it when I accidentally set the tutorial on fire - the walls came down and I escaped, singed, into the game world. It was magnificent.
Those are pretty cool games! Never could work around buiding neat Powder Toy stuff so i'd just make a pressurized volcano.
I suppose if we're going to count OpenMW, I like OpenRCT2 as well.
If we're going to count OpenMW, then we should absolutely count all of the Doom, Hexen, Heretic, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, and similar source ports.
Given how much you like complexity, have you tried AI War? It's neither free nor open source, but it definitely has the complexity that you're talking about.
Additionally, I wonder if something like Wine or ReactOS could be tweaked to remove those API limitations to get a lot more performance out of the game--if they even exist in those implementations.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup: A pretty easy to learn rogue-like, can be played in the browser
Note that, as is usual of a proper roguelike, there's still a lot of complexity in DCSS. Further, as the game is under active development (0.23 was just released two weeks ago), that complexity is changing. There's a lot of depth if you want to dig into it. A benefit of playing online is that it's easy to play an older version if that's what you're into. Again, I find myself liking older versions, so that's convenient. If you're so inclined, you can also build an older version from source, which is what I do.
0 AD it's an age of empires style rts that seems like it has some promise. Still early in the development though.
Ahhh 0AD. It's been early development for as long as I've been using Linux!
FreeOrion a 4X game in the style of Master of Orion.
I'm not allowed to install it because otherwise I lose all my time to it.
I just recently started playing Xonotic and the community really is friendly. Everyone is just there to play and have fun, and no one really stresses about winning or rankings or anything. You have to catch it at the right time though, as the servers can be pretty dead during the day.
StepMania is an open-source clone of Dance Dance Revolution with many added features such as the ability to download and play custom songs (from here and here, mainly), themes, keyboard and USB pad support, speed mods and more.
Pixel Dungeon and all of the various rebuilds are pretty nice as far as phone roguelikes go.
Tales of Maj’Eyal (ToME) is a free, open source roguelike RPG.
ToME on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Maj%27Eyal
And there are many Angband variants which are both free and open-source. More: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=List_of_Angband_variants
Just to clarify the comment here, Angband is itself another roguelike (one of the oldest, around the same vintage as Nethack). It derived from Moria (so old it doesn't have an official website, unless you count a rewrite (I don't)), and as you may guess from the names, they're both largely Tolkien-inspired (though the devs take some liberties). If you find Nethack excessively cruel (it is entirely possible to die on the first turn of the game through no fault of your own) and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (otherwise known as DCSS) excessively complex, Angband might be just what you want. The game's changed maintainers a few times in recent years, and as such has taken a different direction. I am personally very much not a fan of this new direction, and I stick with version 3.5.1 (I like to say that Angband is like D&D and that 3.5 was the last good version), but the game is still actively developed if you want to try the new versions.
And if you happen to be on a Unix system, browsing the games ported to your platform can be pretty educational and informative (e.g. through the ports or packages directory). I've played or at least heard of everything in this thread already, largely through exploring the FreeBSD ports tree.
I think it's worth emphasizing that the game is exactly Quake 3's engine and gameplay with improved netcode added in.
I love jumping into a free-for-all match in OpenArena. It's a very fast gameplay loop, and the game is quick to load and connect, so I can even easily drop in for as little as a few minutes and have some fun.
One game I enjoyed for a while was Liberal Crime Squad. It's made by the same folks as Dwarf Fortress, although it predates it (it was made in 2004) and it's quite a lot simpler. It's a squad-based RPG based off of Oubliette with a lot of management aspects.
http://lcs.wikidot.com/ <- here is the wiki, which also has links to versions on the front page.
(It is political, of course, but it's so over-the-top that it just comes off as silly, which seems to be the intent. I wouldn't say it advocates any particular thing any more than Mortal Kombat advocates ripping out spines, it's just exaggerated for the sake of being exaggerated.)
I made a browser game with a friend of mine called Cat Hop.
Play: https://me.nektro.net/apps/cathop/
Source: https://github.com/nektro/me.nektro.net/tree/master/src/apps/cathop/
It's not open source, but I strongly recommend Kingdom of Loathing It's been going strong since 2006, and is a repository of humor that's worth checking out
Nullpomino is a really awesome, open-source, cross-platform Tetris game. It's written in Java, but it does everything Tetris can/has ever done. I got bit by the Tetris bug a few days before Tetris99 came out (T99 has just helped feed my new addiction), but nullpomino is great for laid back gaming, or exploring different ways to play Tetris. Alternatively, jstris is free, but I don't know if it is open source, and supports 20-player multiplayer, as well as the major single-player modes of Tetris (practice, marathon, various sprints, etc).
panel-pop, an C++/SDL version of Panel de Pon, or "Tetris Attack" and "Puzzle League" as it was known here. It's a solid port. It's not as polished as NullPomino is, though, but it's effective.
Warzone 2100 is a commercial game that later got a full source code and data release, and is still maintained, 20 years after its release. It plays kind of like StarCraft, but with a tech-tree to progress through, rather than just a dependency chain. It's not as cumbersome as it may seem. I showed a buddy of mine the game a few years ago, because he was into StarCraft, and he actually loved the game.
Love Nullpomino, it's what Tetris Ultimate should have been.
I've been a fan of bzflag for years, generally as something to spin up during a long meeting. The biggest advantage to it, silly as it will sound, is that you can go from thinking 'I want to play bzflag' to being in an online match in 2-4s on a modern desktop.
The downside is that I've noticed the playerbase is perhaps in terminal decline, but you can still find a game or two.
The OpenRA re-implementation of Command & Conquer Red Alert is a great nostalgic RTS with a active community.
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is now open source but a lot harder to find players.
Fixed link for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.
Zero-K, it's free and I'm pretty sure open source too. It's an RTS, a bit like starcraft except there's a bazillion macros and scripts to partially automate all the boring micro stuff so you can spend more time on the interesting strategy parts.
CorsixTH is a OpenTTD-like clone of Theme Hospital, a British game from 1997. The single player is almost complete, many improvements and fixes beyond the original. There are still some remaining coding tasks if you like C++/Lua.
I've never heard of that one before but that sounds like Dwarf Fortress as the goblins instead of dwarves. I want it.
For nostalgia:
https://openrct2.org - Fun to play solo
https://www.openttd.org - Fun to play with friends or on a random server against people around the world.
Worth mentioning: OpenRCT2 only needs the game data, which can be had from the demo. You didn't mention it, but it may make somebody more interested if they want to play.
osu! is my favourite rhythm game. It has a few different modes, but the main mode is where you move the mouse around and tap with the keyboard to click on circles and sliders around the screen.
The game is completely free, and while the current client (which IIRC is ~10 years old now) is closed-source, the entire game is being written from scratch, and it's all open-source.
Thank you, fixed :)