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There actually is games like that, and has been for quite a while. Oldie strategy games like VGA Planets, which did not have a realtime component at all, had autonomously fought, crudely simulated battles. More modern Play-By-E-Mail -strategy games like Dominions also do this, but include more simulation and a lot more complexity.

Gratuitous Space Battles, on the other hand, is a yet more recent game consisting of nothing but pre-programmed battles on custom-built space ships. Haven't played that, though.

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/DOM3/DOM3_page.html
http://www.positech.co.uk/gratuitousspacebattles/

I have, I could list them. Nothing I play right now is what I would call a AAA title.

My favorites:

Weird Worlds, distributed by Shrapnel Games. Basic, top down Star Control IIish space combat and exploration game. $24.95

Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari). Free.

Anything over at Spiderweb games. Gog.com hooked me up with a strange little game called "Evil Genius" for $9.99. You have to hack the widescreen in, but it's a surprising lot of fun.

There are so many options, and I would dearly like to see AAA publishers die so they would have more room to flourish.

--
Toro

They made one, Space HoRSE. They even delayed the release to add internet multi.

It was pretty faithful, and got tepid reviews for--mostly--not really enhancing the gameplay much. It didn't sell well.

You hit the nail on the head, but you must understand than the people who make the decisions for a developer of ANY size are NOT interested in "making a living". They was to make as much money as possible, and thus have absolutely no interest in catering to the original fans.

One-two man shops can afford to make niche games for their rabid fans. I'm a big fan of Dominions (Illwinter - two guys), Geneforge (Spiderweb - one guy), Mount and Blade (man and wife) I love their games, buy every new release, and get exactly what I expect. But these guys are not getting rich, nor really trying to. Their graphics are at least five years behind the curve, their engines are worse than what I could built in an year, and their games are not selling enough to support more than a few people.

A company that can produce a AAA title needs dozens of millions. They cannot afford to go for anything but the lowest common denominator. And most of such games fail. Serves them right. The one-two men shops release games faithful to the franchise, and are assured a welcoming audiance... of a few thousands at best. I have no idea how new people get hooked up.

Actually here is how you should get hooked up: (I'm linking to demos)

Dominions A insanely complex, turn based, fantasy strategy. Crappy graphics, retarded AI. Awesome multiplayer, if you are willing to play a game that can take a few months to resolve itself, and if your self-esteem take accept that each game produces one winner out of up to sixty players. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/DOM3/DOM3_page.html

Geneforge/Exile/Avernum Old style RPGs with an extremely involved story, very detailed multiple endings - the kind you can replay a dozen times if you can imagine a dozen characters with different morals. http://www.spidweb.com/geneforge3/index.html

Mount and Blade First person slasher. The one and only mounted combat simulator that reaches for the right feel. As someone who has used a saber from a horse, and trying to shoot a bow, I can tell you it does an incredible job. It is ngreat at modeling hand to hand combat and archery on foot as well, but that's been done. http://www.taleworlds.com/mb_download.html

OTOH, a smaller market may often have far less competition, allowing you a larger share. It's possible to make a profit on Linux games -- Loki showed that, up until the financial shenanigans of the CEO and his wife brought them down. (Note to would-be business types: the company's finances are not your personal ATM.)

  The Linux game market is comparable in size to the mid-80's computer market, and there were plenty of companies that made tidy profits in that age. It's not enough to support total development of some of the modern mega-blockbuster style games, but a small porting team could manage to turn a profit as Loki did for a few years.
  There's room for smaller (often "old school") games, and those games are out there, too, despite all the cries of "there are no games for Linux!" The fact that you hear that repeated so often just shows that these games need better exposure... (So hey, why not another front-page "Five Best Games for Linux" story, linking to some guy's blogpost which lists Tuxkart, XBill, Rogue, XPilot, and Bugzilla! It's been almost two months since the last lousy instance!)

  Here's a commercial game for Linux I'd recommend to anyone who likes turn-based strategy: http://www.shrapnelgames.com/illwinter/Dom3/1.htm
  It's a massively deep strategy game which avoids the trap of most of its brethren wherein there's only one "good" strategy and no good counter for it. There are dozens of viable strategies and they pretty much all have good solid counters. The graphics are a bit flat, but with battles that can have thousands of units to a side, you can't really put too much detail in without reducing people's computers to a smoking heap. :)
    It's got play-by-email capability, too, so it's nice for folks without the time to sit for six-hour strategy game sessions.

There's a game I've been enjoying that feels like a D&D mass combat game to me. It's called Dominions 3 - there's a downloadable demo:

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/Dom3/6.htm

Wouldn't necessarily help if you wanted that more personal experience of adventuring with a small group, but if you like the idea of a turn-based fantasy conquer your neighbor kind of thing it's a lot fun.

The graphics are very basic, but the game itself is very involved, with many different types of units representing everything from Norse mythology to that of various Mediterranean & Greek cultures to monsters and creatures from Indian and Japanese fairy/folk tales.

As another poster mentioned, I don't think you'll find anything that feels quite like those old classic D&D tabletop sessions. The trouble with any video game is that it's almost impossible to allow you the freedom that a good DM gives you to go with your impulses and explore. Most videogames have a fairly linear storyline. Those that don't can be fun (eg. the Morrowind, Oblivion series), but no video game will ever have the freedom and versatility of a good tabletop campaign with a creative DM and fun players. If roleplaying is cooperative communal story telling, than no game developer can achieve that cooperative aspect without being able to talk to you and get a ton of feedback while the game is being developed.

Where are the commercial game ports for Linux? No one wants to make them, obviously, save for the FPS crowd (and there's only an Unreal Tournament for Linux because Epic passes the buck to Icculus to get the job done, not because they have the in-house talent to do it themselves). There are a few commercial games for Linux, yes, but only a few, and there's very little variety between them. In the open source world we have a few good games (the majority of them being FPS's, what a surprise), Battle for Wesnoth if you like strategy games (turn based ones, that is). Then we have the unfortunate, ugly ripoffs like "Secret Maryo Chronicles," and other games that look like they were developed for a C64. Plenty of selection, not a lot of quality.

The following publishers develop comemrcial linux games:

http://www.pompomgames.com/
http://www.garagegames.com/
http://www.introversion.co.uk/
http://frictionalgames.com/
http://sillysoft.net/
http://www.basiliskgames.com/
http://www.guildsoftware.com/
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/
http://www.rune-soft.com/
http://grubbygames.com/
http://www.caravelgames.com/
http://www.planewalkergames.com/
http://www.graalonline.com/

There are also the high profile ones such as neverwinter nights, the doom and quake series, unreal, etc.

There are many high quality independant titles such as neverball, you mentioned wesnoth, crimson fields, flight gear, torcs, the spring project, total annihilation 3d, tecnoballZ, powermanga, tile racer, pingus, clonk, freeciv, ultimate stunts, planeshift, scorched3d, VDrift, silvertree (not complete, but being created by the wesnoth guys so likely will not be vapor), ufo: alien invasion, scourge, etc.

http://spring.clan-sy.com/
http://www.wesnoth.org/
http://torcs.sourceforge.net/
http://www.flightgear.org/
https://icculus.org/neverball/
http://ta3d.darkstars.co.uk/
http://linux.tlk.fr/games/
http://tileracer.model-view.com/
http://pingus.seul.org/
http://www.clonk.de/
http://freeciv.wikia.com/
http://www.ultimatestunts.nl/
http://www.planeshift.it/
http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/
http://vdrift.net/
http://www.silvertreerpg.org/
http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/
http://scourge.sourceforge.net/

Many of these are very impressive independently made free games. Perhaps they lack the multi million dollar marketing budget and won't make your geofrce 8800 gtxz 45 x super elite ultra melt, but theya re *fun* games, and they are numerous. Also keep in mind this publisher and free game list is only what I could find in 1 hour of searching.

Then there are freed older commercial games such as warzone 2100, homeworld, descent 1 and 2, doom, quake, etc.

Lets not stop t

A partial, eventual solution to this is to support Linux and independent gaming. For example the expansion to Dominions3 came out today and is for sale at Gamer's Front. Dominions is a fantastic strategy game, I can play it in Linux (or Mac & Windows), it's from a small independent game company, and it's for sale by Gamer's Front (who support independent games).

Win, win, win, win...

It's a bit pricey retail ($54), but comes with a 300 page manual, and the coupon "DOM3-STARDOCK" will get you 20% off until November 15th, making it quite reasonable..

I'm not affiliated with them, it's just pretty much the only game I bother to play these days.

It was remade as Space Horse. Even has online multi. It was originally going to only support local multiplayer, a la the original, but enough people begged for online that they threw it in. Ironically, pretty much nobody bought it, since it had fairly weak graphics/sound and some fundamental interface issues.

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/gilligames/Space_HoRSE/1.htm
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/spacehorse/review.html

You can shoot the proximity mines. No need to run into them :-)

I am sure everyone has worked out a way to kill Big Daddies with little to no effort,
even on the hardest difficulty.

For example, on the first level, you can make them chase you to the dentistry offices,
where they will get hammered by turrets they cannot easily reach. Then you can hide in
one of the maintenance passages, and hit them with short bursts of AP machine gun fire.
Being the minimaxer that I am, once I got the camera, I came back to this level, and in
less than twenty minutes, I had emptied the vending machines, researched every available
enemy, and stocked on everything, including cash.

Compared to the average PC shooter, Bioshock is rather easy. So? There are strategy
games on which I enjoy spending hours of getting things just right, like Dominions III.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/Dom3/1.htm
but shooters are for running through, blasting things and feeling tough. Bioshock does that very nicely.

More info on Space HoRSE

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/gilligames/Space_HoRS E/1.htm

At $34.95 it seems kinda expensive to me for an indy update-type title, but I am forced to be a cheap bastard these days.

Go through an independant publisher like Shrapnel Games http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ though they are an indy publisher they reach a large ammount of people. Also Valve and Steam seem inclined to take risks with orginal ideas. Anyone who says creative original games are dead is either stupid, lying, or both.

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/digital_eel/weird_wor lds/1.htm

Diablo II in 45 minutes

Closest game I have seen that i think is still available is at http://www.shrapnelgames.com/gilligames/Space_HoRS E/1.htm

Apparently this game was directly influenced by M.U.L.E.

Can anyone reccomend some games suited for a single player that don't require mutant reflexes to operate and that can just be played in small increments? Not being a 'hardcore' gamer, simple and fun is what I want most.

10) New Star Soccer 3
System Requirements: Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
http://www.newstargames.com/

9) DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold
System Requirements: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP, Linux, Mac OS X
http://www.caravelgames.com/Articles/Games_2/JtRH. html

8) Professor Fizzwizzle
System Requirements: Windows or Linux, Mac OS X
http://grubbygames.com/

7) Darwinia
Windows 98/XP/2000, Linux, Mac
http://www.darwinia.co.uk/

6) Democracy
Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
http://www.democracygame.com/

5) Mexican Motor Mafia
Windows 98/Me/2000/XP
http://www.scienceoftomorrow.com/mmm_main.htm

4) Tribal Trouble
MacOS X / Linux /Windows NT/2000/XP
http://tribaltrouble.com/

3) Zombie Smashers X2
DirectX 8+
http://www.totallyscrewed.net/newsite/home.htm

2) Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/digital_eel/weird_wor lds/1.htm

1) Oasis
Windows 98/Me/2000/XP
http://www.oasisgame.com/

Looks like list auther is not very well versed in PC gaming. A lot of old/mediocre games in the list but not best free or free open sourced games like
wesnoth
Steel Panthers:World At War
Steel Panthers:Main Battle Tank
FreeCiv

Two that might be of interest for those looking for TBS empire-management games instead of mission-driven games are Anacreon and the Space Empires series.

The former is very high-level oriented: quasi-linear research tree, ship classes instead of ship design, assignment of priorities (e.g. "raw material world" for focusing on mining, "jumpship base" for producing jumpdrive ships, etc) and import/export policies (so you can demand that worlds try to be self-sufficient, or permit them to base their economy on imports brought in through transports on repeating-orders). Efficiencies matter in that specialized worlds are a LOT more efficient at what they do, but the required export/import system leaves you vulnerable to interdiction. Manage your worlds, produce minefields if you'd like, build massive industrial complexes that build ships with resources from adjacent worlds, put whole worlds on an addictive drug that removes the need for sleep but has /bad/ withdrawal consequences... It's not for the obsessive micromanager, and puts you more in the shoes of a grand strategist rather than tactician or city planner. Focus on the role for each planet, and amass fleets for use however you choose.

The latter is more suited for those desiring traditional tactical combat and ship design. It's also incredibly moddable (not just cosmetically; replace the entire tech tree(s) if you'd like, for instance, subject to limits about what abilities have been implemented of course. Want to produce a mod in which the only mining allowed is strip mining that eventually makes the mined worlds essentially worthless and uninhabitable? Want to make suns explode with a far higher probability? Want an optional facility that gives you greatly reduced, perhaps even negative, population growth in exchange for research? You could). You can (and must!) manage facility production on individual worlds, choose which research paths to focus on first, design your ship classes for a myriad of reasons, turn planets into asteroid fields or vice versa... and turn somebody's star into a black hole, obliterating everything in the system, if you want to send an obvious declaration of war.

You may want to have a look at "Space HoRSE", by Gilligames and published by Shrapnel Games. While I have neither M.U.L.E. nor Space HoRSE, there is supposed to be a very, very deliberate resemblance between them.

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/gilligames/Space_HoRS E/1.htm

Looks like there's a 42MB demo to download.

Don't know how much the resemblance is, nor if it IS close, how that got past the lawyers. *shrug*

A recent cloning attempt is Space HoRSE.

On the downside, the initial learning curve is a bit steep. Check out the demo but believe me, even the veteran gamer will want to take a run through the fan created tutorial

On the downside, the initial learning curve is a bit steep. Check out the demo but believe me, even the veteran gamer will want to take a run through the fan created tutorial

Someone has already created a fairly retro, modern version of MULE: Space HoRSE published by Shrapnel Games.

Shrapnel Games

(I am not affiliated with the site - just bought games from it)

Here is a link to a pretty good M.U.L.E. clone named Space HoRSE. Not quite the old version, but you can try the free demo for nostalgia's sake.

The best 4x strategey game I have found is Space Empires IV Gold>. The graphics may not be sophisticated, but look decent enough. The gameplay is bliss.

• Give me a break it is an original peice of art done by the developer of Space HoRSE

Sure, if you like. You're saying that this isn't just one of these with the guns removed and little shoulderpads added? OK, I believe you. Really, I do. No, really. Look at the straight face.

Please, if you do work for Shrapnel, ask your lawyers about the Lanham Act, specifically the snappily named "Title 15, Chapter 22, Subchapter III, Section 1114". Specifically, do as another poster suggested here, and quote Gamespot as saying that H.O.R.S.E. is a M.U.L.E. derivative. Don't claim it yourself!

Sure, EA might overlook it, but you don't want to be worrying about that, right? You just want to develop great games. Fine, develop a great game and then sell it on its own merits. Don't try and piggyback sales off of EA's trademark, which is really what you're doing here.

The publisher, Shrapnel Games, has a few other interesting titles. Particularly good is Space Empires IV, a Reach for the Stars or Masters of Orion II-like galactic conquest strategy game. There's a good review of it on GameSpot.

The publisher, Shrapnel Games, has a few other interesting titles. Particularly good is Space Empires IV, a Reach for the Stars or Masters of Orion II-like galactic conquest strategy game. There's a good review of it on GameSpot.

... and not a very good one at that, it appears.

The screenshots look horrible, like someone just bought a book to figure out their war3z copy of 3D-Studio. They've used new music and, personally, the old theme song was one of the best game themes at the time. Oh yeah, and it looks like the HoRSE in question is the offspring of an AT-ST from The Empire Strikes Back.

Those three reasons (plus the fact that Shrapnel Games' can't even get the survey on their site to work, and the music folks' site spits out ASP errors) are enough to turn me off. I'd rather dust off my C64 or Atari (or fire up an emulator) and play the original.

(Or I could dig out the floppy disk with the "inspired by MULE" game I wrote in Atari BASIC. Looks like it would be as much fun.)

• why change the name, and the name of the resources? What was wrong with "Multi-Use Labor Element", chrystite, and smithore

"Inspired by the 1980's classic, M.U.L.E" they say, which is just about the most stupid thing they could have done. It's clearly not licensed, it's a commercial product, and they've just tried to make money off of EA's trademark. Arguably, they are flat out passing off, something that Slashdot has just happily contributed to by calling this a "port". Note that Gamespot are very careful not to do this.

It is possible to produce a commercial "inspired by" version of a classic game if you're careful to not make any claims about what you're emulating. It doesn't matter if every magazine in the world calls your version a "XYZ clone", as long as you don't try and leverage someone else's trademark, you're safe. But it looks like Shrapnel reckon that the M.U.L.E trademark is abandonware, or they just don't understand what they've done. EA's nose has been tweaked, and now they can either throw a lawyer or ten at protecting their trademark, or they can admit that it's lapsed. Which is more likely?

At the very least, EA will be able to get Shrapnel to stop mentioning M.U.L.E. And if EA can show that they have any plans to produce their own port, they can ream Shrapnel for cutting into their market, even their potential market.

I don't necessarily think that's right or fair, it's just what's going to happen. EA can make Shrapnel dance like organ grinders' monkeys now just by throwing a few lawyers at them. It looks like Shrapnel doesn't have any big corporate backers to fight their corner for them. Damn shame, but they've kind of brought it on themselves.

And incidentally (or otherwise), isn't that an AT-ST walker they're using for cover art? Now they're tweaking the nose of Lucasart? Oh dear. :(

• why change the name, and the name of the resources? What was wrong with "Multi-Use Labor Element", chrystite, and smithore

"Inspired by the 1980's classic, M.U.L.E" they say, which is just about the most stupid thing they could have done. It's clearly not licensed, it's a commercial product, and they've just tried to make money off of EA's trademark. Arguably, they are flat out passing off, something that Slashdot has just happily contributed to by calling this a "port". Note that Gamespot are very careful not to do this.

It is possible to produce a commercial "inspired by" version of a classic game if you're careful to not make any claims about what you're emulating. It doesn't matter if every magazine in the world calls your version a "XYZ clone", as long as you don't try and leverage someone else's trademark, you're safe. But it looks like Shrapnel reckon that the M.U.L.E trademark is abandonware, or they just don't understand what they've done. EA's nose has been tweaked, and now they can either throw a lawyer or ten at protecting their trademark, or they can admit that it's lapsed. Which is more likely?

At the very least, EA will be able to get Shrapnel to stop mentioning M.U.L.E. And if EA can show that they have any plans to produce their own port, they can ream Shrapnel for cutting into their market, even their potential market.

I don't necessarily think that's right or fair, it's just what's going to happen. EA can make Shrapnel dance like organ grinders' monkeys now just by throwing a few lawyers at them. It looks like Shrapnel doesn't have any big corporate backers to fight their corner for them. Damn shame, but they've kind of brought it on themselves.

And incidentally (or otherwise), isn't that an AT-ST walker they're using for cover art? Now they're tweaking the nose of Lucasart? Oh dear. :(

Inspired by the 1980's classic, M.U.L.E. ... Original music from Data-Regeneration Project [so, no, *not* the original theme, sigh] ... Mature gamers will instantly recognize the similarity between Space HoRSE and the classic PC game M.U.L.E., developed by Ozark Softscape and published by Electronic Arts in 1983.... EA has no intentions of giving up the rights to the brand name M.U.L.E.

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...

If you liked VGA Plants, you should try Space Empires III, or it's recently-commercially-released relative, Space Empires IV. Like VGA planets, it is turn-based, and can use transferred files so you can play with people far and wide. It has a bit more economics, and the ships are restricted by what you choose to research instead of by race, but it does have the minor problem that turns are sequential, not batch, so everyone is at the mercy of a single slow player. The graphics beat the pants off of VGA Planets, though.

SE3 was the yardstick by which I measured WINE performance for a long time, although now it's perfectly playable under it so I need a new yardstick.

A lot of people will not play real-time games because they have high blood pressure and it could endanger their lives. I had that problem until the right drugs were identified.

Perhaps they should file lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act against the makers of games they like that don't feature turn-based play. That seems to be the preferred approach these days.

-

There are some great 'independant' companies selling turn based games that are winning tons of awards:

Shrapnel Games

This company sells tons of award winning games, such as "steel beasts".

Another such company is "Battlefront games" at BattleFront Games with games such as "Combat Mission"..

There are lots of turn-based game companes out there.. many of them may not be "big names" but the companies listed above are getting lots of press and business thanks to the power of the internet community.

Who knows, companies such as this may become much larger in little time.. Fans of turn based games won't be left out =)

You can only order it online, I believe, but you're supporting a small independent game publisher, Shrapnel Games, by doing so. It's an amazingly good game for shareware.

You can only order it online, I believe, but you're supporting a small independent game publisher, Shrapnel Games, by doing so. It's an amazingly good game for shareware.

You can only order it online, I believe, but you're supporting a small independent game publisher, Shrapnel Games, by doing so. It's an amazingly good game for shareware.

...Space Empires IV [...] It's not for those who like big luxurious cut scenes and beautiful graphics. The graphics are merely functional.

Makes me wonder how you would describe the graphics of any of its prior incarnations :)

The OP is correct that Shrapnel Games is only distributing SEIV through snailmail (this is not a downloadable game, it requires a CD in the drive to play).

Malfador Machinations is the development team behind the Space Empires series -- the best thing about SEIV is the community (to which the developers actively belong). The game itself is a patch or two away from meeting the expectations of those who have played SEIII, imho. The documentation is many, many more "patches" away from being worthwhile :)

The OP linked to the Shrapnel Games homepage -- those interested in the actual product might be interested in the actual product page.

A game worth mentioning in any discussion of Masters of Orion is Space Empires IV. It's only distributed online (to my knowledge), so you won't see it in any stores. It's not for those who like big luxurious cut scenes and beautiful graphics. The graphics are merely functional.

However, if you're interested in the strategy side of things, it's got a lot going for it.