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What (And Where) Are The Classic Free Games?
An anonymous reader asks: "I'm flying from the US to Europe in a few weeks and am taking my iBook along for the ride. With a seven hour flight looming, I'm wanting to take some games along to play. But I don't want to download a bunch of freeware that may or may not be junk; I just want the classics. What are the classic free games? I've already downloaded Nethack and am looking into Freeciv. What else is there? I need something that's multiplatform (or at least has a Mac port), something that's stable and has stood the test of time, and something that is more complex and engrossing than a Tetris clone. Thanks!"
http://www.angband.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
many variants to play with, all take a good long while to complete. Think of 'em as nethack extended.
Personal favortites are pernband & cthangband, psiband isn't bad either.
MAME
All you need and tons more:
http://www.the-underdogs.org/
Whats wrong with Tetris?
It's still playable... =)
Still can't get enough of it sometimes
then there's always xbill when tetris has gotten the best out of you.
so there. thats what I'd bring.
c0w goes moo.
SNOOD
Perhaps the most addictive game ever.
I haven't used a Mac in a while, but there were some cool shareware games out.
Off the top of my head, some great games were Lode Runner, Beam Wars, Hazardous, Taskmaker, Tetris, and a few more I can't remember the names of. Check for one of those shareware CD-ROMS they used to sell and the ones listed in bold are probably going to be pretty good.
The future isn't what it used to be.
This place has thousands of mac games. Some are shareware, but most are abandon ware.
.
Mac Gamer
One place that I find to be quite reliable for finding old games is
http://www.freeoldies.com
(And yes, I know, it does sound like a porn site)
.noitacidem deen uoy siht daer nac uoy fI
Escape Velocity. The original runs perfectly on a 3400, as does EV: Override. EV:Nova, the lattest version, is supposedly great. Really, no shareware game compares to these three gems from Ambrosia. They have a 30 day trial period with a popup at startup being the only real annoyance.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
The Incredible Machine (TIM)
Bridge Builder 1 and 2 (from Pontifex)
Other great games are:
Blockout
Sokoban
UGH!
At least, these are the only games which I am still not bored.
Gamespy site with classic ROMs and emulators.
Some old DOS games.
More recent games at Kev's Classing Gaming.
Maelstom is classic Mac game, now ported using SDL to many platforms and released under the GPL.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Frozen Bubble. Is that game ever addictive. The music is a bit repetitive but very fitting. And the cute little noises it makes when you shoot the little spheres.. delightful. An easy way to kill a few hours. It's Perl/SDL so I'm sure you could compile it on OS X.
"Caffeine is not an option. Caffeine is a way of life."
Before I make some suggestions I should say that as a longtime Civ II and Civ I player I am tremendously impressed with the latest (1.13) release. Bravo, it is great! It lacks a little "Microprose polish" but play-wise it is terrific. The previous versions didn't really cut it for me but the current one is just fine. (Now, how about alpha centauri, spaceward ho, and/or masters of orion.)
If you like Nethack you should try Angband, or perhaps just (u)moria. Or from another Cygnus old-timer (umoria was from Jim Wilson), try xconq (Stan Shebs). Although umoria is ancient it has the advantage that it doesn't take incredibly long to play, which unfortunately vanilla angband does.
You can finish a game of nethack in a few hours or a few days (depending on your determination and experience level) but vanilla angband can take, gee, hundreds of hours (during any of which you can suffer an insta-death from hitting a key one too many times). It's still enjoyable but in a more serious and perverse way than nethack.
If you just need a good game to take care of a couple hours of the twitchies on an airplane, I recommend kshisen, which is a thoroughly addictive timed mah-jong-like game.
-joseph
i don't know if they're all classics, but they all run under Classic.
http://mac.the-underdogs.org/ has everything you want. I recommend Armor Alley in particular.
Why not pick up an old copy of Civ II? With III out, I've seen Civ II for 10 bucks in stores. That's one game you can play forever.
As for free/shareware, there are some nice arcade games:
Glypha III homepage.mac.com/quirinus
Cyclone (?)
Asteroid Storm homepage.mac.com/zarkonnen
Glider is fun too, as are MacChess and SigmaChess (if you're into chess, obviously).
have fun!
it's now www.the-underdogs.org, actually.. apparently, their previous domain got stolen by one of those domain name preying search engine things.
Or a Game Boy Advance? For use on an airplane, laptops have the following problems:
1.) Size: It's not comfy to use a laptop actively on an airplane. Either you have to rest it on your lap (horrible ergonomics), or the guy in front of you will lay his seat back and make you panic for a mo.
2.) Battery life: I realize Macs are efficient and all, but it IS an issue. With a GBA, just bring an extra set of batteries. You shouldn't need more than 4 AA's total on your trip. (Psst tip: Don't bring more than 4 AA's on an airplane trip. I did that on a trip recently and one of the security personell mentioned that looked supsicious and recommended I carry no more than 4.
3.) Startup/shutdown time: May not seem like much, but there's a big difference between 60 seconds of bootup or shutdown, and 'click' your GBA is off.
4.) Control: Control is horrible on a laptop for most games. If the ergonomics don't get you, the lack of space for a mouse to move will.
5.) Carry on: I find it to be a nuisance to unpack and put away a laptop on a plane. I can imagine most people who've tried this have the same sentiment. Not like a GBA where you just slip it in your pocket.
I know my suggestion doesn't meet all your requirements. I thought I'd mention it though because I had a similar problem myself a couple of months ago. Despite the fact that I have a teeny weeny laptop, I came to the conclusion that a GBA with a couple of games and a couple of Douglas Adams books were far more suitable and comfortable than a laptop. My laptop didn't turn into an interesting game machine until I got to the hotel. The nice thing about a GBA is that it plays nearly all GB games (dirt cheap), it's efficient with batteries, and it's form factor is quite suitable for a plane.
"Derp de derp."
http://www.ifcomp.org
Start grabbing the winners from previous years... they're almost always fantastic. There are links to interpreters for almost every platform... I know for a fact that my personal favorite (Frotz) isn't available for Mac, but ZIP is.
Enjoy!
-jf
Try Armagetron. It's a very nice 3d clone of Tron. Probably, it's best is when you play it in a fast network, but it's fun also when played against the AI.
-- Matteo
This game is hot, fast, and FREE!
Damn, this is a time-sink: Angband
Look, it's trying to think - Albert Rosenfield
The classic space game, Elite.
There's a portable version at www.newkind.co.uk if your platform can run Allegro (don't worry about Allegro barfing during the build on the x86 assembler bits - they are't actually required for things like X. I've got Allegro working happily on my Sun.) Elite: The New Kind runs happily on Solaris, Linux, Windoze and anything that's supported by Allegro.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Ambrosia Software makes super games, as others have posted. A small Mac game house that makes really great games is Delta Tao - Spaceward Ho! and Strategic Command are great timewasters. If you have a Mac, you probably already have a sample version of their 'Eric's Ultimate Software' on your drive. Another fun Mac program: Knot .
Don't forget that you can't shoot Captain Hector. For those who don't know, Hector is the name of the Ambrosia office pet parrot. You can see a picture of him if you look at the fake id for sale at pirate outposts in the original EV.
You went to all that trouble and didn't install Master of Magic?
Enjoy Freenet & Frost while you can.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Did none of you have an Amiga?
The Amiga had/has EVERYTHING game-wise, and usually beter than the PC counterparts.
You need a ROM for UAE to work (get one from a real Amiga or pay for Amiga Forever from www.cloanto.com), but if/when you have one you can go to back2roots.org and download tons of stuff.
Mostly commercial games. The website has got permission from all of the relevant software companies to host the games on the site.
Go here: http://supermame.by-a.com/
:)
There are over 3000 ROMs.
Oh, and only download the ROMs that you are legally allowed to play.
You are right, sir.
It actually forces one to use the arcane thing called a keybord to play the game.
Nethack normally does not contain a point-and-drool user interface - unless one compile in such support. (Its available)
Most players however seam to prefer the old interface since it's makes it faster to play the game.
I've spent far to many hours playing nethack.
Just saying it like it are.
another good place to try if you want to take a real step back in time is ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple They have an almost complete range of old games for the apple ][, ][e, Apple III etc along with emulators to run on most OS's
One other thing you forgot is that if you're playing EV in OS9, you can use a resedit template to edit the game. I used to make my little shuttle worth max cash..then sell it and get all kinds of fun stuff.
and the link - www.digger.org
this game is a great classic. just downloaded it for my dad this morning cause he still likes to play it after like 10 or 15 years
Here's where you go to download those golden oldies, including classic games
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Softwar
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !