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Liberated Games Launches

Posted by timothy on from the still-seeking-free-aztec dept.

Crusader writes "Two LinuxGames staff members have launched Liberated Games, a site devoted to cataloguing full commercial titles that have been released for free by the developer or publisher, either with the full source code or without. The current list is available here; the site tracks releases for all major computer platforms (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux), so feel free to submit any missing games to the list."

34 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. great turn around! by physicsboy500 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sweet! Now I don't have to liberate them myself!

    --
    The original generic sig.
    1. Re:great turn around! by Cipster · · Score: 4, Funny

      It also looks like we liberated the server of al it's bandwidth...

  2. Linux needs games! by g-to-the-o-to-the-g · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I really hope companies like Epic games and id Software make lots more linux games! I'm still waiting for the Linux doom 3 build, and Linux is seriously in the need of more games. Hopefully Epic and id will motivate more big companies to port their games to linux. While they're at it, they should pressure ATI to fix their linux drivers.

    On a similar note, I think Linux is a good candidate for future gaming platforms (I'm thinking ps3) because of it's flexibility. Last I checked, sony has already made use of Linux in their products.

    --

    Hi there

    1. Re:Linux needs games! by KDR_11k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Linux would make a great gaming OS, you can minimalize background proccessors and tweaking-ability is great.

      What exactly would you use the OS for on a console? Drivers are unnecessary since low level access can be compiled into the game binary and anything the game might need can be on the disk. Having an abstraction layer in between would become an issue, for one thing the layer will probably be less flexible (or less efficient) than direct hardware access and for another thing the shipped version would have to be declared as final, they couldn't update it if they discover a bug or need new features, it could break compatibility with older games. Besides, Linux wasn't designed for being used as a games platform.
      If a game wanted to use a customized Linux, the dev can customize Linux themselves and come out with exactly the version they want. No dev could complain about the OS lacking some vital feature.

      Also, delivering the source code as mandated by the GPL would be a problem, where would you store it?

      Linux might help pirates and hobbyists to interact with the hardware, but a console manufacturer wants neither group involved and there wouldn't be an advantage for the commercial developers.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    2. Re:Linux needs games! by DrYak · · Score: 5, Insightful
      What exactly would you use the OS for on a console? Drivers are unnecessary since low level access can be compiled into the game binary

      In theory you're right, but there's a couple of reasons why nobody does like this actually :
      • The abstraction layer of the OS are making everything so slow ? Ok so let's drop the OS. Oh, and as we are at it : let's drop all librairies at all. Let's write a complete game in plain C from scratch. And let's drop the C and write the game using pure assemblere, so we can optimize every signle instruction by hand....
        Once upon a time it could be done like this. On some old 8bit console, all you had to do to create a game was to write a short program, under a few thousand instruction, It had only to read input from joy pad, a move 1 or 2 sprites on screen (using hardware sprites) and do some very basic sprite-to-background (hardware assisted) collision detections. This could be done by hand, without using any other library.
        Nowadays games are much more complicated : you've got more complexe graphics, you must have realistic physics. Your GFX hardware is much more general purpose (which is good), but that means you must implement everything ("3D mesh of a warrior running on a height-field ground" isn't a single hardware feature). Plus you have internet, savegames hardware (harddisk or memory stick) where files must be shared with other applications (hence the need of a file system) etc...
        Still wanna write a full online game, with a robust TCP/IP stack, and everything else including in-game voice-chat with other players ?...

        Modern console DO NEED an OS, because it's getting just to much work to re-invent the wheel everytime you write a new game. Yes, the OS adds an overhead, compared to hand-optimized assembler. But it removes a lot of head-ache from developpement process, and moderne consoles have more powerful processors : it's not only to make them run faster, it's also to make the overhead of OS and librairies more negligible.

        But any OS could do the job. Actually, some early console of this generation could run multiple OSes. The DreamCast had a minimalist BIOS that could just check and boot watever OS was on the GD-ROM. Most of the games were built using SEGA's proprietary system "Katana". But there were also a few games made using Microsoft's Windows CE (hence the "compatible with..." logo on the front), most homebrew games are done using KallistiOS, some fans managed to port the penguin to this console. You have the choice of the OS (DreamCast will boot any of them), but you have to use one, because few sane people want to code a 3D application by hand in SuperH assembler....

      If a game wanted to use a customized Linux, the dev can customize Linux themselves and come out with exactly the version they want.

      Yes the "boot whatever customized OS you-like" is cool. But console esigner don't do it. They like to force THEIR proprietary OS because of :

      • Copy protection. Even as far as the NES and the Genesis, some version of the console had BIOSes whose only purpose was to check if the cartridge is licensed and if it's not imported. Beside of this, the BIOSes were completly useless. (Prior BIOS-less version of the console ran the same game without any differences, and today emulator don't need BIOSes to run this games). But it helped constructors to remove control form end users.

        Microsoft could have done some "boot your own favorite OS" console like the Dreamcast. But instead they've choosen to design a console with a Windows-2000-based kernel. The user has no other choice than to boot Dashboard, before everything else, and then the Dashboard will decide what the user can and can't do...

        And game designer HAVE to pay a license for the constuctor's proprietary OS because they cannot use anything else.


      --
      "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    3. Re:Linux needs games! by mikael · · Score: 4, Informative

      What exactly would you use the OS for on a console? Drivers are unnecessary since low level access can be compiled into the game binary and anything the game might need can be on the disk.

      Current generation console systems already have a small kernel. Enough to load files off CD-ROM, download data from the network using TCP/IP, and run multiple lightweight threads. Many games (even early generation home computers like the Atari 800) made use of parallel processing to implement AI (the spare CPU time during vertical blank interrupts could be used to run depth searches of possible moves).
      Have a read of Chapter 8 of De Re Atari to see why having an OS/kernel is useful.


      THE OPERATING SYSTEM

      INTRODUCTION

      With every ATARI Home Computer System comes an ATARI 10K Operating System Cartridge. The importance of this cartridge is often overlooked. Without it, you have a lot of potential, but absolutely nothing else! This situation is not unique to the ATARI Home Computer System; It is encountered with all computers. A computer is, after all, merely a collection of hardware devices. A user must manage these resources to accomplish any task. If all programmers had to start from scratch on each program, we would have an even larger software shortage than we have today. The solution that has evolved over the years is to build in a program that manages the resources available to the system, and eases the programming burden required to control them. This program is known by various names: Operating System, Master Control Program, System Executive, System Monitor, etc. In the ATARI Home Computer System it is known as the Operating System or OS.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  3. Home of the underdogs by FiReaNGeL · · Score: 5, Informative

    This 'official' list is very nice to have, especially to track games with source available (good educational code).

    As you may already know, 'unofficially' free software site Home of the Underdogs http://www.the-underdogs.org/ links to source or binary (now by Bittorrent!) to all old games abandonned by developpers and/or publishers. An endless source of fun and nostalgia... be sure to check it out!

    --
    Eureka Science News - automatically updated
    1. Re:Home of the underdogs by Malfeis333 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, HotU is rather dilligent about enforcing it's policy of not offering games that are still for sale. They have removed all games currently held under copyright by the IDSA, to boot. While it tiptoes on the border of illegality, it provides a service for finding games that have slipped through the cracks over the years. If someone wants to enforce their IP, they need only contact the owner and the link disappears, replaced by a link to stores selling the title.

      Unlike the warez sites out there, they really do try to be honest. Just try and request a game on their forum and see what happens if you don't believe me. :)

      Quoted:

      "Home of the Underdogs is a non-profit site dedicated to the preservation and promotion of underrated PC games (and a few non-PC games) of all ages: good games that deserve a second chance after dismal sales or critical reviews that we feel are unwarranted. By nature, our criteria for choosing games to be honored here are subjective. However, we believe that our collective experience (many of us started gaming in late 1970s) allows us to be confident of our choices: we've played many of the best and worst games ever made. Therefore, we believe that our "Top Dog" tag signifies a truly remarkable classic, while at the other end of the spectrum our "Real Dog" tag signifies marginal underdogs we think you really should avoid (most of them are here only because a number of visitors pleaded us for them, anyway [EG]).

      Although the site is non-profit in that we will never charge anyone for anything, we do need to pay hefty server costs every month to ensure decent download and access speeds. To that end, we unfortunately need to place banners on the site to cover these costs. These banners are mostly pay-per-impression, so you don't need to click on them (although we'd appreciate any clicks as they lead to higher payout rates and better ad campaigns). We are sorry for this inconvenience, and we thank you for your support.

      Home of the Underdogs, while not an abandonware site per se (since our aim is to pay tribute to all underdogs, both new and old), supports the abandonware idea. We believe that providing games that have been abandoned by their publishers, while technically illegal, is a valuable service to the gaming community because these games are in danger of disappearing into obscurity, and their copyright holders no longer derive any revenues from them. For more information on our stance on abandonware, please read this section of our FAQ.

      One of the larger goals behind Home of the Underdogs is to make it a friendly and dynamic community of classic game collectors, oldies lovers, game designers, and anyone else interested in the history of PC computer games; to be a place for sharing nostalgia, ideas, and information on underrated games. To this end, everyone is welcome to interact with the site via the "Community" subsection in the left-hand menu bar, where you can sign our Guestbook, join in various discussions in our Forum, or contribute to the site.

      We also belong to the group of "die-hard" gamers who long for the golden days of PC gaming, when games were more original and fun to play than today's hordes of mundane, "me-too" titles marketed by businessmen who abhors risking the corporate purse strings on innovative but unproven titles. We long for the days when designers were treated as "artistes" of their medium, entrepreneurial pioneers who worked without the fears of not meeting a Christmas deadline or making games that aren't compatible with 3D cards. We hope that games featured on this site will help inspired a new generation of game designers to reach back into the past and rediscover what great games are truly made of. To that end, we are honored to host the Scratchware Manifesto, a statement of purpose written by several designers who are dismayed with the state of today's gaming industry. We encourage everyone to read it and spread the word around :) "

  4. nice Compilation by Grant29 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is a great way to find lots of Linux games in one place. Previously I had to search Google, follow tons of broken links, get pisssed off, etc... I've stil had better luck playing games under windows. Maybe I'll check out some of the source code. Reading others' source code can be a nice learning experience.
    --

    Play the Gmail game, win a free Gmail invitation!

    1. Re:nice Compilation by arose · · Score: 5, Informative

      It seems you haven't heard about The Linux Game Tome.

      --
      Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
  5. Duke Nukem 3D on Linux! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is excellent news! I just found out Duke Nukem 3D is not only on the list of liberated games, but that it also runs natively on Linux now! Grab a copy from http://icculus.org/duke3d/index.html and meet me for a game. I'll be the one with the pipe bomb.

    Oh and first p0st.

  6. First of 2 Steps by Hidyman · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now if we could just liberate them from the /. effect.

    --
    You can't take the sky from me ...
  7. Unreal Tournament by StillAnonymous · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, the site's slashdotted now, but UT's source code was released, although the license isn't GPL..

    1. Re:Unreal Tournament by Sigma+7 · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's just the source code for the rendering engine. Evenything that was originally in Unreal Tournament was cored out, leaving you with just the renderer and some netcode. It's also not very useful unless you pay a *very* large license fee, with a minimum price of $350,000.

      Even so, the release of the code at that level isn't really significant - it still possible to do major changes to the gameplay with the engine to write things like "Red Orchestra", "Alien Blast", and even "Unreal Annihilation". All that's needed to do this sort of stuff is a license of UT2004 (as long as it is a free distribution that doesn't include the binary.)

      A cheaper alternative would either be the Quake engines (GPL or pay $10,000), or the Tribes 2 engine ($100 per developer.)

  8. Pretty soon we can add... by th1ckasabr1ck · · Score: 4, Informative
    ... Quake 3 to that list.

    Also - Dink Smallwood is a fun, quirky RPG which is also now available free of charge.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. Coral link by g-to-the-o-to-the-g · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is the Coral link, seeing as the site appears to be /.'d (Coral seems to be suffering from the /. affect too, interestingly enough).

    --

    Hi there

  11. Underdogs by XorNand · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you're looking to d/l old-school MSDOS abandonware, The Home of the Underdogs rocks. While the organizers admit that the site isn't exactly kosher, they do remove stuff at the requests of the copyright holder. A lot of the more major titles aren't found there but if you have a little-known, favorite PC game from 10-15 years ago, odds are they have it. I've gotten Megatraveller, Deathtrack, The Magic Candle, SEAL Team, among others.

    If you're looking for a good DOS emulator to play these classics under 2K/XP or Linux, I use DOSBox. It's not perfect, but it does work for most of the games that I've tried.

    --
    Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
  12. Most are not fully liberated! by Andreas(R) · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The website seems to be Slashdotted, however, I've been following Linuxgames.com for a while. It's fine that the source code itself has been released to the public, but there's almost always some kind of "catch" which prevents the game from being successfull after the new release:

    Game data is not released under GPL. This is obvisly a mayor flaw, and will render the game unplayable. This includes Doom, Quake 1, 2 etc.

    The licence is too restricted. This includes Civ :CTP, where the license will not allow you to fork your own project. Therefore noone is willing to do anything with the new code.

    The release of the code happens too late, so the game isn't "interesting" any more. (Eg. Wolf 3d)

    Still, by all means, more GPL'ed games is a good thing!

    1. Re:Most are not fully liberated! by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 4, Informative

      Game data is not released under GPL. This is obvisly a mayor flaw, and will render the game unplayable.

      Wrong. The game is still playable.

      You can download a free demo to acquire "game data", and play that with the GPLed executable.
      You can find a 3rd party who's made free "game data", and play with that.
      You can even pay for the original game itself, and use that "game data" with the GPLed executables. Valid old copies of Doom/Quake go for $1.99 each.

      GPLing is important for old software, because otherwise it'll tend to become unrunnable on future computers. But the game data has no such needs. If an artist were to hypothetically "upgrade it for newer machines", he may as well start over from scratch.

      PS. Note that one of the games on this list, Golgotha, is backwards from your claim: they released only the game data, and no working code (because they had none).

    2. Re:Most are not fully liberated! by Zak3056 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Game data is not released under GPL. This is obvisly a mayor flaw, and will render the game unplayable.

      Just because you're too cheap to buy the original game doesn't make this a "flaw" in source code releases.

      The "source code release" is just that--source code--not models, or art, or sounds, etc. Port the engine to whatever platform you want and use the data from the original game (that you bought) to play it as is--or better yet create your own damn game data and do something new.

      I think that's the biggest problem with the open source community (and I'm not talking about the people who actually do productive things like code and test, I'm talking about the other 90% of the community.) No matter what somebody gives you--for free, no less--people complain that they haven't been given enough.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
  13. How much of a geek is the poster... by ltwally · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "...the site tracks releases for all major computer platforms (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux)..."

    Wow, how much of a geek do you have to be to include Linux as a "major computing platform" and leave out MS-DOS when the subject of said platform is gaming.

    I don't have any hard numbers to back this up... but I wouldn't be at all suprised if the number of MS-DOS games out-strips every other platform around.

    --



    /dev/random
  14. Site is slashdotted, here is an anticipated list.. by SlashdotTroll · · Score: 5, Informative

    Depending upon your blessing of knowledge on what "freedom" is defined, your thoughts may vary on truth that GPL compared to public domain is not free.

    Microsoft open-sourced Homeworld, but not under public domain and neither GPL.

    ID Software open-sourced and GPL'd the engines for Wolfenstein & Spear-of-Destiny, Doom1, Doom2, Quake1, Quake2, and no later than December 2004 to GPL Quake3; ID is a pioneer and don't belong on the list because it makes them look uninteresting.

    Among the above are the following software,

    Aliens vs Predator 1 (they have source, no portage)
    (Free)Space
    Rise of the Triad
    Duke Nukem 3D
    Descent 1
    Descent 2
    Jagged Alliance
    SiN

    --

    I am the nightmare of nightmares.

  15. Re:Proposed Liberation Militia? by ultranova · · Score: 5, Funny

    What we need is a persuasive liberation militia. There are hundreds of thousands of games still enslaved by their developers on many aging platforms such as the C64, Nintendo, Etc.

    Fortunately, some upstanding citizens have realized their responsibility and have formed underground networks to liberate the poor captives and transport them into safety.

    As always, the officials are after these groups of freedom fighters, and many have fallen, but the rest fight on. And there is good news too: in the past, the captive games, once freed, were taken to secret safe houses (called "ftp sites" by the underground), but nowadays, a number of networks are moving the captives around constantly, making it almost impossible to recapture them.

    Three hurrays for the brave freedom fighters, past, present and future members of Razor, Myth, Khan, Origin and others. And to the brave, upstanding citizens, who risk arrest helping liberated games continuing their run on the wild. Hurray ! Hurray ! Hurray!

    Freedom for all games, now!

    Most games are liberated, some (like Half-Life 2) before they are even released ;).

    --

    Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  16. Timing? by magefile · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wouldn't the timing have been better if this was yesterday (i.e., the UN-declared Software Freedom Day)?

    /me goes off to download Bungie's Aleph One yet again ...

  17. Re:Site is slashdotted, here is an anticipated lis by arose · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I'm rather interested in free content than in free engines.
    --
    Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
  18. Effect of release? by dj245 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    If you didn't buy the game, you're less likely to have a manual. You're also less likely to take it seriously since you didn't have to pay for it. For an online game like Tribes 2, the effect of making it free (in an effort to promote Tribes: Veangeance) has been to introduce to the game servers a neverending supply of people who have absolutely no clue what they are doing and ask stupid questions.

    If they had read TFM or played the training missions, they wouldn't be so dumb. But they didn't buy the game, so they feel like they can jump right in and nothing bad can happen because if they get banned, oh well, they can just get another CD-key for free.

    --
    Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
  19. Coralized and Freecached versions of story... by La+Camiseta · · Score: 5, Informative

    Although it may be too late ...

    Coralized
    Crusader writes "Two LinuxGames staff members have launched Liberated Games, a site devoted to cataloguing full commercial titles that have been released for free by the developer or publisher, either with the full source code or without. The current list is available here; the site tracks releases for all major computer platforms (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux), so feel free to submit any missing games to the list."

    Freecached
    Crusader writes "Two LinuxGames staff members have launched Liberated Games, a site devoted to cataloguing full commercial titles that have been released for free by the developer or publisher, either with the full source code or without. The current list is available here; the site tracks releases for all major computer platforms (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux), so feel free to submit any missing games to the list."

  20. Vantage Master by david.given · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I've become rather fond of Vantage Master, which someone pointed me at the last time this topic came up. It's a rather cool tactical wargame featuring two dueling wizards on a three-dimensional hex board. Your primary mode of attack is to summon various strange creatures.

    It's deceptively sophisticated --- put more simply, I suck. Each creature you summon has an associated element, and there's a strict order of precedence between the elements. Choosing your creatures to counter your opponent's is the key to the game. It's definitely made for wargame fans.

    Despite being quite dated, it's still a lot of fun. The graphics are old but well done and perfectly adequate; it's full of well-presented little animations whenever anything happens. It's got a lot of nice touches like the fact that when you create a character, it runs you through a short personality test to find the right one for you... and there's something going on with Tarot cards I haven't figured out yet.

    One of the attractions is the really, really bad translation from the Japanese. There's enough information there to actually play the game, but there's a weird air of surreality about the whole experience; particularly the cut scenes describing the ongoing plot. I've no idea what they're about --- my character seems to spend a lot of time talking to some woman with a dog, uttering the kind of cryptic runes you get when you try and speak Japanese without the right font installed!

    Oh, yeah, and the fact that the title theme song is a direct ripoff of Limahl's Neverending Story has to be a point in its favour.

    Alas, it's Windows only and doesn't run properly under Wine (it runs, but there's no sound and it's far too slow).

  21. Isn't this already done? by Twench · · Score: 5, Informative

    How is this site different from http://www.gamehippo.com/? I would RTFWS (web site) if it weren't already brought to its knees by the hoards of slashdotters hoping to find their favorite game from 1983.

    --
    There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't
  22. Abandonware by xmpcray · · Score: 5, Informative

    Tons of other abandonware games available here .

    --

    --
    I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.
  23. Liberated Games? by LuYu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I was just looking at the Liberated Games, and the games I looked at (Aliens v. Predator and Homeworld) both require a purchased version installed in Windows or Wine to function. Further, the "source code" is not the source for the games, it is the source for an addon that allows the game to play in Linux. Being that such addons are not written by the game developers but some third party Linux enthusiast, it is not surpising these bits of code are free, but the games themselves remain proprietary and completely closed source.

    So exactly what is "liberated" about this? Are these games "liberated" because you only have to install them in Windows and not play them in Windows? Or is the mere fact that one can play games in Linux a liberating experience in and of itself?

    I expected some restrictions, like licencing or some similar unpalatable requirements, but I did not expect this "liberated" software to still be closed source. I am disappointed.

    Perhaps the site should create a rating system for types of "liberated" if it is going to define "liberated" so liberally.

    --
    All data is speech. All speech is Free.
    1. Re:Liberated Games? by CrusadeR · · Score: 4, Informative

      Regarding AvP and Homeworld, those *are* full source trees that compile on Linux, not add-ons, that are based on full source releases from the original developers.

      You can read about the source code releases here:

      AvP: http://www.linuxgames.com/news/feedback.php?identi ferID=4471&action=flatview

      Homeworld: http://www.linuxgames.com/news/feedback.php?identi ferID=6359&action=flatview

      --
      :wq
  24. Failed effort by Chris+Siegler · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I remember when Golgotha released their code and game data I was sure that somebody would pick up the torch and create a nice game out of it but nothing significant ever came of it. Considering the amount of press it got in the Linux press I'm sure that people knew about it, so that wasn't an excuse. And although it was still very rough around the edges they did include all the needed code,maps,textures,audio to get a good running start. So why did it fail? From what I could tell somebody ported it to run with OpenGL and there was a lot of discussion on licensing terms, but no real usable results. Maybe the code just sucked, but there was something like 1 1/2 years of commercial effort in the game that should have gone to some good use! It would just be instructive to learn why it failed.