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There's truth to this. Most game companies aren't going to bother with Linux (there are a few that do, see Ill Winter for one prime example) and the open source model doesn't lend itself to quick development cycles / disposable software like the game industry has (there are some open source titles out there, see Guide to Free Software for some examples.

Consider it; why would a commercial company release a title for the Linux market when 1) Linux users tradtionally don't want to pay for anything, and 2) 99% of Linux users also dual boot into MS-Win. The Mac market has neither of these problems.

I play Dominions 2 by email all the time it is one of the best PBEM games out please check it out at: http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/index.html

I personally like the games from Spiderweb Software and Ill Winter Games. Pretty much everything each of these companies makes is available for Mac OS X. Most of the games Ill Winter makes are also available for Linux and Solaris if you so desire...

While I generally agree, I'm not too happy that Spiderweb Software has yet to port their best game (IMHO) from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X -- Nethergate.

I personally like the games from Spiderweb Software and Ill Winter Games. Pretty much everything each of these companies makes is available for Mac OS X. Most of the games Ill Winter makes are also available for Linux and Solaris if you so desire...

FPS games get boring after awhile, but these games stay playable longer.

Turn based strategy where you strive to be the one and true God over all the land. Steep learning curve, cheesy graphics, complex game startup instructions and foreign spelled names can make it difficult to get into, but once you do, it's an incredible game, if you're into that sort of strategy thing.

Yep! Been done, I know this isn't the only one, but Illwinter Games did it with Dominions. A groovy little strategy game with the tiniest little graphics and the best balance of depth and strategy since Chess. (ish) Comes on a CD that contains Windoze, Linux and Maac versions. All costs the same.

Yep! Been done, I know this isn't the only one, but Illwinter Games did it with Dominions. A groovy little strategy game with the tiniest little graphics and the best balance of depth and strategy since Chess. (ish) Comes on a CD that contains Windoze, Linux and Maac versions. All costs the same.

Play the 4X game "Dominions", from Illwinter. Pick Abysia. Blood magic, human sacrifice, and demon summons will be a natural fit for your heat-lovin' volcano-dwelling troops. Oh, and since your objective is to make the entire world worship you, it also ties into megalomania... ;)

Interesting point, but I really doubt that this is aimed at the general consumer. It's for Joe Linux, who prides himself on doing nifty tech things with Linux.

Okay, Tux Racer may not be the most amazing thing in the world, but it's fun for a couple hours.

Freeciv...why is freeciv bad? You don't like civilization? There are some differences, but aside from the fact that civ had more artists (and, IMHO, a worse interface) and is a bit easier to use, not huge difference in fun factor.

Lets consider some others:

zangband/ToME/angband/nethack/etc: These *are* a lot of fun. Diablo has much more simplistic, boring gameplay, and it took off all over. Most variants have a pretty simple text or 2d graphics based interface without music, but some are a bit more elaborate. Be a bit of a pain to play on the controller, yes...

Chromium BSU: flashy scrolling shooter. Could use the 3d hardware in the X-box.

Dunno if you can just use ordinary ol' x86 binaries (particularly considering RAM usage), but:

Quake 3 (use the 3d hardware). Not free.

Abuse: This was a *blast* when it came out -- I played it over and over. It's looking a little dated now, but it's still a good game. Free now -- thanks crack.com.

Pingus is apparently shaping up pretty well.

There's part of the amazing Exile series available for Linux. (shareware)

Maelstrom may be too "simple" for you, as it's only an astroids clone, but it was a very well known game on the Mac for a long time, and I still like it.

While I'm not a tremendous fan of Illwinter's Conquest of Elysium II, their Dominions: Priests, Prophets, and Pretenders is a non-flashy but very deep, very good strategy game. Shareware.

There's a DOS-style shooter from Mountain King Studios, Raptor. (shareware)

Finally, there are all the emulators and whatnot...take a look at GNUboy, TuxNES, snes9x, DGen/SDL,
FreeSCI, Sarien, Exult, XU4, ScummVM, Basilisk II, YAE and others.

There are a host of Loki ports that you can't get any more except used. Lots of good stuff from LGames, though I'm not as big a fan of their stuff as some other people are.

Finally, text-based but really, really sophisticated, good, and almost all of them free, there are text-based interactive fiction (Try Tower of Babel before giving up on this...first one I ever beat without cheating, and it's *soooooo* good). The Interactive Fiction Archive has games and players.

Finally, many good games can be played through WINE -- Starcraft, Fallout, Max Payne, Half Life...

These are just some of the games that I enjoy under Linux. There are lots more (admittedly, some of lower quality) available at the SDL Games Page and the Linux Games Tome.

Linux games usually take a bit more (okay, often a lot :-) ) more effort to set up properly. But they're often very customizable, you can actually have an impact on the game design ("This game needs feature X"), and you don't have to leave the comfortable environs of Linux. And the environment is getting better, not worse.

Interesting point, but I really doubt that this is aimed at the general consumer. It's for Joe Linux, who prides himself on doing nifty tech things with Linux.

Okay, Tux Racer may not be the most amazing thing in the world, but it's fun for a couple hours.

Freeciv...why is freeciv bad? You don't like civilization? There are some differences, but aside from the fact that civ had more artists (and, IMHO, a worse interface) and is a bit easier to use, not huge difference in fun factor.

Lets consider some others:

zangband/ToME/angband/nethack/etc: These *are* a lot of fun. Diablo has much more simplistic, boring gameplay, and it took off all over. Most variants have a pretty simple text or 2d graphics based interface without music, but some are a bit more elaborate. Be a bit of a pain to play on the controller, yes...

Chromium BSU: flashy scrolling shooter. Could use the 3d hardware in the X-box.

Dunno if you can just use ordinary ol' x86 binaries (particularly considering RAM usage), but:

Quake 3 (use the 3d hardware). Not free.

Abuse: This was a *blast* when it came out -- I played it over and over. It's looking a little dated now, but it's still a good game. Free now -- thanks crack.com.

Pingus is apparently shaping up pretty well.

There's part of the amazing Exile series available for Linux. (shareware)

Maelstrom may be too "simple" for you, as it's only an astroids clone, but it was a very well known game on the Mac for a long time, and I still like it.

While I'm not a tremendous fan of Illwinter's Conquest of Elysium II, their Dominions: Priests, Prophets, and Pretenders is a non-flashy but very deep, very good strategy game. Shareware.

There's a DOS-style shooter from Mountain King Studios, Raptor. (shareware)

Finally, there are all the emulators and whatnot...take a look at GNUboy, TuxNES, snes9x, DGen/SDL,
FreeSCI, Sarien, Exult, XU4, ScummVM, Basilisk II, YAE and others.

There are a host of Loki ports that you can't get any more except used. Lots of good stuff from LGames, though I'm not as big a fan of their stuff as some other people are.

Finally, text-based but really, really sophisticated, good, and almost all of them free, there are text-based interactive fiction (Try Tower of Babel before giving up on this...first one I ever beat without cheating, and it's *soooooo* good). The Interactive Fiction Archive has games and players.

Finally, many good games can be played through WINE -- Starcraft, Fallout, Max Payne, Half Life...

These are just some of the games that I enjoy under Linux. There are lots more (admittedly, some of lower quality) available at the SDL Games Page and the Linux Games Tome.

Linux games usually take a bit more (okay, often a lot :-) ) more effort to set up properly. But they're often very customizable, you can actually have an impact on the game design ("This game needs feature X"), and you don't have to leave the comfortable environs of Linux. And the environment is getting better, not worse.

Illwinter have accomplished something very much in spirit of what this discussion is about with their Dominions game. This game works on Windows, Linux, Solaris, IRIX, and HP-UX.

Wasn't too difficult either, mind you.

All you have to do is have different executables for each platform that all work off the same graphics, sound, level, etc. files. Given the current state of the gaming scene, it's most likely that the bulk of development is done on the accompanying graphics and audio files, complex game engines notwithstanding.

There ya go, no need for portability of code :)

Some of these may be from this year, but since they're from smaller companies don't get that much publicity they're easy to overlook.

Malfador's Space Empires IV (Gold version due in February or so, but the original is darn good), published by Shrapnel. It's a 4X space game, and focuses very heavily on depth and customizability versus flash. Want to replace the tech tree wholesale? Customize your race to be lousy at combat, but rake in the resources and trade? Create a system type featuring unusually powerful black holes? You can, if you like. It's been out for a while, but the publisher and developer are still supporting it.

Illwinter's "Dominions" is a fantasy 4X, that some have compared to Master of Magic. Ritual magic, combat spells, item construction, combat formations, god customization, 14 very different (not mirror-image...) races to choose from... Also still in active development -- e.g. I've gotten helpful responses regarding bugs and questions sent via e-mail, and they're still patching to fix bugs and add features.

Battlefront's "Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord" is fairly old -- "CM: Barbarossa to Berlin" might be out sometime next year -- but still very good for 3D WWII tactical (up to Battalion-sized, say) warfare, with a nice WEGO system. It's very, very detailed, although you don't really have to memorize armor slopes... CMBO is not in active development anymore since they've been busy on the sequel, but the forum community is still active.

All three of the above support both solo- and multiple players (CMBO only two at a time, Dominions 14, SE4 not sure what the limit is if there is one).

There's also A-Sharp's "King of Dragon Pass", which seems intriguing. I can't comment on this too much since I've only seen the demo, but a (the?) dev has been spotted on USENET answering questions about it occasionally. It might be of interest to Runequest/Glorantha fans in particular.

The demo reminded me vaguely of the old Hammurabi decision-making game, if for some reason anybody remembers that (e.g. "101 BASIC Computer Games"). Of course, this one is FAR more complicated...

Play a high-level turn-based game.

For instance, both morale and supply are in Illwinter's Dominions, which is a nifty province-level turn-based game. It's fairly high-level in that, for instance, you don't issue orders during battle (you give them *before*, via positioning and targetting if you choose. e.g. you can give a commander an Ethereal Crossbow, which does 999 hp (i.e. instant death), and tell him to target enemy spellcasters, but you must do so before battle. You can tell troops to hold for a turn, then attack the closest enemies, or so forth.)

Morale: Every unit and commander has a morale number based upon its type (well, except for unbreakable troops, such as mindless undead; they get a symbolic value). Modifiers include whether or not they're in their home province, some magical effects, and so forth. If a morale check fails in battle, a unit (IIRC) or entire squad may rout.

Supply lines: You don't have to move supplies around explicitly. It does, however, calculate how much supply you have available in a province based upon its population, nearby castles (that you can reach -- e.g. not if you're surrounded by hostile territory), et al. Starving an enemy army to death is a viable strategy unless that enemy army doesn't need to eat. Basically, you have to use common sense and not overextend yourself unless you've got an army that doesn't eat, or you brought along enough magical toys that provide food.