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Great Games To Put On a Free PC?
Lumpy writes "I am giving several new PC's to a local charity that will be giving them to needy kids this Xmas. They are not powerful, basically baseline Dells that have Intel graphics and Celeron, but more than enough to do homework and other studies on. They are going out with XP on them, an Ubuntu CD, and a bunch of OSS software like OO.o and the others. I would like to include some games for the kids. Strategy, fun, etc. Great freeware games that are fun to play. What would be the best games that a 13-16 year old will like to play that are free and legal to give away, and will run on this lower-end hardware?"
http://www.wesnoth.org/
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
its a great choice and will run on almost anything.
The greatest game that's less than a meg. http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/game/144
.eot.
Frozen Bubble
Great for all ages and skill level
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
FreeCiv is a freeware version of Civilization that I still play. They have linux and windows releases.
http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Download#Windows_Packages
Frozen bubble is always a good choice. Savage 2 apparently just went free, though I'm not sure how well it will run on your hardware.
http://www.frozen-bubble.org/
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Armagetron - its a great game based on the Disney movie Tron, very fun and addicting. Even better is that it is available with fully networkable clients for Mac, Linux and Windows so anyone can play with anybody given they have the game for their platform and a network switch.
The game is a clean, competitive one that can be monitored via server. Comes in the Ubuntu package repositories by default.
Freeciv
Battle of Wesnoth
UFOAI (although this is in perpetual alpha)
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Gorillas
Nibble
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
OSSWin Games List
Take a look at the Platform and First Person Shooter games.
Doom 2 (Dunno if it's free yet) & Starseige Tribes.
That's all you need to make any needy kid's Christmas 'super specail'.
But clearly you have something better to say...
Ur-Quan Masters (Star Control II, but free)
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (great role-based strategic shooter, inexplicably free)
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Fun to play, engaging, they might learn something...
If you could cough up a few bucks I'd say go for one of the paid Civilization games as well (probably II or III) which are likely cheap on the secondhand market these days, or maybe you could write the publisher and ask really nice for some free licenses (doubt though, but they are older games...)
...in bed
Free-as-in-beer, or free-as-in-speech?
If you know the kids, you can tailor the games to their interests... I'm not sure how much mileage you'll get out of installing nethack when the recipient of the PC is a typical 14-yo girl.
If they have a good internet connection, all they need are links to decent flash games sites. I'm fond of recommending Kongregate, since they also have great tools and tutorials for creating your own games, and I've yet to see malware there. (Doesn't mean it doesn't exist).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
You can check out theopendisc.org's games and give that along with them. Those are four pretty solid games. Another thing to check out would be the open sourced quake or even freeDoom.
Are these primarily for kids? I'm also confused why you're installing XP but giving an Ubuntu CD? Live disc? That has a ton of great puzzle games you can start with and even a few decent starting learning games.
My work here is dung.
Oolite - Elite clone. Aaaaa... the memories :)
"It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad."
Very worthwhile, for both the strategy and melee modes.
ICQ# : 30269588
"I used to be an idealist, but I got mugged by reality."
http://apcmag.com/top_5_best_free_open_source_games.htm
Urban Terror is basically counter strike. It is based on the Quake III engine. I was surprised that it was both free and very well done. Available for windows, mac, and Linux. Lots of servers hosting games with lots of players. Free download http://www.urbanterror.net/news.php
Great game with cute robots. Can't go wrong.
I seem to remember there being quite a number of older titles released as freeware. Older iD titles, some of the earlier GTA titles, Tribes 1/2. With the number of mods available just for Quake 3, there will be tons of playtime just in one title. Red Alert was also released free, if you want to include some variety (as opposed to endless FPS games).
There are also current (ish) titles that might run on them. IIRC, Enemy Territory has a Linux port as does America's Army.
There's also the free games usually available for Linux that have Windows ports, such as FreeCiv.
I traded all my mod points for these magic beans.
http://lf2.net/
:D
One of my personal favorites. Shouldn't be too hard to run.
Also, putting on a free game making program might be a neat idea to toy with. Then they can make their own free games.
http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker
While a great idea, I'm sure "legal" is a requirement as well, so unless he's willing to buy licenses for these hundreds of games, forget it :-/
...in bed
I've wasted more than enough time with this recently: Java risk: http://domination.sf.net. The implementation seems to be pretty good, it has some basic AI players, and can be played over a network. Good, classic strategy game, without the overhead of sorting out all the little army pieces. -- Paul
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
I mean, isn't that the quintessential first 'educational' game that we all played at one point or another?
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
And the charity will be ever so grateful for the massive copyright liability you've donated!
Technically you wouldn't put it on the laptop per se, but you could add a link or desktop shortcut to Game!. It'll play on anything with a browser.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
I vote for X-Moto. It's a 2-D motocross simulator game. Lots of fun and challenge from easy to nigh-on impossible, and very addictive.
There is also a simplified version more suited to kids.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
I love that game.
And if you figure out how to make it work on XP, please let me know. I'm stumped. ;-) I also recommend an Atari VCS/2600, Commodore=64, Sega Genesis, and Nintendo 64 emulators since classic games are always fun!
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
And, while this is the wrong crowd, there are lots of non-free older games that are trivially cheap. A few copies of Age of Empires II, for example, could provide a lot of entertainment at a low price, and it's even quasi-educational.
I suggest a couple multiplayer shooters. Warsow http://www.warsow.net/ and Urban Terror http://www.urbanterror.net/ They're both free and based on the open sourced Quake engine (2 and 3). The Intel cards in those Dells should be enough for them. Plus they both have Linux and Windows clients.
Pocket Tanks is a great artillery game, similar to the classic Scorched Earth. It is technically shareware, but the unregistered version is relatively nag-free and full-featured. It is lightweight, simple to learn, and can be played alone (against an AI-controlled tank) or with another person. It's great fun to figure out what all of the different weapons do.
+ 2 for givin' da rugrats Linux!
The original Red Alert is free now. http://www.ea.com/redalert/news-detail.jsp?id=62:.
Kilroy was here.
None of those options are legal. Whether or not they should be is a different question.
When I was at that age, I played StarControl 2. It was almost impossible to buy games in Estonia back then but I got it. Nowadays the game is opensourced. Search google: Urquan masters
and then...
You are dreaming right? None of those are in public domain, not with copyright laws 90 years after death of the creator. They're abandonware at best, and that most certainly isn't legal.
I though of fl0w and Plasma Pong. However Plasma Pong seems to be down :-(
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
This game has enough layers of complexity to keep the recipient entertained for quite some time, and they can engineer magma and water systems while watching their dwarves stubbornly not do what they want them to. http://www.bay12games.com/
You'd have to check, but I think their older Exile series has been released to some extent as free. Not Avernum, but Exile. Direct link to their older games: http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/productsOld.html
They are fun adventure RPGs, story-driven, and will run an old [as in Pentium I, I think...] hardware. I believe their Exile series can be downloaded for free, and Blades of Exile's code has actually been GPL'd recently. I highly recommend the games. Great fun.
Never mind willing to buy, no one is selling.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I'd suggest you make shortcuts on their desktops (or put them inside a folder "Games") that are just browser bookmarks to various good online flash games. Here's some that I think are fun: http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=17727 http://www.kongregate.com/games/preecep/desktop-tower-defense-1-5 http://www.fugly.com/flash/819/flash-tetris.html http://www.runescape.com/ http://www.thegamehomepage.com/play/tangerine-panic/ I suppose another option may be SNES emulators and whatever if you can find legit free roms for them. Good luck
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Angband http://rephial.org/ is all the kids will ever need. Just kidding, but it is an awesome game if kids get past the fast that it is ASCII character-based.
TripleA is free. The older kids may appreciate having a more complicated board game like A&A on there. It even goes beyond the classic maps
And bookmark a few good flash gaming sites while you're at it. Some of the best games are online
If you really want free, a couple of games come to mind:
- NetHack/Angband/etc. Yes, these are text-based, but they formed the basis and inspiration for the Diablo series of games, which were frankly, watered down. I've played Angband off and on myself for nearly fifteen years and have only come close to beating it once. Plus, there are a zillion variants out there as well.
- I'm amazed that nobody has mentioned MAME. True, the legality of having the ROM images is suspect, but I doubt if a video game company that's been out of business for a decade will actually do anything about it, either.
- Lastly, with an emulator, tons of abandonware is available. I've spent many a night playing Elite, Apshaii, Sundog, Alternate Reality, and other classics.
FreeCiv, a freeware implementation of the Civ and Civ II rules - http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
Dwarf Fortress is a fantastically complex game, like a cross between SimCity, NetHack, and Oregon Trail - http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Main_Page
NetHack is a classic dungeon crawler with ASCII graphics - http://www.nethack.org/
Command & Conquer is an old but awesome RTS, now available for free from EA - http://www.commandandconquer.com/intel/default.aspx?id=62#NewsMain
Abandonware is murky but you can find install files for many abandonware titles online as well.
As much as I love playing Freeciv, I worry that it's not quite ready for people who have never played either it or some other version of Civilization. It is not at all intuitive, and it's not engaging to somebody who isn't already a known quantity at the whole getting sucked into the game thing.
How about OpenArena (a.k.a. Quake III) or Extreme Tux Racer? TetriNET/Blocktrix, a good multi-player Tetris game, is also a winner. Finally, there's a really good list of "open source" games over on Wikipedia.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Blob Wars : Metal Blob Solid
Project: Starfighter
Virus Killer
All are 2D software rendering with screen modes of 640x480 or 800x600. They've proved fairly popular in the past...
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
A challenging puzzle game that can provide hours of brain-bending entertainment. Linux has a similar program called "emacs" where you have to guess strange combinations of keystrokes, and get rewarded with an odd text adventure called "man".
... and then they built the supercollider.
Browser based games are always a good option. My favorite being http://wittyrpg.com/ of course.
IMO the best browser game ever http://wittyrpg.com
My wife is completely addicted to KNetWalk, some of the others are pretty good as well and appeal to a variety of ages.
Don't think of just entertainment, choose games that will teach the children valuable life skills. For example:
Teach them to Rule the World: Freeciv
Teach them the value of running over hookers: GTA 1&2
Teach them the awesomeness of fighting robots: One Must Fall 2097
Teach them to conquer the world in a different way: C&C Red Alert 3
And finally, teach them to conquer the world of worms (you never know): Wormux
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
This might be too "old and moldy" for a young teen but: http://www.scummvm.org/downloads.php Scroll down to "Extras, game downloads". Beneath a Steel Sky is entirely worth the time it takes to download and play. Definitely a staple of my childhood gaming. There are a couple other gems in the free downloads as well.
Very nice little asteroids/space invaders game.
A nice little platformer with a great storyline.
http://www.cavestory.org/index.php
Daniel
http://sauerbraten.org/
Free FPS that is easy to create maps for.
I don't think the FSF would classify it as 'Free' but it's close enough for what you want it for. I enjoyed the game a great deal.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
Found entirely in Ubuntu/gNewSense package repos:
Which Way Is Up? (wwisup) - 2D platformer with a "twist"
Pathological - pattern matching madness
gPlanarity - Untangle planar graphs
Fish Fillets NG (fillets-ng) - box pushing with hilariously witty fish
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/swine/download_6141612.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=files&tag=files;title;2 Pigs vs Rabbits, with tanks. What could be more fun for kids?
I'm not up on the details, but I've heard that ther is this program called "bittorrent" is extremely popular with gamers.... If you don't install it yourself, I'm sure your average 15 year old PC user will figure it out pretty quickly.
see: http://www.smart-games.com/igowin.html or http://tangoclient.sourceforge.net/
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Games/Arcade_Style_Games/Kye_Download.html
They shouldn't be. In my opinion, you should have to pay the price asked if you want a game or whatever. What I don't subscribe to, is having to pay extra just because you want it on a different platform - that should be free (or cheap, so as to cover only the cost of actually getting it to you).
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
http://pingus.seul.org/ Uses penguins instead of lemmings. Actually I find it better than lemmings. It does more special tasks for the penguins like jumping, which is really hard to make a penguin jump multiple times while trying to do the same for his other penguin buddies. Installs on windows, osx, and linux. It has its own level editor so you can make as many boards as you want but from the default it has way more than any single version of lemmings did.
Most of the VP only tables should run and if the systems are not too old then you should be able to get some of vpinmame games working as well others may end up running too slow.
http://www.vpforums.com/
To be pedantic, the emulators are perfectly legal; the pirated ROMs are not (although there are a few good original distributed-as-free-software ROMs.)
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
BZ FLAG! Ahh the countless hours spent pwning classmates in CS lab....
in Ubuntu as deb but oldish website has rc2 - quite fun.
If I still had modpoints I'd throw you +1. Nice information!
Give them some programming tools. Something they can learn and perhaps better themselves ( and their situation ) with.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Command and Conquer Gold GDI and NOD ISOs are free, legal downloads.
Along with MechCommander, MechCommander 2 and MechCommander Gold.
That Spore is pretty good. You should try that.
Not sure about the specs, and not that "politically correct", but Wormux, http://www.wormux.org/ is a GPL clone of the ever classic 2D Worms. Should be right-on for 13-16 year olds.
.: Max Romantschuk
Ehm, I'm sorry... I agree that if you own the game, that you should be able to run it in an emulator. However, if I want to play the original Super Mario and do that in an emulator on my PC that is completely illegal because I do not own a single cartridge containing that game. No grey area, simply illegal. I don't understand what you tried to tell with your post.
In the story it was asked about legal options: free as in beer or free as in speech games. Not "free as in the pirate bay", no matter what your opinion about the matter is.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
openttd.com is fantastic. You need some of the original game files but they can be found legitimately (google for 'transport tycoon clive owen'). Suitable for all ages and it's really fun.
"Jellyfish" Backgammon.
Level 7 is a world-class player. Tough to beat. It doesn't cheat, no matter what (useless) players say.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
www.bzflag.org Free, Open-source, multi-player tank battle ala Battle-Zone.
These two games are both super addictive - one is a risk-like strategy game while the other is a...well, it's it's own sort of puzzle game:
Fracas: http://www.smozzie.com/fracas.html
Pathological: http://pathological.sourceforge.net/
I've spent a lot of time playing each of these, and they are a blast for kids too.
There's the classic Scorched Earth and then the re-written freeware version, Charred Dirt. It's the predecessor (I think) to the Worms series of games. Just google "Charred Dirt" and you'll find it.
Wormux runs find on my old intel graphics card: http://wormux.org/wiki/en/index.php
It's a worms clone, actually very cool...
It's also available for windows... Also pingus, if it's avaiable for windows...
Use a modern NES emulator, like Nestopia. Nesticle is old as hell, and I wish people would stop using it.
I'm partial to my own game, Space Patrol. I'd be happy to wrap up jzIntv + Space Patrol (full edition) for such a thing. Both jzIntv and Space Patrol are GPL, and the Windows emulator works on even fairly slow machines. (I developed it on a 300MHz machine, and it runs full speed on 200MHz ARM machines.)
Also, there's an interesting game or two at Farbs.org.
Program Intellivision!
If they're 13-16, and some of them are boys, they're probably going to enjoy first person shooters. There are a number of good ones: a short list would be Sauerbraten and Urban Terror. They're free to distribute, they run on Windows and Linux, and they're lightweight enough to run on intel graphics without any issue.
Reversi/othello
Checkers
Chess
Go
instead of mind numbing violence and graphic eye candy, maybe it is a better idea to switch gears and provide something that actually cultivate the mind?
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
simutrans is a really fun Transport Tycoon-type simulation game.
Ah yes, Minesweeper. 2/17/57, IIRC.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
No:
...although they are pretty nice.
Sauerbraten
Open Arena
Nexuiz
But seriously...a good resource to check is this list on wikipedia.
That should give you more than enough to choose from =)
Xmoto is great, available from Ubuntu repositories, and non-violent. Apart from when the bike falls on top of the character that is! hehe
You should check out Edubuntu, it was designed the sort of thing you want to do in mind.
I know it's been mentioned before, but here are the actual links to the game and the literally hundreds of variants.
A couple of notable features are the AI is very good and the game has the only truly fully random number generator in it that I know of, so every game really is unique and odd things can occasionally happen.
My son plays it and has been known to hit the screen in frustration. :) Not bad for a game that will run on most any machine out there. There are also versions that run as a self-playing screen saver. Quite possibly the most interesting screen saver that I know of.
http://www.thangorodrim.net/
Older files, but then again, not much has been changed in the last few years, either.
http://www.zangband.org/
The most popular variant out there that I know of.
http://www.simugraph.com/simutrans/iso_angband/download.html
3D isomorphic version.
http://rephial.org/
This was mentioned before. Get the newer version here, though you likely will have to compile it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ToME_(video_game)
http://www.t-o-m-e.net/main.php?tome_current=0
The most recent surviving variant. Well worth your time to read these pages and ask around on the forums.
Star Control: The Ur-Quan Masters. One of the absolute best games I've EVER played for ANY platform - ported from the 1990's as free software.
Seiklus. One of my all-time favorite action/adventures: simple, colorful, evocative.
Within a Deep Forest. Really fun and neat game where you play a bouncing ball.
Spheres of Chaos. INCREDIBLE trippy Asteroids clone with lots of power-ups.
flOw. Of course.
Overgod. Very fun 2D arena shooter with upgradable ships.
ROM CHECK FAIL. Old-school craziness. =)
Cave Story. Metroid-style old-school side-scroller.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
http://www.regnumonline.com.ar/ The only free MMORPG I know of.
Or how about...
Scorched 3D
Free in both ways, networked and local play, installers for most platforms (including Windows and Ubuntu). And a whole extra DIMENSION, baby.
>>>will be giving them to needy kids
Just curious - what open-source software are you using to filter the internet & protect their young eyes from seeing goatse.cx or playboy.com?
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I don't think that the question here is if we individually respect copyright. My pr0n collection testifies that I'm no saint. (Oddly enough, that's really the only thing I pirate)
I don't expect you to either and I actually expect nobody to by piracy free. (With the exception of Richard Stallamn, and even then...) However, this is about a donation to a charity. You don't want them to get in trouble because of some boneheaded choices you made.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
The emulators are legal, as well as a few games that some authors have released or that were made by amateurs on the net. Unfortunately it's probably hard to find legal roms than illegal ones.
Lookup the millions of TD games, most are shockwave, some are downloadable. Tower Defense is quick fun, easy to understand and doesn't need a beefy system.
I don't think that logic applies here. You just can't buy the systems anymore (except maybe if you luck out at a garage sale), let alone the games. It's well and good to say "you should have to pay the price asked" but what if there isn't a price asked?
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Old as hell doesn't mean it sucks. If people are still using old as hell software, that means it stands the test of time. Next you'll be wishing people used a modern OS like Vista. Windows XP is old as hell, right?
They shouldn't be. In my opinion, you should have to pay the price asked if you want a game or whatever.
The problem is some old software does not have a price. Keeping them illegal, just increases the chance that these 'works of art' will perish over time.
Reversi/othello Checkers Chess Go
instead of mind numbing violence and graphic eye candy, maybe it is a better idea to switch gears and provide something that actually cultivate the mind?
I think you're probably overstating the developmental capacity of checkers.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
To be pedantic, the emulators are perfectly legal; the pirated ROMs are not (although there are a few good original distributed-as-free-software ROMs.)
Depends. Some of them require an illegal copy of the bios.
TETRINET!!!! and me without mod points! That's great if you'll have a network of users.
As much as I love playing Freeciv, I worry that it's not quite ready for people who have never played either it or some other version of Civilization. It is not at all intuitive,
These are 13-16 year olds the OP is talking about ... I'm sure they'll figure it out in short order.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Many of the open source Linux games also have pretty good Windows ports:
Take a look for "Linux Game" sites and follow the links to the homepage of the games. Most times the Windows ports will be included. Here's a few good examples:
At getdeb.net you can get Super Methane Brothers. If you go to the homepage of Super Methane Brothers you find a Windows Exe.
You can take a look at LinuxGames, playubuntu.com and probably find more via Google.
Games that I would recommend specifically:
Tux Math Command
gridwars 2
OpenAlchemist
Hedgewars
Game Maker
Frets on Fire
Secret Maryo Chronicles
CAPS LOCK: ITS LIKE THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME
1) Tetris
2) Missile Command
3) Space Invaders
4) Asteroid
5) RISK
6) Donkey Kong
7) N+
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
You have a couple of choices, as I am sure many will give you.
You can do shareware, while they do limit total gameplay, it is free and there are some out there that are really fun.
You can do demos. Now an days they are time based, but back in the day they were level based.
There are also Open Source games that have been released in the last few years, such as Freespace and Freespace 2. Of course, they had their source code released but people have made some good mods off of those. You can try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games
You can also try abondonware games, though the trick there is not all will work with XP properly and you would need to use an emulation software such as DOSBox.
Another option you can do, which is not a game in it self, and was recently a discussion on Slashdot is GameMaker. You can download a trial for it and provide some tutorials for it and kids can make their own games.
TuxKart http://tuxkart.sourceforge.net/
SuperTux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperTux
I believe there are XP and Ubuntu versions available for both.
"Politicians always tell the truth, when they're calling each other liars."
Had no idea Dune 2 and Battle Chess were in public domain, thanks!
As for Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, and The Dig, I'd recommend SCUMMVM instead of dosbox. SCUMMVM is a replacement engine for tons of older point-and-clicks that in nearly all cases plays the games better than the original engines. Its also supported on more hardware, including Dreamcast, PSP, DS and Wii.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
Umm, writing an emulator is perfectly legal. Downloading an emulator is perfectly legal. Format-shifting your PSX bios from one piece of hardware to another is perfectly legal a long as you OWN the system you're transferring from. Using the said BIOS in an emulator to play games you legally purchased is LEGAL.
Get that illegality nonsense out of your damned head - ever hear of BLEEM!? COMMERCIALLY SOLD EMULATION SOFTWARE.
Catch up with the times, even though those times were nearly a DECADE AGO.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
http://assault.cubers.net/
I personally never get sick of Chip's Challenge. Great old school puzzle game that fosters the development of problem solving skills.
http://www.soldat.pl/
Fantastic side scroller game, great for multiplayer.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
one of the funner games i remember playing as a child was AT-Robots. i'm not sure if it was free back then (i might have gotten it at a swap meet or something), but it's certainly free now.
basically, it's a robot battle simulation. you use a text editor to write the AI for your bot(s) in ATRA (Advanced T-Robot Assembly), a simplified assembly-like language used in the game, and then you load your custom-made bots up in the game and run battle simulations against other types of robots.
even if you don't assembly or don't have any programming experience, it's relatively easy to open up one of the pre-written robots that come with the game and figure out what different instructions do by altering different program parameters and then seeing how this changes the robot's behavior.
it's a great way to get kids interested in programming (and perhaps robotics/AI) while having lots of fun. one of the game's best qualities is that it encourages experimentation and creativity. once you get into the game you're always trying to tweak your robots and experiment with new techniques to improve their battle performance. it's largely a process of trial-and-error when you first start, but it also encourages deductive reasoning and other analytical skills.
No one has mentioned "Savage, Battle for Newerth". Has windows, Linux, and MAC downloadable binaries.
"BSD is about people pissing each other.." (Moid Vallat)
Disregarding your apparent dislike of open source, I meant Armagetron Advanced, as another AC pointed out above.
Can be found HERE and should run in windows XP too.
It's a remake of the old dreamcast classic "Chu Chu Rocket" (no online play ... yet, but at least it has got penguins)
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
Another vote for The Ur-Quan Masters (http://sc2.sourceforge.net/). It's fantastic, and it's even in Ubuntu's Universe repositories.
$ sudo apt-get install uqm
OK, this is an off-the-wall idea, but hear me out...
The HP48 is a slightly old HP scientific, graphing calculator (more like a small computer). It so happens that you can download an emulator for it, and a ROM for said emulator legally, and for free. I believe its processor was 4MHz, so any computer being built today will have no trouble.
Now, why did I mention this in a question about games? Because there are hundreds of free games available for the calculator. Some of them might even be worth installing the emulator for. Not to mention the fact that the kids get a free scientific/graphing calculator program in the process.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
dwarf fortress http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
No, NESticle really does suck. Trust me, I've used more than my fair share of NES emulators and it bugs the hell out of me when people say NESticle is 'good enough'. Seriously, the latest version (which was released ten years ago) doesn't even work on Windows, you have to use DOS! The last version that works on Windows is from 1997, and I've no idea how well that would work on Windows XP. NESticle was ahead of its time, but its time was the late 90s. Move on people!
Nestopia may be a bit heavy duty for low-end PCs like these though. FCE Ultra would be my immediate recommendation. It may not be quite up to Nestopia's level of accuracy, but it's close enough that most people won't notice and it's a hell of a lot faster. You could also give Mednafen a go. I've never tried it personally, but it looks good to me, and the NES emulation is based on FCE Ultra.
You missed a classic in there:
Global Thermonuclear War
Shall we play a game?
Uh, you just said exactly what I did. You should be able to play a game in whatever platform it comes in, as long as you've bought it once.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Install the GameTap client. While they have a pay service. They also have 150 free games. These are real commercial games including:
Tomb Raider Legend
Metal Slug 2
Bubble Bobble
Sensible Soccer 2006
King of Fighters '96
Robotron 2084
Elevator Action
Burger Time
Commandos 3
Warlords Battlecry III
Cannon Fodder
Hitman
More...
While the pay part of the service is worth the money, the free part has a suprisingly high number and quality of available games.
Well, thanks to Wii, a lot of these games actually ARE offered again. Sure, I don't own a Wii, but you can see the dilemma.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
I think maybe you need to be modded 'ignorant' yourself. There are plenty of modern computer games with more cognitive depth and educational content than any of the games you listed.
Before you try this, make sure that whoever's sponsoring this program is OK with your installing abandonware. Although this is not strictly in accordance with copyright law, abandonware sites (at least the ones that don't like getting sued) only provide abandoned games that their owners don't object to being made available. In many cases, the owner has gone out of business and there's really in a position to object — but verifying this is impractical.
Now then, go to an abandonware site and download every DOS game that looks at all fun. By modern standards, these games have tiny footprints, so you might as well go crazy. These will mostly not run directly under XP, so you should install an x86 emulator to use with them. (Yes, running an x86 emulator on an x86 system is weird, but it's the best way to deal with the low-level compatibility issues you get with DOS software.) The one I use is DOSBox, and there seems to be broad agreement that it's the best. Even emulates old sound cards!
Open Arena would not be my pick of Quake 3 fork. For one this is going to kids and the game even tells you on the homepage that it is more of an adults only game. Warsow on the other hand is not very gory and uses some very nice graphics. I think its a bit more intensive than Open Arena but it wont illicit unwanted legal attention.
Common Sense
While I used to beat my dad at chess starting from my high school years (15 to 18 years for those not from the U. S.) he kicked my ass at checkers up until the weeks before he died.
Ditto for my Uncle Obie.
I'll bet there's a bunch of old coots sitting around just waiting to teach you a thing or two about checkers.
Oh, and for what it's worth, Go is really simple too.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
All of your game options are playable without a PC. Most (if not creatively, all) of them can be played with sticks and stones.
I'm assuming he wants to use the PCs to give some games that they can't already play.
Work smarter, not harder.
On the educational side, TuxType, TuxPaint and TuxMath are all great programs that teach spelling, typing/speed, basic geometry/colors, and basic math problem solving.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Yes, I said partially what you said, but we're in a discussion asking for free games. None of the ROMs for emulators you download are by any measure "free". Using them is copyright infringement. So unless this guy has a pile of Nintendo cartridges which he gives along with the PCs in order to be sure they have a licence..... Emulators with ROMS are OUT!
That's what I want you to understand, and as such, I did say nothing like you said.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Go check out Abandonia.
Loads of certified abandonware. It was all good enough to sell once long ago. Now it's free.
And since it's for older PCs it should run on your Celerons just fine.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Zuma
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
The first rule of checkers fight club is that you do not talk about checkers fight club.
There's always Cave Story. Dark Dominion is being released soon, and that's supposed to be freeware. (http://www.dopterra.com/ddscreens/ddominion.html)
I second Maelstrom, I always loved this game. It's Asteroids on steroids--modern graphics and sound effects, extra bonus targets, multiplayer capabilities, etc. Runs great on Linux as well as Windows and Mac.
At FileShack you can find the ISOs for the http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/12826/Command+&+Conquer:+Red+Alert+-+Allied+Disc Allied and http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/12827/Command+&+Conquer:+Red+Alert+-+Soviet+Disc Soviet discs. Both are about 500mb downloads. Red Alert can be installed under Windows XP, 98, 95 and ME.
If you are going to install dosbox install Supaplex too. I have had so much fun with it it is the first thing I'm going to install _after_ my exams.
Read, refresh, repeat.
Why are you sending these out with Windows XP?
Are they legitimately licensed copies of Windows XP? Are you allowed to transfer ownership of the license to the recipient?
Considering you've gone to the trouble of individually downloading and installing your choice of FOSS applications on these Windows boxes and you're even distributing Ubuntu CDs with the PCs why are you even bothering with Windows in the first place?
The majority of gaming suggestions on this thread are FOSS or shareware games available on Linux anyway.
CN=poolmeister.OU=lurkers.CN=slashdot
http://www.adeptsoftware.com/jetpack
Hours, upon hours of fun.
Back in the day I paid for it, but it is now free.
The download is less than 500KB. and there are many user contributed levels.
Reversi/othello Checkers Chess Go
instead of mind numbing violence and graphic eye candy, maybe it is a better idea to switch gears and provide something that actually cultivate the mind?
I think you're probably overstating the developmental capacity of checkers.
...and chess. I play chess well yet I'm functionally retarded when it comes to talking to women. My excellent slashdot karma doesn't seem to help either. I don't know where I went wrong in life but I couldn't get laid underwater with the only SCUBA tank in swimming distance.
Do the kids a favor and install an instant messenger, Skype, and help them sign up for Myspace and FB accounts so that they develop some social skills before they die alone in an apartment with too many cats, a great chess ranking, a lot of slashdot posts, and too many high scores.
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
Ufo2000 http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Leave bookmarks on each computer and make sure they have everything needed to play the free games at instantaction.com.
Lots of goodies for free.
Install a GameTap account and let them play the free silver games. All sorts of neat old-school arcade games, they rotate the free games, and they can play the infinitely awesome Psychonauts. (Which will probably murdalize the hardware but oh well.)
- TA Spring (You can get games for that what ain't using the Total Annihilation files) (+ not so good for slower machines)
- Nexuiz (not so good for slower machines)
I would just place games what educates and teach basic strategies like chess, go and such games. For younger childrens a KDE-edu package is bretty good.
And then of course set of marble and science applications, because those might some like to be fun.
Oh, and dont forget old kind commandline games and links to desktop heading to online java games.
Knytt_Stories
Peaceful 2d jump&run with great art and level design
review
While I don't doubt AT-Robots was a "funner" game for you, I do seriously doubt the average, needy 13-16 year old recipient of the donated computer would find it so.
I'm not saying there aren't needy nerds, but I would go with the odds and suggest that games that don't involve too much thinking would be much more fun for them. (And there look like plenty of winners, listed in other threads.)
But what the hell, toss some stuff like that on there too. Maybe put it in a folder called "keep out" to get them to look at it.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
FreeCol: Sid Meier's Colonization reimplemented in Java. Good graphics, good gameplay, multiplayer works well across platforms (just the other day there were three of us playing: I hosted on Ubuntu, my friends had XP and Vista). It isn't at the 1.0 release but it's playable as is and is actively developed.
No statement is true, not even this one.
BZFlag is a fun multiplayer tank game that you can jump right into and have fun but also has a lot of potential for skill growth. It works well on even crappy video cards.
http://www.ea.com/redalert/news-detail.jsp?id=62
With installation instructions for XP and Vista.
They also did this a while back with Command & Conquer Gold which is still available on somewhere like filefront iirc.
mupen64+ works well for linux (that 4 usb cables + 4 old xbox detacahble controller cables, gives a pretty sweat setup)
OFC this is all offtopic due to legal issues :( but if your not hampered by such technicalities then i strongly recommend getting a couple of xbox controllers and usb wires.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
forget emulators ...i have nearly 200 games (or somewhere around that)installed in debian lenny 90% of these games are GPL you CAN sell them...just like you can sell Linux cds/dvds
Just put a link to OGame.org on their desktops. One of the biggest, best free MMOG's out there.
Brad Wardel may give you a bunch of licenses for Entrepreneur, etc. gratis. Nice write-off for him, perhaps, and he seems like a pretty friendly guy.
at http://neurohack.com/transcendence/ This is by George Moromisato, the same guy who wrote Anacreon, back in the DOS 3.x days.
Anacreon is available there http://neurohack.com/ too, if you're taking character-mode programs. And where it used to be shareware, it's now free.
And I also second votes for FreeCiv, Vega Strike, and Wesnoth, among others.
We are the 198 proof..
In my opinion, you should have to pay the price asked if you want a game or whatever.
I'd agree with that, as long as you don't artificially restrict who is asking the price.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
XBill!!!!! Teach those kids about what needs to be done to prevent Bill the hacker from spreading his Windo.. I mean virus to other computers in the network! This game builds fucking character dammit!
It's not free, but the free trial of Snood is still a ton of fun for me.
Use a modern NES emulator, like Nestopia. Nesticle is old as hell
Old as hell doesn't mean it sucks.
But in this case, it does suck. It takes a mere four lines of 6502 asm code for an NES program to detect whether it's running on Nesticle or a more accurate emulator:
And it sucks because it's old; the NES behavior that this code depends on wasn't discovered until Nesticle was no longer maintained. If you're going to be playing homebrew games such as Tetramino or anything on pdroms.de, I'd recommend using Nestopia or one of the FCE Ultra forks.
Next you'll be wishing people used a modern OS like Vista. Windows XP is old as hell, right?
No, it's more like recommending Windows XP over MS-DOS.
You could also throw in GTA(2), which are now freely available as Rockstar Classics: http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/
I don't think the people running this kids charity is going to appreciate that particular game...
No sig for the moment.
http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/index.html
Go see on youtube many interesting movies. You will like it. I have two kids enjoying it a lot.
www.phunland.com
Oh, yes, it is multiplatform.
marco
smile and have fun
Go? Are you trying to cultivate the mind or scare them away from intellectual persuits!? Honestly, Go must have the most complicated strategy in existence.
Do think about a wider variety of games (and other programs), for both boys and girls. I hope other people can add to my limited list.
Favorite Fox Sudoku. 123 Free Solitaire.
Kids can have fun with The Gimp, Picasa, Sketchup, Audacity (there must be a friendlier free program than Audacity....)
?Provide them with URLs to Teen Second Life and Game Giveaway of the Day.
I would suggest looking through the repository after installing Ubuntu, There are quite a few games.
Curious about Storage and Virtualization? Check out
Why? So they'll be competing with us for women? We need to make a socially illiterate next generation, so there will be young women available for us!
As much as I love playing Freeciv, I worry that it's not quite ready for people who have never played either it or some other version of Civilization. It is not at all intuitive,
These are 13-16 year olds the OP is talking about ... I'm sure they'll figure it out in short order.
Or they'll get bored due to a lack of action scenes and attractive women.
There are only a small number of games on the Virtual Console. And it's region locked to boot.
Mada mada dane.
I know you're trying to be insulting, but you should probably make it clearer, you look like that kid who tries too hard to fit in at school.
Hi There You can have a look at all th equake 1 engine based games :) they are are free and run on most anything :).
Also stuff like kpooka for linux or free civ ... there are even open versions of warcraft one.
HTH
Command and Conquer: Red Alert (the original) is being given out for free by EA.
-P
Give them the first five applications on this list. ;)
http://sectools.org/
I wrote a stupid shooter called Independent. It's pretty fun - a bottom moving spaceship blasts a bunch of things dropping from the sky. It uses 3d graphics but runs fine on a corporate Dell Latitude D610. Go to http://mightyware.com/independent.htm and help yourself. The registration code is 1138 (after the famous movie). Heck, I'm not selling it, so, if anyone wants it, go ahead and download and mirror.
This is my sig.
I do NOT come to Slashdot to look in the mirror!!!
There are alot of good open source games out there. My personal favourate is Battle of Wesnoth.
Alien Wars, Freecraft, Nethack, FreeCiv, TORCS & others can be found in the Ubuntu repo's that are fairly good.
Make SELinux enforcing again!
I think maybe you need to be modded 'ignorant' yourself. There are plenty of modern computer games with more cognitive depth and educational content than any of the games you listed.
Score for not listing any. Sitting here on my gentoo box just wishing for someone that knows so much to show me a decent game.
Bullish Machine Tzar
I don't really believe this post will be noticed at this point, but it costs nothing to try: I love Jewel, a great Unix/LInux game. In fact, my favourite game of all time - but I can't find a version for Windows. If anyone knows of one, please let me know.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
For fans of the board game Settlers of Catan, there is a similar online version which is quite nice:
Sea3D (here are some screenshots)
That one is a bit old, but stable (it is similar to Settlers plus the seafarer expansion), and the S3D Connector website can match up players.
The newer version in devel is Cities Online (similar to cities and knights expansion).
Those are pretty good board games.
Can't you get SimCity for linux, at least? I know they have it on OLPCs.
FCEU is a real pain to set up and use. I haven't tried FCEUX, but the original was very sparsely documented and essentially had no UI. The emulation is excellent however, which is why it lives on.
Mednafen is an absolute dream. Easy to install and configure, it has a well documented config file, and an easy to use in game controller configuration utility. There's even in game help, if you forget the hot keys. It supports all sorts of scalers and filters, and it supports a lot more than just NES roms. TG-16 in particular makes mednafen excellent.
I've used a lot of emulators, and mednafen is my #1 favorite emulator on any platform and of any platform.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Hours of fun for the whole family!!!!
Badges!?! We don't need no stinking badges!
Classic online asteroids, will run on any pc http://www.getcontinuum.com/
I suggest Flight Gear flight simulator. Any modern computer should be able to run it, it is not as graphics intensive as you might think, just need OpenGL. Great game, fun to play and also teaches the physics of flight and world geography. My kids and I love it! You can find pre-built Debian packages at http://packages.debian.org/sid/flightgear they should install just fine on Ubuntu.
"I reject your reality and substitue my own." ~ Adam Savage, Mythbuster extraordinaire.
I'd like to add that Starcraft rocks too, and is fairly cheap. AoE II does have more of the historical bent to it though. Both games are excellent.
All your base are belong to Wii.
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/
'Net' is my favorite puzzle in the set, but there are 27 different puzzle games total including Mastermind, Minesweeper, a number sliding puzzle, and Sudoku.
Available for PC, Mac, Linux, and Palm.
http://bzflag.org/ There are plenty of servers rated "PG", "PG-13", and even "G" suitable for children of all ages. The servers for kids tend to be very heavily monitored with strict language and behavior rules.
Cheers!
Sean
Http://www.happypenguin.org Full of interesting LINUX games. Since you mentioned ubuntu cd I thought it might be useful. And Savage 2 is fairly interesting.
Restore the madness of youth's lechery
Tight plot continuity, fantastic UI, learning as you play; none of these phrases describe Kingdom of Loathing. (Motto: An adventurer is you!) It mostly defies description. You can play as a Disco Bandit. The currency is meat. See? No help. Check it out for yourselves :)
The future ain't what it used to be.
It a good simple game, available for most all mainstream os's. My 9 year old grandson plays it with me twice a week. His mother regulates his time. http://www.wesnoth.org/ the warthogs are dead....
Gltron can be played by up to four people in front of one computer. Great fun for a couple kids. I have seen it.
http://www.gltron.org/
The best bit about supertux is the easy level editor. My nephews discovered it and all of them spend at least as much time making levels as playing the game which they invariably ask for when the come over (an eee with supertux makes for a quite life). They range in age from 4-11 and all love it.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Micropolis is the official SimCity for Linux I do believe, but Lincity-NG is an even better clone more akin to SimCity 2000.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Not free but for $7.00 i can play the game that first interested me in computer gaming: http://www.linkscountryclub.com/
I always liked golf on the PC, better than solitaire for killing time. Multiplayer too. Between this and Virtual Pool 3 Download version I have all the gaming I need for $30 total.
Problem is you need to run Windows. I bet they run in an emulator on linux though.
I've got wood for sheep!
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Another vote for Anacreon!
More specifically, a vote for the freeware rewrite: Anacreon is no longer a character-mode game. George Moromisato reimplemented the entire thing from scratch and -- crucially -- added netplay.
For those not familiar with Anacreon, it's a 4X turn-based space conquest game that delivers unusual depth despite its relative simplicity; it is complex without being complicated. Its hardware requirements are, accordingly, minimal. Yet IMHO it compares favorably with GalCiv II in several respects, and is significantly better than Master of Orion I/II or Space Empires IV (which is a game that attempts to be richly complex but only succeeds at being drably complicated).
Freedom is not the license to do what we like, it is the power to do what we ought.
And I made no statement that what he was describing was OK - unfortunately it appears "should" can be interpreted in one of two ways, and you picked the way I did not intend.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Over a hundred is a "small number"?
That and region lock-out aside, I'm not sure how the AC's post about the Virtual Console applies to putting free games *on a PC*...
scorched earth, worms, etc were all great, but this open-source 3d version is a riot, especially with some of the mods
Do the kids a favor and install an instant messenger, Skype, and help them sign up for Myspace and FB accounts so that they develop some social skills
IM, Facebook and MySpace are as useful to the development of social skills as a horse is to playing water polo. Sure, some of the syntax is the same, but it's just a really bad idea.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
You can add T.E.G. in Ubuntu... it is like Risk. I'm not sure if it's available in english.
http://www.quasarcr.com/
I've been playing Numpty Physics on my phone while commuting by bus for the last week or so. It is thoroughly addictive, runs on very low-spec hardware, and is kid-safe.
http://numptyphysics.garage.maemo.org/
lizardb0y
http://www.vintage8bit.com/
Marathon's FPS engine was open-sourced in 2000 (the engine is called Aleph One), and you can also grab a revised version of the original game's data files to play with it. If your child has a James May-like disposition, he may also be interested in the pseudo-3D engine.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
And here is a list of FPS and MMOs. While you didn't list what kind of Intel graphics chip it shouldn't take you very long to pick a few out of these lists that will work. Basically anything pre 2003 should work with a 915. I haven't tried the newer GMA chips but I heard they are even better. Personally I like any of the free FPSs based on the Quake engine myself. You just can't go wrong with a little Quake style blasting to help relieve that schoolwork stress ;-)
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Dwarf fortress AND TA spring - you need nothing else. Good combo to suggest, mr Conditioner!
As you can see from the comments here, there are an *abundance* of excellent free, open source games available for Linux. Please do not ship these machines with Windows XP! Instead, you could ship them with Ubuntu and a load of games and educational software pre-installed. Getting new users, and especially kids, hooked on MS from the start is the worst thing you could do!
Xmoto, it's very addictive, makes you think and isn't ugly at all.
4 - A robot may not masturbate, except where such action would conflict with the Second Law.
heh, i hope they've tightened up their client-server model. i remember back in high school i wrote a proxy server to monitor the traffic between my TetriNET client and the server. at first it was just a stream of jumbled characters to me, punctuated by the occasional chat message that was displayed in plain text. but after studying the traffic for a few hours and with a little experimentation, i was able to decipher pretty much all of the traffic flowing between the client and server and document their entire communication protocol.
yea, it's just a game so security naturally won't be a major priority, but there were some pretty major design flaws. for instance, even though the networking architecture technically followed a client-server model, nearly all of the game intelligence/mechanics was entrusted to the clients. all the server did was give everyone a single host to connect to and serve as a broadcast address. the actual instructions to update each player's screen came from their own clients. and to make things worse, the server (and therefore also the clients) made no attempt to distinguish where a message originated from and whether that host had any business issuing that message/instruction.
so by the next day i had hacked together a proxy/cheat program that let me manipulate anyone's screen at will--including adding/removing rows, dropping power-ups, clearing/filling a screen completely, and even drawing words/flowers/smiley faces on the screen using blocks/power-ups. oh, and i could also spoof chat messages or boot everyone off the server. the game lost its fun after that, but reverse-engineering their communication protocol was funner than playing the game anyway.
(aka Sim City[tm]) would be a nice addition. The source is available under the GPL, but a bit of Googling didn't find me any pre-compiled Windows version. Anyone know where one might be ? There are certainly deb packages for Debian/Ubuntu around.
Grand theft auto classic and grand theft auto 2, both available free from R*'s website, as well as VDoom (open source doom, hexen, doom 2), and Wolfenstein Enemy territory.
global thermonuclear war
Sounds like Robocode to me. http://robocode.sourceforge.net/
I love mahjong and knetwalk. Think they qualify, in this day of copyrong who knows?
Cart
while i agree it's a niche genre, so are some of the more complex SRPGs like Spectral Souls or Generation of Chaos, which i think have a steeper learning curve than AT-Robots. even World of Warcraft has more parameters, stats & complex game mechanics to learn/memorize than AT-Robots.
really all the robot AI algorithms simply break down into a few basic directives: scan, attack and chase/evade.
aside from those three points, there's just the allotment of base stats:
scanner
weapon
armor
engine
heatsinks
mines
shields
i think AT-Robots would appeal to any child who's ever wanted to build their own robot. but unlike building a robot in real life, this is much cheaper and easier to pick up. besides, just because a child comes from a poor background doesn't mean he's dumb/has a short attention span. likewise, a game doesn't have to involve mindless action to be fun/entertaining. a lot of people enjoy empire-building strategy games, chess, and puzzle games like Sudoku.
plus, kids around that age are still pretty mentally malleable and inquisitive. kids aren't born nerds or intellectuals/geniuses. you can cultivate a healthy interest for intellectual pursuits in just about any child, and educational games are the perfect means of doing just that. it's important not to sell a child short and withhold intellectual challenges from them because you think it's beyond their mental capacity--especially underprivileged children.
The Bub's Brothers
the cake is a lie
Similarly, Logo can be a great way to educate programming skills, as well as artistic and problem solving skills. Logo can make spirograph-type art, and puzzles such as mazes can be navigated. I'm not sure if Logo has been developed as far as having AI, but it seems possible.
Logo may be more appropriate for younger audiences. Something with a similar artistic/programming approach for teens would be interesting. Maybe sodaplay or processing, although these maybe a bit too difficult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)
On that note - we have a 4 year old at home (soon to be 5) who is hooked on GCompris. Most of the mini-games there are too difficult, but she loves the ones she can figure out.
She switches on the PC and logs on herself (with her own password) to get to it.
While I thought about giving her Sugar as the DE, she seems very comfortable with GNOME.
Better than Wolf in many ways is Tremulous.
http://www.tremulous.net/
I've run the PCs at a a gaming convention for several years and have had Wolf there every year for the past 4. This year I tried Tremulous. Most everyone, especially the 13-16 year-olds really enjoyed it. Many said, "Way better than Wolf!" We even had girls playing!
It ran on more aged hardware much better than Wolf did. Higher FPS. Snappier. Ran on meh MacBooks with Intel graphics quite acceptably. Has enough newness with the aliens so it's not a same-old same-old FPS. Some RTS elements. I like it.
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
tuxracer.sourceforge.net or http://www.extremetuxracer.com/?screenshots
tuxracer flat out rocks!!
+4 _insightful_?
You just need to know where to look.
http://happypenguin.org/
Freespace 2 is now open source. It's pretty good.
http://red.planetarena.org/ - Alien Arena 2008 Consistent style, smooth gameplay, and the game is very configurable, capable of running on older hardware, or if you have the horsepower, capable of running very nice effects. There are tons of modes of gameplay, all suitable for kids of any age. Great, friendly community that always welcomes players of any age into the mix. Gameplay is very well balanced, and easy to learn.
You guys have forgotten about the game that is frustration incarnate. That's right, N! http://www.thewayoftheninja.org/n.html Get your ninja on.
DXball (MegaBall based breakout game) runs OK on basic machines, you can still get the free version on cnet:
http://www.download.com/DX-Ball/3000-2099_4-10155579.html
Also, NoNags has a lot of games, all free. I would think anything saying it is Win9x and XP compatable would not be too demanding. At Nonags you want the 6/6 rated software, though some of the 5/6 stuff is OK too.
http://www.nonags.com/
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
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He meant that since the games are still being sold for the Virtual Console, that these games are not 'abandonware', so be wary about licensing issues.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I love K Bounce!
I'm sure you could find a Windows version of a Bounce-themed game.
Can anyone recommend a good therapist for me.. er.. my schizophrenic network card?
America's Army might run on your hardware. It ran fine on my PC back when I played it, and all my hardware is at least 6 years old now (PIII, GeForce 4, etc.) I was playing back when it was in the 1.x versions however, and now it's in the 2.x's. I believe they're using a newer generation of the Unreal Tournament engine since I last played. I don't know if you can still play the 1.x engine online.
It was a very polished game for being free. Being released by the US army as a recruitment tool, it was obviously quite realistic. You went through basic training first, and could only become a sniper if you passed with really high scores, etc. Combat is very team oriented (limited number of each player class available per level, etc.) and realistic (when you die, you have to wait until the mission is over to come back, etc.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Army
Between that and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, I didn't have to buy a PC game for at least a couple years... back when I still had time to play them.
You're right, why hasn't this been modded to +5???
It's not Open Source, but it is based on the GPL'ed Quake 3 engine, and it's probably one of the funnest FPS in existence. And it's free, and plays GREAT in Ubuntu!!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
http://www.womgames.com/index.php
-ryry
13-16 years old does not imply boys. Or are you implying girls will get bored without attractive women?
http://smozzie.com/fracas.html Nice little Risk-style game, but not a clone. Customizable pseudo-random maps, good AI, low system requirements.
? syntax error
Awesome 3rd person, on-line, shooter! http://www.gunzonline.com/
sense of security, like pockets jingling...
Daimonin: a better looking version of Crossfire. And The Mana World, which is a bit like WoW. Both are free and run on Linux as well as other OSes I shall not mention here.
I was involved with a student game project at my university this year. It's a turn-based strategy game in which you are an independent music label recruiting bands across your city. We've had about 700+ downloads so far and I'd be very happy if we could give some of what we did to these kids. Available for Windows and Mac http://www.labelriseofband.com/
How about learning how to make the trains run on time?
OpenTTD is a well-polished clone of the Microprose game 'Transport Tycoon Deluxe'. Your job is to create and manage the transportation infrastructure of an island. Trains, Planes, Automobiles and Boats!
Hours of fun and below-the-radar learning!
hmm, i didn't see it mentioned, so gere it goes ;)
http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/
Rich
http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/
A Guitar Hero clone that you can play with a regular keyboard (F1-F5 for "frets", Enter to "pick")
Have you considered Phun Physics ( http://www.phunland.com/wiki/Home )? It's a 2D environment where you can build "machines" a little similar to The Incredible Machine, but obeying many physical laws. So far, everyone who has seen the demo video, from my 4-year old son to some Ph.D. educated friends, has fallen in love with it :o)
Also Pioneers.
It's in the Debian and Ubuntu repos.
I'd be happy to donate some copies of Venture Africa and Venture Arctic to your cause (kid-friendly games about building ecosystems of animals). Feel free to contact me through the contact-us form on the Pocketwatch Games website (www.pocketwatchgames.com/contact-us).
Why not put the shareware versions of all the big titles out there at the momment? You should be able to scrounge a few floppies of games off people or download from a BBS if you have a fast enough 19200 baud or better modem. Oh you'll need PKUNZIP.exe too!
... you mean to tell me the pc game industry has forgotten about... shareware? How can this be, companies like ID software made their millions on that on that model!
Hey what is this place? Oh what's that you say? Really?
All joking aside, if this was 1994 I would have said just load that PC up with shareware, like the shareware versions of DOOM and Descent were pimped all over the place, there was no need to pirate games because you could get decent stuff for free if you wanted *sigh*. Today it's different, other than ancient abandonware there are disappointingly very few decent entirely free shareable games, and anything commercial usually has a crippled demo version.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I'm hoping I'm not the only one who initially read this post as being '... will be giving them to nerdy kids this Xmas' :-)
How about some demos?
Yes, while most demos are space-wasting crap, quite a few are actually very nice. For example, have a look at "World of Goo" (http://2dboy.com/), which comes with a very nice and long demo.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
The original GTA is going free on Rockstar's website. It's up to you if you think it's suitable for 14-16 year olds (when it came out it was an 18, but then again, that was a decade ago, attitudes change)
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Abondonware? :)
How about Yo Frankie? The new game made by the Blender team: http://www.yofrankie.org/
Very cool game, shown at Assembly '05.
Put Glest on there as well ( http://www.glest.org/ ) Very polished looking RTS. From their website " Glest is a free 3D real-time strategy game, where you control the armies of two different factions: Tech, which is mainly composed of warriors and mechanical devices, and Magic, that prefers mages and summoned creatures in the battlefield. "
It is available from Ubuntu repositories.
Complexity is a measure of our ignorance...
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..don't go for Crack Attack or Tetrinet.
Put the BlinkenSisters Jump'n'Run on it:
http://www.blinkensisters.org/
I'll be glad to give support via email if required :-)
Look, this thing is totally safe! Built it myself, you know. You just press that button like this and then turn that lev
Harpooned is the world's finest cetacean research simulator. It's free, runs on low spec machines and I made it.
cokane.com
Arena is one of the best games ever. You may need DosBox though...
http://www.elderscrolls.com/downloads/downloads_games.htm/
http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1/
"Bellum est Pacis. Licentia est Servitus. Ignarus est Vires."
The best thing about trying out free/open-source games on Ubuntu is that (like all programs) they're just one command away...
sudo apt-get install
Makes it so easy to try these things out.
I recently designed some new levels for Extreme Tux Racer. They a CC and designed to be longer and faster (~8 min and ~15 min).
-Adam
Computer Science is all about trying to find the right wrench to bang in the right screw. -T.Cumbo?
SuperTuxKart is also a very good game with good music. It is similar to Mario Cart.
Muslim Massacre.
http://www.muslimmassacre.com/mmbeta.rar
So Skulldilocks threw acid on the schoolchildrens' faces, cause somebody from the bible told her to do it!
I have to second or third or 500-th Wesnoth. Great RPG/strategy game. Frozen Bubble is great for those times when you really don't want to do anything else. I would check out http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/ also for great free games. I would recommend puzzle, word, RPG, and strategy games for children/teens. No need to actually offer FPS's to them; I am sure they will get them themselves if they want to play those.
Great little game.. that i wrote ^_^ http://www.download.com/Keith-Goes-Painting/3000-7433_4-10414827.html Requires java mind.
Check it out, http://bzflag.org/
Armaments, 2-9-21 And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade' N
Try out anything by Nifflas. Free games requiring little power. They have relatively unusual gameplay. Try out Within a Deep Forest and Knytt first:
http://nifflas.ni2.se/,
i was gonna suggest teeworlds, enemy territory and subspace/continuum, but other people have mentioned the first two. but regardless, how many children from poor backgrounds will have parents who have the internet anyway? in the uk a lot of the working class prioritise sky tv over the internet and if these kids really are in need of charity, their parents probably cant afford both.
Gunrox is a free game, that you play online: http://www.gunrox.com/?ref=Late Its a lot like jagged alliance or ufo/xcom series, but you only play against human opponents, and your soldiers are always the same even if they die and you can improve their abilities every time you gain a level. With real money you can buy some handy stuff like more storage space but using real money is not required to compete against others and doing well.
Deinitely Tuxpaint with all the stamps installed. My 3.5 year old loves it, and it's really very good.
I am surprised a lot of posts are suggesting Linux-only games... I could have sworn that you were looking for games on XP. It sounds like Knoppix Game might not run well on the machines, or I'd suggest just including that. Maybe DosBox bootable CD?
Other suggestions which you probably already know:
Irfanview as the default image program
OO.o (which you already mentioned)
Firefox with AdBlock Plus
GIMP and/or Picasa
Google Earth
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I have been fixing up computers for kids and have a list of games and applications that were free. Check them out and join the cause at http://www.pachx.org/ brian
Cube or Sauerbraten. Both are FOSS. Sauerbraten is a favorite of mine - a couple coworkers and I play it at work at lunchtime. It's very reminiscent of Quake III. There's supposed to be a decent single-player campaign, and there's an RPG based on the engine, also. I've only played multiplayer deathmatch.
PERL:
All of the power of Voodoo with most of the understandibility!
Hi, I think Entropia Universe would be a good alternative to ship with the computers if they have a internet connection, it is free to download , install and play. There aspects of the game that requires that you pay, however it can still be very entertaining without putting in a single dime. And most of all, if you play your cards right, you might actually earn some cash while having fun.
I can't believe I'm going to agree with something Twitter said, but I have to admit, "free software games are better than XP games" is pretty accurate. Any number of free games would beat 3D Space Cadet Pinball hands-down (and Unreal Tournament's free demo would too, for that matter). Heck, the summary even assumes that better free games exist than the ones bundled with XP...
XP games (notice we aren't talking about "games produced by Microsoft", we're talking about "games bundled with XP") are pretty bland: Minesweeper, various card games (solitaire, spider solitaire, hearts, spades, might be forgetting some here), pinball.
Now, if we're talking about purchased games, yeah, Halo is a good game. So I'm not ragging on Microsoft at all, their bundled games just aren't that impressive.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
[citation needed]
Not that I don't believe in you. But it would be nice if you provide nice links for us to play. Sorry. I mean, links to follow ;-)
-- dnl
Who modded this modded as insightful?
My guess is that it was modded insightful because anyone in a checkers club be hesitant in admitting it.
If you're a jock, confess your ties to football. If you're geek, admit to participation in chess or computer club. But under no circumstances should one ever admit to being in a checkers club.
- John
Just put a URL shortcut on their desktop to Kongregate.com, AddictingGames.com, or whatever your favorite "web" game website may be.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
I think Bos Wars would be a great choice:
http://www.boswars.org/
Also Spring with its various mods is a great free game, but might be a bit much for the hardware:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/
Nevermore.
Just put a couple of bookmark links on the desktop to some of those free flash-game sites. I've got a decent gaming PC and a X-Box 360 and I still find myself playing some simple game where you move a box around for an hour just because its addictive!
The oldies are goldies. Go up on Home of the Underdogs, if the title still sells, they say so.
Other than that, there are some free goodies out there:
Ur-Quan Masters and Alien Invasion, I second those. Still great fun to play.
http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/
For a space simulator, I love Privateer, and always has. Now, they remade it with the Vega Strike engine and you can get the original with Righteous Fire with enhanced models and they call it Gemini Gold. And it's also cross-platform.
http://priv.solsector.net/
Dungeons Runners is a Diablo/WOW kind of Massive Multiplayer Action RPG and you can play it for free or pay for some extra stuff.
http://www.dungeonrunners.com/
Nexuiz is a Tron-style first person shooter which is open source and free.
http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/
No one ever said being a Heretic was easy.
Let us meet again in "Less Interesting Times"
Check out all the free games packages with D-Fend reloaded, not exactly up-to-date but damn good fun nonetheless D-Fend Reloaded
Challenge any gal you fancy to a chess game, that is a great ice breaker. Honestly.
If the answer is "I don't know how to play" then the heaven of chess mentoring opens to you.
"I don't wan to play!" then reply with "what would you like to play?"
And so on. There is no chance that you will get no for an answer.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Who carries proof of all the licences you should have?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Why do you need to bring the "holier than thou give them something useful" nonsense if the poster is not asking about that?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Freeciv (Free and open version of Civilization) : http://freeciv.wikia.com/
OpenTyrian (Free and open version of Tyrian) : http://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/
The Ur-Quan Masters (Star Control 2) : http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
Oolite (loosely based on Elite) : http://www.oolite.org/
Command and Conquer 1 : http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/commandconquer/download_6178099.html?tag=other-user-related-content;4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_3D The Mother of All 3D Games.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Globulation
No, you're wrong.... What was ambiguous was not "should" but "they". I read ROMs you meant Emulators. Yes, emulators should be legal (and are AFAIK), but ROMs are not.
Nevertheless, so consider the utility of emulators if you do not have the legal ROMs. That's why your post as pointless. You can install emulators all you want, without having legal ROMs you can forget the whole deal.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Robocode is a modern, Java version of this.
1178161 is prime...
Freespace II Source Code Project: Maybe one of the "total conversions" that do not require the original game data. Not sure the hardware can handle it, though
...
Freedroid Classic: a remake of the addictive Commodore 64 classic Paradroid
Vega Strike: a game in the Elite/Frontier/Freelancer tradition
Oolite: Elite with textures, by the look of it
Nethack, Slash'EM, or Vulture's Eye/Claw for graphical versions. Curiosity and a full manual required: I can't imagine anyone trying to #rub, #dip or #force "intuitively", or realizing what else can be read, eaten, written with, thrown, cast spells at, turned to flesh,
Legerdemain: looks like an imaginative, even somewhat poetic roguelike RPG; needs Java
Gargoyle: a sparse but "typographically attractive" interactive fiction interpreter for most of the relevant modern and historical systems from TADS 3 and Z-Code/Infocom to Magnetic Scrolls and Level 9. Include some of the top-rated games from http://ifdb.tads.org/ or http://www.wurb.com/if/ (I would advise against the "include everything" approach). Not sure the Windows version has a file-selector or front-end, might be best to throw one together yourself or at least prepare the relevant filetype associations
Flight of the Amazon Queen, Beneath a Steel Sky, and other adventure games for the SCUMM VM
The Mana World: console-style RPG
Sorry to post so late, I can't believe I didn't think of this before.
You'll find some excellent freeware games over at http://www.reloaded.org/ and http://www.freehare.com./
A couple of gems to get you started: http://www.thewayoftheninja.org/n.html and http://autofish.net/clysm/art/video_games/seiklus/
Glad she likes it; I have no affiliation with the project.
FYI it is freed Commercial-ware, hence the high production value.