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Linux Games For Non-Gamers?
Nethead writes "Due to some down-time, I'm looking for some Linux games to pass the time. I've been playing BattleMaster, a PHP web game but it's only two turns a day, and I'd like something a bit faster. I've not really played PC games since the Doom era so I'm really out of touch here. I don't have a real gamer box, just a simple video card. What do Slashdotters think I should try? A simple FPS or some type of networked game would do. What's out there for Linux?"
I find xmoto is an excellent time waster ..
http://xmoto.tuxfamily.org/
Also I occasionally delve into the "flash games" arena .. there's actually some decent stuff now days! (And there's always the classics like "defend the castle" and "Champion Archer")
some flash games are quite decent, like gemcraft http://armorgames.com/play/3527/gemcraft-chapter-0
leisure suit larry
Well, there is a wiki too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_games I've played the Penumbra games, they are ... adventure games really but fairly atmospheric.
You could try MUDding :) See my sig
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Cube, OpenArena, Nexuiz are all fair FPS games. Not amazing, but fun diversions. Aside from that BZFlag, Battle for Wesnoth, and FreeCiv.
A word of advice: Never play Frozen Bubble. I've lost days thanks to that bastard.
Homeworld is available for Linux. Great stuff, strategic space combat, real time. I have replayed this game a few times...
It's my all-times favourite game, and I would play it on Windows, too, if only there was a port. It's somewhat addictve, but not too much.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Check out http://www.happypenguin.org/. I've got the RSS enabled on the right side of /. If you ever up your video card, http://www.planeshift.it/ is an excellent open source mmorpg.
Depending on how capable your card is (decent 7-series NVidia or a good ATI), you may want to hit up HotHead Games and Penny Arcade Adventures' On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness (both episodes). This is a good 3D "It's your turn when you act first before anyone else" game, well worth $15 for each episode, and plays very well in Linux. Just turn off Compiz/Beryl; it interferes with anything 3D.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Quakelive works on linux now, have a go!
Travian is a free browser-based strategy/resource game that works fine on any OS. From what I gather, it's not as fast as most of the other MMORPGs, but it does require a bit of attention.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Freeciv is a good game you can play and leave, then come back to later. It doesn't require a lot of hardware, and while complicated at first, it becomes remarkably simple to play once you've played for a while.
Watch you don't get too addicted though! The urge to play 'just one more turn', or to go to bed 'after I've captured that city' is incredible.
http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
Most of these games are good, and run on linux:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games
I have played "The Battle for Wesnoth", that is very good for turn based strategy.
It sucks for me, though, I hate FPS games. For my Linux gaming I've always used emulators. Install ePSXe, Mednafen and dgen, then eat your heart out on old games console titles.
NAEV is lots of fun, 2D top down elite clone (actually an Escape Velocity ;)) http://code.google.com/p/naev/
Not really Linux, but worth the blast from the past.
Fedora has a shocking number of games in the 'Everything' repository, including 'OpenArena' and many others.
Alright, if you can't do this yourself...
It is an open-sourced FPS based on a quake III mod. I just started playing and it is awesome. Also, Glest (an RTS) and Globulation 2(another RTS) are very good. All of them are in the Ubuntu repos.
Hostes futuri sint socii.
Altitude is my favorite game ever. It's a multiplayer airplane/dogfighting game with really satisfying combat.
OpenTTD (which is based on Transport Tycoon Deluxe) is a great game and you can quickly loose track of the time building intricate train networks. You do need the original game files but this is pretty easy to do with the help of Google.
http://openttd.org/
The only computer game I play is Sauerbraten. I'm very much not a gamer, but I find it to be quite enjoyable to play. The biggest plus is that since most people haven't played it, when I ask people to play it, we're on pretty even footing given how little I play.
I definitely recommend it.
Vendetta works under Linux. More of a space shooter with role playing elements than the traditional FPS which you seem to be looking for, but the guys at Guild Software have spent a good amount of time making sure it works well under a wide variety of hardware configurations.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
I personally like OpenArena on Linux. I loved Quake 3 back in the day and it's a nice continuation of that. I can even pull out my old CDs of models, levels, etc I downloaded from Planet Quake and play them on there. Granted some don't work or work well and other need tweaking but I've not had too many problems. Heck I even edited the old Q3 bot files for some of the models I downloaded to get them up to date. :P
:/
I miss Friday night frag fests in the old Computer Science lab at my college. Most fun I ever had on a Friday night with friends. I hate growing older some days.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Quake Live
World of Goo - check it out!
More fun with other people to play against.
You need a facebook account to logon, but Mafia Wars is fairly good. It's not a linux specific game, the only requirements being a net connection, a web browser and a facebook logon, but it is better in Linux :-)
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
http://www.freeworldgroup.com/games8/hexempires/hexempire.swf
Its a lot like Risk, only without all that dice rolling, or really long times between turns.
Nethack.
I know some mod is about to mod me 'funny' but I'm quite serious. If you are a casual gamer and not addicted to fast-paced games and high-rez graphics, give roguelikes a try. My personal favorite is nethack, but there are a lot out there and there is some good variety and inovation in the genre.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Supertux 2
Pingus
Enigma
Chromium BSU
KSudoku (very nice under KDE4 if you can deal with that)
Frozen Bubble
Puppy Games also has some nice shoot-em-ups that run on Linux. Their titles are cheap, pretty fun to play and have good sized trial modes. My fav here is Ultratron (inspired by Robotron 2084) and also Titan Attacks.
http://tremulous.net/files/
Tremulous is a very unique FPS. Two sides: Humans and wall-climbing aliens. Check it out.
http://www.wesnoth.org/
Wesnoth is a hexagonal turn-based-strategy. I find it quite fun, though at times the random number generator can be annoying. (Don't ask...)
http://www.playonlinux.com/en/
If you've got any relatively new Windows games, check out PlayOnLinux. It manages multiple versions of Wine, and the installation of games. I've got it on an Ubuntu box, and it works great for stuff like Diablo II - old classics. ;) Apparently it also works quite well for a bunch of newer games - the list of supported ones is about 200 long.
And if you're looking for flash based games, there's two sites that are absolutely the best:
http://www.miniclip.com/
http://www.armorgames.com/
Honourable mention - Penumbra. (The survival horror series, with native linux versions. Around $10 each, but right now they seem to be bundling all three.)
You could try getting a job and a girlfriend (or boyfriend). Between the two, your free time will disappear in a heartbeat.
You say you have both? Ok, now get a fulltime job, and find a girlfriend who isn't cheating on you.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Seriously, if it exists, you can find it here.
is not for typo in title.
If you are into monster slugathon fantasy war games, Titan is among the best.
It was reprinted last year, but more importantly for you, it's available online through Sourceforge:
http://colossus.sourceforge.net/
Colossus is a java version.
Titan is a game for 2 - 6 players.
Colossus can be played against crude AI, which is OK for learning the game.
The biggest problem with Titan occurs when a person is eliminated early on and has little to do until someone else is eliminated.
Computer play eliminates this problem because the players need not be in the same room.
It's definitely not new, but Unreal Tournament 2004 is available for Linux. Unreal Tournament 3 is still under development--very slowly.
Here is a short list of some Linux games I know of:
3D Multiplayer Deathmatch:
Alien Arena
Warsow
Openarena
World of Padman
Nexuiz
Sauerbraten
3D Multiplayer team DM:
Tremulous (aliens vs. humans)
Enemy Territory (allies vs. axis), freeware
ET - True Combat Elite (terrorists vs. specops), freeware
Urban Terror (terrorists vs. specops)
2D Multiplayer Deathmatch:
Teeworlds (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!)
Artillery:
Scorched3D
Hedgewars (Worms clone)
Wormus (Worms clone with OS mascots)
Real Time Strategy:
Warzone2100
Bos Wars
The Spring Project and various mods
Turn-based Strategy:
Battle for Wesnoth (caution, addictive)
Freeciv
Racing (I'm not really into racing):
Supertuxkart
Trackmania
Jump-n-run:
Supertux
Secret Maryo Chronicles
Others:
Neverball/Neverputt
Foobillard
Frozen-Bubble (multiplayer bubble-puzzle clone)
OpenTTD
These games require fairly simple hardware -- I have played most of them on my built-in intel X3100 (i965).
As the story tag says...NetHack.
I've lost more productivity to NetHack in various forms and platforms since the late 80's (at that time on a VAX 780 running VMS) than any other game.
I'm currently playing iNetHack on the iPhone.
There's no reason to play in ascii any more - almost every port supports graphical tile-sets if the thought of ASCII puts you off.
There are excellent guides available as well (http://nethack.wikia.com/).
Its not the easiest game to "win" (I've only ascended 3 times in over 20 years), however if you define "win" as hours of rewarding game play and depth of detail that is pretty amazing then you'll love NetHack.
My favourite feature of NetHack? Coming across the "bones" of previous games with the (now cursed) inventory you were carrying at the time you died.
Random nethack tip: if you come across a grey stone - kick it first. If it "thumps" - DO NOT PICK IT UP!
DoomRL
http://doom.chaosforge.org/
...since they're a) not Linux native and b) payware, but Telltale games has some of the best adventure games around. Right now I've been laughing myself silly of their Tales of Monkey Island remake. They run wonderful in WINE and is well worth the money.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If you like puzzles and you don't need dazzling graphics, these are fun:
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/
"The Battle for Wesnoth is a free, turn-based tactical strategy game with a high fantasy theme, featuring both single-player, and online/hotseat multiplayer combat." - http://www.wesnoth.org/
Excellent game.
http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/
If you don't have a decent video card don't bother looking for an FPS. But if you want a fairly deep, often subtly hilarious RPG with no more requirements than a basic web browser, give KoL a try.
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Jump 'n Bump - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_'n_Bump
Four player madness involving bunnies jumping each other. Good times.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
Sounds like you've missed a fair few generations of games then.
Try giving Enemy Territory a go.
Quite addictive in its time and a nice cooperative element to online play.
It was released back in 2003, and runs quite well on Linux. You did mention only having a "simple" video card but odds are better than even your system has sufficient support - even basic integrated video chipsets tend to have some degree of OpenGL support these day.
System requirements are: 600 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, 32 MB OpenGL graphics card, 56.6k Modem/LAN
Its not quite Open Source but it is (and always has been) free as in beer.
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
I've gotten drawn into Battle for Wesnoth twice before, and it sounds like it's about time for me to make it three.
Awesome game!
In this race against time, players vie to be the first player to successfully install and fully patch Windows XP.
Game equipment, per player:
*Linux computer with CD burner and an Ethernet card that doesn't require additional drivers for Windows XP
*Blank hard drive
*Windows XP pre-service-pack CD
*Ethernet connection
*Unlimited supply of blank CDs
*Unlimited supply of over the counter painkillers, including Aspirin, Tylenol, and Jack Daniels
Goal: Get Windows installed on the spare hard drive before all other players. If you get a virus or other malware you have to take a painkiller and start over.
Rules: Ethernet cable must be up at all times, and Ethernet protocols must not be disabled.
Strategies:
*Install it from CD and pray you don't get infected.
*Use Linux to download Service Pack 3 and create a slipstream CD and install with that, and hope you don't get infected.
*Use Linux to format the drive and copy the files one by one, and download or write a tool to build the registry, fake log files, and other files.
*Ask CowboyNeal for help.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The requirements are actually quite modest since it's a 10 year old game, but it's very well made.
I also have to say the more people who play quakelive on linux, the more linux support there will be from idsoftware in the future, and they are a top notch game developer. They pay attention to how many linux boxes play quakelive.
Liberty.
There are lots of Linux games for non-gamers: they're all 8 years old. Where's Dawn of War 2? Or Left 4 Dead?
If you're into strategy and don't mind losing all of your free time and some of your work time, there's FreeCiv. Think Civilization recast as a full-on client/server multi-player setup. I've not played it recently (no time to game at all lately, too much code to write!) but the graphics requirements should be fairly modest.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
I like multiplayer networked games, especially games I can play with friends or my kids. Of course, not everyone is using Linux, so that's a hurdle too. So the 3 top ones I like to play also happen to be OSS and has multiplatform (Windows, Mac, Linux) releases.
Favorites starting from my most are:
Warzone 2100 - Think of a real-time war game such as Command and Conquer. It's not too technical, but technical enough. I like playing with a friend in a 4 on 4 game and tag-teaming the two computer players and then battling it out. Longer games, plus there is a single-player campaign mode.
BZFlag is a classic tank game with modern 3D and maps. There are a ton of online servers hosting fun maps, plus you can download the maps and host the games yourself. Virtually unlimited amount of users can connect and play. Capture the flag mode is a ton of fun (especially with 4 color teams). Great for fast matches during a lunch break.
Freeciv doesn't require a 3D engine, and is basically an Open Source version of Civilization. Also fun with many players.
A someone else posted, there are hundreds of Linux games and even better is a list of OSS games out there, but these are my favorites.
Don't forget online games. I've had many many hours of fun with Runescape, cybernations, and astroempires. All work fine on Debian and Ubuntu.
Don't forget Wine, either. Many games designed for Windows run great with Wine. If you are able and willing to pay a few bucks, Cedega has what amounts to a customized Wine, along with support for getting many of the most popular games running correctly.
I'm not a gamer either, but over the years, I have collected a few games, and the kids have more that we enjoy puttering around with. Wine enables golden oldies like F-19 Stealth Fighter to run beautifully on Linux. http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/abandonware/pc/simulations/games_f_h/f_19_stealth_fighter_a_k_a_project_stealth_fighter_.html
And, finally, keeping Wine in mind, - google for abandonware sites. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware#External_links
I don't care a whole lot about Karma - but before some hardcore Linux guru flames me, I'll point out that Wine makes almost any game a Linux game. Nethead didn't necessarily exclude ports, emulators, or anything of the sort when he asked about "Linux games". ;^)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
crack ... ...
attack
crack-attack !!!!
4 - A robot may not masturbate, except where such action would conflict with the Second Law.
Call of Combat - r/t squad-level infantry combat, pure tactics. Think Atomic Games's "Close Combat" in Java.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
If you're using KDE you'll have plenty of good games installed already. They're fairly casual games but you'll probably find at least one you like, especially if you like arcade games (beating your high score).
I presume gnome has a similar selection of games, and if you prefer the console the old BSD games are excellent for killing time (if you include the time it takes to figure out their text based interfaces).
fun and clever multiplayer game www.globulos.com
This is actually a good question but what Distro do you run. If you run Gentoo or a Debian / Ubuntu distro then search the portage tree or the apt cache. So for instance in Gentoo cd /usr/portage/games-?, or Ubuntu / Deb apt-cache --searchdesc games. As for gaming in Linux for me I tend to stick to Tetris or nothing lol. I'm not a gamer but I do know there are some good ones. Have you looked at getting Sim City 3k for Linux or even Heroes of Might and Magic for Linux, both fun time consuming games.
FOSS GNUGo to play against a computer.
IGS Pandanet provides a good GUI client for GNUGo as well as a client to pandanet if you want to play real people.
KGS is an alternative to pandanet but is more IRCish and the client can't do computer play.
One of my recent favorites is just plain old desktop defender. Its flash based.
Xbill [http://xbill.sourceforge.net/]
Try it. It's a strategy game, and FOSS. Unusual combination. http://glest.org/
I'll probably get shot for this, but I found Same GNOME ridiculously addictive. There are clones of it for other desktop environments, but there is something nice and polished about the GNOME version that I found lacking in the clones.
I play wayy too much Earth 2025 it's alot of fun. Being web-based it's a good option for linux.
www.skylords.com is a pretty good browser-based space domination game for those interested in casual strategy games. It's free. You can check in on it when you have the time or spend all day capturing planets, destroying enemy ships and collecting resources. There are some interesting market and political strategies as well. Give it a shot.
It's a great free online multiplayer rpg game.
Sloth
The deepest Roguelike ever. If you aren't sure why you might want to play it, start here.
Get the Linux 40d16 version from this page
If you prefer graphical tiles to (nearly) pure ASCII (I certainly do) get the Mike Mayday tileset from this page and use the instructions to get it working.
Then watch the 40 tutorial videos to ease the neigh vertical learning curve. You will of course supplement the videos with lots of careful reading of the wiki.
This game is a time vampire, but lots of fun if you have a little patience and an attention span.
Seriously, if you want Linux to really take off and outnumber Windows on home PCs, one of the strategies I'd consider would be to create 4-5 really good games not available on MS/Mac products. *nix geeks do a lot of ragging on GUI users, but exert little real effort to give them motivation to change.
All it would take is one superior game, one superior product and you'd get a massive influx of dual-booters. There's been a lot of work lately on making easy-to-install *nix flavors, Debian, CentOS, can both in my experience be installed by a child with no outside help (I even did it.) But unless you're running a server for something or just like to be confused, there's no motivation for it. If you gave people a game, an app, an experience they couldn't have on another OS, you'd provide real motivation.
Despite the current trends, good games don't require super graphics or movie tie-ins or big name voice actors. The best games, have always just needed better-than-suck graphics, superior user interface, and/or something that makes the game hook. Generally a little quirk or wrinkle in the game playing experience that no one else has ever figured out how to iron out. Something about the UI that just works. There are whole series of games that really aren't all that great as far as games go, but just have such a great interface that people keep coming back to them. Then again, there was a game on Windows3.1 shareware that came pre-installed called CastleWin. Was one of the coolest games I've ever played, just a Rogue-clone with graphics, you could re-name your items, and do a few other neat tricks. Still can't find that one anywhere.
K.
What? Sorry, paradigm slam.
There are no games for non-gamers. You game, or you game not. There is no "non".
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Decent games that are not low budget fps's
cuyo (excelent real time puzzle)
klotski
the ur quan masters (possibley the best game of all time)
aisle riot solitare
try http://www.playdeb.net/welcome/
If you like the Halo-like FPS games, there's always Marathon through the AlephOne project at source.bungie.org.
It is still nice to play after all these years and the AlephOne team has done a fantastic job of expanding on the multiplayer capabilities as well as changes to the UI.
Linux Games
Happy Penguin
LinuX Gamers
Legends the game (at www.legendsthegame.net) is a freeware Tribes descendant based on the Torque game engine. Basically all the tribes goodness has never gone away. Fly and shoot explosive frisbees.
Here are some of my favourite games for Linux. They are all fantastic in my opinion.
Free open source games:
- Enigma (puzzle, arcade style) http://www.nongnu.org/enigma/
- Battle for Wesnoth (fantasy, strategy, turn-based) http://www.wesnoth.org/
DRM-free cross platform commercial games: (Demos available for all of them)
- World of Goo (puzzle, physics) http://2dboy.com/games.php
- Penumbra Collection (horror adventure, puzzle, first person, physics) http://www.penumbragame.com/buy.php
- DROD series (puzzle, turn-based) http://caravelgames.com (I recommend playing DROD:JtRH first. DROD:TCB is the sequel. DROD RPG is great as well, but is a completely different type of game)
Dwarf fortress is the most interesting, entertaining and detailed strategy game there is. It's also free though I would suggest donating if you enjoy the game. If you don't mind primitive graphics and a steep learning curve you should definitely check it out, it's totally worth it.
This one is a pretty good space flight simulator, with trade and combat missions to earn money to upgrade your ship and weapons. When you have enough money you can buy a new ship, many types available to suit just about any playing style! Nice thing is it is in the Ubuntu repository, so a trusted source and easy installation! First time I tried it I had to compile from source, that was an experience, first time I had ever done anything like that! Went well with a little help, (OK, Lots of help) from the fine people on the VegaStrike forum!
I can't believe nobody mentioned Warsow. When I first played it, I couldn't believe it was open source. The graphics and animations are impressive. And the gameplay is far better than any other FPS game I've ever played. Also unlike other Linux Games, Warsow is polished and doesn't have that open source feel to it.
It's not a linux game per se, but with Wine StarCraft works great in single-player and on the LAN.
And with system requirements like a 90 Mhz processor and 16 MB of RAM, it probably won't stress your machine too much.
I've also played FreeDink, FreeCiv, Neverball, BZFlag, Battle for Wesnoth, Armagetron Advanced, Konquest, Slingshot, SuperTux, and Widelands.
The Ur Quan Masters (was: Star Control 2) at http://sc2.sf.net/ is a masterpiece of a game, runs natively on Linux, and is free.
You can also run a lot of great games under DOSBox. You can get the X-COM series ( UFO Defense, Terror from the Deep, and Apocalypse ) from various online sources for something like $5 US, just make sure they're not DRM-wrapped. I also highly recommend Master of Orion II. All these run great under DOSBox on Linux and require no 3D video capabilties at all. They're all long-running single player strategies, which may not be your kind of thing.
You can also pick up Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory for as a free download. It's an FPS that runs natively on Linux and isn't very demanding of a 3D video card, though it certainly does require a basic one. It's good fun, and while it's old there are lots of people still playing it.
Neverputt or Neverball.
Neverputt is a 3d putting game. Excellent graphics and easy to play.
Neverball is sort of like Glover N64 without the hand. Its easy to figure out but can get very challenging.
If you have apt-get:
sudo apt-get install neverputt
sudo apt-get install neverball
-Tres
Empire Deluxe ...
Only speaking as a satisfied customer.... who also loved the original Empire.
Found at http://www.killerbeesoftware.com/
and after that was Earth 2025.
Don't bother starting without a build strategy. ... the command line might actually be more fun.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
goodl old xmris game, plain x11 programming but no updates
If you like Risk, this is kind of similar but way better. Play online with others, on a wide variety of maps and variety of rules.
Shameless referral link
You can play free, but only 4 games at a time. Subscribe for unlimited. :)
Works great in Firefox on Linux. I have been utterly addicted to it for about 2 years now. I am yodermk on there, if anyone cares.
R/T
The game.
There are a handful of options; many are actually quite good/enjoyable. Several that I've found quite enjoyable are Battle for Wesnoth (decent storyline and enjoyable turn based strategy with cute/good 2D graphics), Freeciv (Civilization clone), Freecol (Colonization clone), Open and Alien Arena (decent FPS games, more humorous most of the time than the original Q3A, and people still play online), Frozen Bubble (sadly addictive), Teeworlds (2D FPS based on the Q3 engine, IIRC, with some really humorous animation/gameplay - think multiplayer Kirby, but with guns). Vegastrike is very, very similar to the Privateer games from the early 1990s (which I absolutely loved), and is decent fun (albeit not as polished). There's also a Railroad Tycoon type game out there, can't recall what it's called. It really depends on what your flavor is: there are a lot of high quality games out there which are absolutely free (high quality, in terms of gameplay; the graphics do tend to be slightly lacking compared to modern contemporaries, but they're still at least close.)
A top games for linux google turns up a fair amount of information. It all depends on what kind of games you like.
Alternatively, there's also PlayOnLinux, which is a great project enabling very easy installation and playing of many popular Windows games (some of which run markedly better under Linux, ironically). Short of concurrency issues with Fallout 3 (making it essentially unplayable), the actual -performance- of Fallout 3 was better under linux was better for me than it was under XP or W7.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Despite the ads being as annoying as advertisements can possibly be, Evony is a pretty decent, online, turn-based strategy game that can consume a large amount of free time or a small amount depending on how much you like micro-managing. There is no porno/boobs in the actual game, mind you. Only in those annoying adverts!
Subtle promotion for Battlemaster.
Why limit yourself to only that which runs natively on Linux? All that matters is killing time and having a little fun. DOSBox (www.dosbox.org) provides the emulator and Classic DOS Games (www.classicdosgames.com) has dozens of older DOS classics, from Keen to Duke Nukem to whatever. Enjoy it.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Despite the Debian repos have a crapload of games on there, the number isn't that high. Say for instance under the Games section you would have Wesnoth (awesome game) but there are 5 packages including sound, multiplayer etc.
This sig has been distributed under the Creative Commons license.
Get Teeworlds. It's fun, free, and pretty. Everything is scalable and it's multiplayer-only. How can you go wrong with a 2D shooter with grappling hooks?
Warsow, Tremulus, Saubrauten and Alien Arena are great FPS's.
There's always FreeCIV and an absolute must have - World Of Goo !
http://www.quakelive.com/
supports linux.
156 comments and no OOlite? I stopped because that was all I was doing.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Just google "linux rogue" - there are numerous versions, but use the KISS methodology for choosing your flavor.... Beware of Grues.... Oh wait, wrong game...
Linux games that I found/find genuinly fun:
Battle for Wesnoth
TORCS
Vega Strike
OpenArena
This sig has been distributed under the Creative Commons license.
Install mupen64, snes9x and/or VisualBoyAdvance, download some ROMs and play that.
Seriously, just emulate some NES/SNES/N64/GameBoy/Genesis/whatever ROMs, the CPU requirements are pretty modest on a modern high powered system and those games are generally designed to be fun over flashy (try Pokemon on Gameboy, Earthbound on SNES, Zelda Ocarina of Time on N64, etc).
Windows is still the place to go if you are interested in picking up the "latest" and greatest stuff like Half-Life 2, you can get it going on Wine with some elbow grease but it's not worth the trouble in my opinion.
The guys at Three RIngs write professional games and supply (Java) clients for Linux. I've played Puzzle Pirates which is good if you like puzzle games.
Regnum Online is a great mmorpg. Easy to get into quickly as well.
Frozen Bubble Slogan: "You need this game." Not sure I can endorse the slogan, but it's hours of fun. In fact, too many hours for me... the game sucks me in, and I just keep playing "only one more level" until I beat level 100 and finally stop. I'm careful now when I let myself start playing this.
Solarwolf An updated version of an Atari 2600 game! Easy to learn, addictive, fun.
KGoldrunner A modern remake of the classic LodeRunner from the Apple ][ and other computers of that era. They urge you to use the mouse, but I find I prefer the keyboard.
Stella An Atari 2600 emulator. I have ROM images of many of the games in my collection, and I still enjoy the streamlined play of classic 2600 games. My favorite is Millipede. Stella runs nice and fast even on a very old computer.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
For example: http://live.linux-gamers.net/
Or, if your distro has lots of installable packages available as a rule (like Ubuntu), try poking through it's 'games' section.
Tetris is realistic enough for me. MMmmm munchies!!!....
C|N>K
http://cymonsgames.com/asciiportal/ is a "port" of the famous Portal to, yeah, well, to an 80x40 ASCII Screen... http://cymonsgames.com/ in generall hosts some nice time wasters. I also liked Super Serif Brothers (http://foon.co.uk/farcade/ssb/) but the site is down at the moment...
are the games I really got into on Linux. True Combat Elite is my favorite FPS.
World of Goo is a great causal game http://2dboy.com/games.php
Although its not open source, so ill likely get modded down. They do have a demo (in deb,rpm & tar)
Seems strange nobody yet mentioned the linuX-gamers' website.
;) make me still enjoy loggin-in for a few rounds.
It has an extensive list of games of all genres, indexed per category.
In addition to the many good titles already submitted by other posters, I would like to mention Savage: the Battle of Newerth. It is a quite old game (2003, if memory serves me well), got open-sourced when original publisher rolled out the sequel, but latest mod is kept closed-sourced.
It's a mixed FPS/RTS game, OpenGL, multiplatform (Windows, Linux and Mac [there were issues with previous mods, seems resolved with latest]), online-only cooperative game wich faces humans and beasts with the goal of destroyng enemy's main building. One player per team takes role of "commander", and plays the game RTS (Startcraft-style), and the other people play on the field, in FPS mode.
There are buildings, enchantments, AI controlled workers and many many more.
I mentioned mods: developement of the game continued by third parties (community-driven, at most) to keep it up-to-date. Latest "stable" is the SFE (Savage Full Enchantment), while there's the almost-released XR (at rc1 stage, or rc2... iirc).
All can be found at the community site Newerth, officially backed-up and supported by S2Games, the original publisher. Downloads from the home page are directly for the XR. In the menu donwload section there are others aswell.
*Disclaimer*: I'm not affiliated to the site/organization in any way except for the fact that I'm a registered user, in quality of gamer.
An old Athlon@800MHz with a Nvidia FX5200 was sufficent to make it playable. Actual hardware should not suffer from any inconvenience. But keep in mind XR introduced use of hardware shaders (among with other visual improvements) which may raise the bar.
After all those years I still like this game: its unique mix, in comunion with many really good players (and many many many more newbs
Mastering the English language is fucking easy: all you have to do is to put an f* word in every fucking sentence.
www.themanaworld.org
It's small and simple, it's open source, it has nice community - except game masters, they are racist, but other then that, it's fine. The game progress is rapid, you can enjoy it from the first minute for a few months.
Sure it's in Win32 game. but it runs half decent in Wine http://www.wine-reviews.net/games/soldat-14-on-linux-with-wine.html
Check out Savage 2:
http://www.savage2.com/en/main.php
From their FAQ:
"What is Savage? What type of game is it?
Savage is an RTS/FPS/RPG hybrid. The setting is a post-apocalyptic world where the Legion of Man and the Beast Horde battle for supremacy. There are two teams in a game of Savage2, both of which will expand to capture resources, kill enemy players and NPCs, and build up their bases to unlock new technology or magic to try to crush the enemy base. Victory is achieved in Savage 2 when you destroy the enemy command center.
Part of what makes Savage 2 unique is the role of "commander" - a unit who plays from the RTS perspective and helps organize his team's efforts to defeat the enemy. Commanders can build structures, buff allies, debuff enemies and most importantly play as master tactician with a great view of the battlefield. A lot has been done to ensure that the commander is not overpowered or able to ruin a game for his team."
It is completely free to play and has a native Linux client. The community is rather small at the moment, because it has a bit of a learning curve, but once you mastered it (and that shouldn't be a problem for any Linux user), it is one of the best multiplayer games.
I'd just like to put in that BattleMaster, the game cited in the summary, is awesome. I don't play it now, but I played it for four years or so and it's excellent. It's an amazing long-term game that mixes strategy, politics, and medieval roleplaying. You're always on a team (a realm of nobles), and you're usually at war. Wars are intricate affairs lasting months and punctuated by battles every few days. Realms can be created and destroyed, and the politics of a continent will slowly shift over the years as territory changes and hand and alliances are formed and broken. For those that are into it, there is real role-playing--that is, story-telling not directly related to game strategy, unlike pretty much all so-called massively multiplayer online "role-playing" games, where the world has a story but you wouldn't know it from the way players act and talk. In BattleMaster, people act like nobles, and one actually feels immersed in a real feudal society. As the summary suggests, it needn't consume much of your time (10 or 20 minutes a day will cover you), but if you get into it it can entertain you for much longer. I hope this mention on /. gets a few people into BM.
First, I will say that wine is perfectly capable of playing most anything recently released. I game a good deal on this computer (currently running Kubuntu 9.10 beta), and have few, if any problems.
What I have found, though, is going back through the various 'game of the year' catalogs of whatever your favorite game magazine is. I recently replayed The Longest Journey, and while it is rather straghtforward to me now, this is simply one of those games that no matter how dated the graphics look, no matter how simplistic the gameplay seems by today's standards, the story is simply amazing. I put it more into a category of good literature, than a 'video game'.
The benefit of going back, though, is you need near-zero hardware requirements compared to today's games. Look at Starcraft as another example, still an amazingly fun game after all this time, and I've been known to waste a few hours on it myself in recent days. Heck, my little netbook runs it just great (also running Kubuntu).
A good game is like a good book; it doesn't matter when it was published, if it's good, it will constantly draw you back, and you'll still have fun with it long after it's inital release.
Both great games from Introversion. There is also Darwinia (which I didn't like so much), but the other two, highly recommended.
Quake Live...
Free, Addictive, Suport for Windows, Mac and LINUX available...
Web playable and doesn't consume lots of resources...
Have fun! :)
Runs in dosbox!
www.kingdomofloathing.com . Have played it since 2004.
Sokoban will keep your brain busy for a while.
And Freeciv if you like a more complex challenge.
Tetris is of course also a classic good game to train your reflexes with.
And if you like flight simulators you have FlightGear.
And of course - if you want to go really classic check out Basic Computer Games.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The game, technically, is simple enough for almost any video card to handle (better ones don't add /that/ much extra). In the same way as checkers, it's quite easy to operate (mouse plus 4 keys or so) but takes a while to master.
The simplistic graphics and simplistic controls focuses the game on something else: gameplay. That's why it's what I spend 90% of my gaming time on it.
"Good news, everyone!"
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/games/arcade/invaders/
A free Heroes of Might and Magic 2 clone that is (almost) usable!
http://sourceforge.net/projects/fheroes2/
Really great games (particularly Spring RTS, which is a greatly improved clone of the already wonderful Total Annihilation).
UFO-AI is a (here also greatly improved clone of UFO)
From the makers of the widely-acclaimed, award-winning hit Unix, comes Linux, an exciting game of patience and frustration!
Risk your life to perform the sacred ritual of Installation to gain entry to the land of Linux, with the Dark Lord's minions Grub and Fdisk trying their hardest to stop you! /etc in an attempt to find the ancient lost artifact, A Fucking Working Configuration!
Explore the fearsome depths of the labyrinthine cursed dungeon
Engage in challenging battle with dozens of the Dark Lord's vile Sound Systems to free the people of the land of Linux from their oppressive tyranny and bring the joy of music to them!
Uncover the true name of Linux itself through harrowing inane ideological debate, and use the vast trolling power of this to cause a major rift in the land over a fucking name!
Face off against the Dark Lord Xorg himself in exciting one-on-one battle, and pry the holy twin swords of Multi-Monitor Support and Working 3D Acceleration from his cold, dead hands and bring peace to Linux at last--if you can!
Linux promises upwards of 60 hours of unique and difficult gameplay, each moment full of exciting new threats and challenges in your attempt to free the land of Linux from the Dark Lord and his underlings at last and bring usability to all!
(Warning: Linux should not be played by people with photosensitive epilepsy, pregnant woman, smokers, children shorter than this tall, BSD zealots, and anyone who doesn't actually want to fight Xorg and just wants their fucking computer to fucking work already)
Teeworlds is a 2d shooter thats quite fun, espacially with friends sitting in the same room :)
"Teeworlds is a free online multiplayer game, available for all major operating systems. Battle with up to 16 players in a variety of game modes, including Team Deathmatch and Capture The Flag. You can even design your own maps! " -- http://www.teeworlds.com/
Mille Bourne
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
I know that if I look in YaST on my openSUSE box, I have plenty of games to select from. Just trying them out will take a considerable time. That will give you a better idea then what people would say THEIR preferences are. There is a reason there are so many games out there. It is about what you like.
LBreakout is still something I like. Just like foobilliard. Both included in my YaST. I am sure other distro's will have most of the same and many different games. Trying them all out is a game in itself.
OTOH, I also payed for http://sillysoft.net/lux/.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The best linux game I know is overkill. Great! Loads of blood, weapons, bullets and brackets...
For best graphics experience, you'll definitely need a black backgrounded terminal.
As you were talking about downtime: make sure to start some bots with your overkill-server.
Btw: Does anyone know a public overkill server, which is still running? Those listed on the project home page all seem to be down :-(
Screenshot (only the eyes of the main character):
o o
[censored due to ./ stating "Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters."]
1266953+17
Still one of the best games available - I replayed it a couple of months ago.
No sig today...
Try the DROD (Deadly Rooms of Death) series, which are puzzle games with story lines and lots of humour. They are also very playable for beginners, you don't have to be a die-hard puzzle lover to play this.
You can play one or a few rooms per day if you want, the game will automatically save your progress so you can stop any time you want. They released the source code of the first game in the series, not unlike what id Software does.
http://caravelgames.com/Articles/Games.html
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=linux+games
I mean seriously.. if someone had asked the same of the Windows they would have been torn to pieces by rabid penguins, toasted in the warm glow of a thousand flames and then thrown to the trolls to pick over.
Now I will admit that I have in the past missed the point but are Linux games that rare/difficult to find?
QNX, SkyOS, HelenOS maybe.. but linux???
If you like RTS, do not miss this one, a powerful engine not only fo TA like games.
http://springrts.com
As stated above Flash games can be just as good as regular games, but usually offer less replay and shorter games. However there are millions floating around the net.
For Linux I love download and play casual games as they usually are written to run on most windows PCs. For the most part thy are very linux/wine friendly. Wine is usually straight forward to install in most mainstream distributions. To install a download and play PC game you for the most part need to only download it and double click to launch it once wine is installed. I would always suggest downloading a free trial version of the game before I paid for it just to make sure it runs well inder wine.
I have found that these games run really well under wine but there are many many more:
Fairy Jewels: http://www.gamegiantsworld.net/xmlstore5/?products_key=agVlY29uZXIQCxIIUHJvZHVjdDMY4c4EDA
Zuma's Revenge: http://www.gamegiantsworld.net/xmlstore5/?products_key=agVlY29uZXIQCxIIUHJvZHVjdDMY3eQIDA
Peggle Nights: http://www.gamegiantsworld.net/xmlstore5/?products_key=agVlY29uZXIQCxIIUHJvZHVjdDMYyaoEDA
Burger Shop 2: http://www.gamegiantsworld.net/xmlstore5/?products_key=agVlY29uZXIQCxIIUHJvZHVjdDMY88AHDA
Most older Cake Mania games like Cake Mania Back to the Bakery: http://www.gamegiantsworld.net/xmlstore5/?products_key=agVlY29uZXIQCxIIUHJvZHVjdDMYkK4IDA
http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/
My Blog | Badsh
I cannot stress that up. For something so silly and simple, it is addictive as anything can be. Countless number of times I have started to play it for 15 minutes, and ended-up playing it for hours.
And whoever did the music for v1 and v2, you are a great person (and deserving of my money when I have it).
There's loads of flash based games on Facebook. Most have ways to compare scores and send trash talk to your mates.
... at least we've got... er... Photoshop.
Joking aside I (slightly off-topically) must admit that, yes I actually am a Mac user, and to me Photoshop is as much a valuable tool for my income as it is a favorite toy.
sig? Oh, that sig...
Though commercial games: Uplink and Defcon. Especially Uplink. Not too expensive and both very good games you can spend alot of time with. Uplink runs with almost any graphics card, Defcon might need a slightly better one. Both for beating the world before it beats you.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/nil/
Worms realtime or Quake 3D, as the README says. Actually it is a game about flight using climbing hooks - combined with shooting.
I work for a very successfull and rapidly growing browsergame publisher (currently the largest). We do have the one or other title that was acquired and isn't all that spectacular for geeks and nerds, but we have some very neat originals, some of which have made us big and have had gotten a facelift or two recently (aside of the regular improvements and bugfixes). Since they run on browsers they are naturally x-plattform and require no installation. All are free to play.
Here's my personal favorites list from our portfolio:
OGame, a classic 4X sci-fi/space game with a brand new pimped-out Ajax interface and fresh GFX. ... And a cool trailer. (Hint: Try a non-US server if the one you got has old boring table layouts - the community is large and most of us read and write a fluent english :-) )
Ikariam, a Settlers/Civilisation type Browsergame. Scored some prestigious awards recently, including 'Browsergame of the Year 2008'.
Wild Guns, a BG with a Wild West setting. Just has gotten a total redo of the graphics by our art crew. Very neat.
KingsAge, a nice old-school BG, Defender of the Crow / Middle Ages Camelot style.
OK, slashdoters, go flood our servers and have our admins do some extra shifts. Hehehe... *leans back and takes some popcorn*
Have fun!
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
One of the best games available for Linux out there.
Scientia est Potentia
I am just getting into the Penumbra series. It is very well done, and quite unusual: you are not some sort of sword-wielding superhero, but just an ordinary, unskilled guy. About the best you can do is to throw rocks, and you aren't even very good at that.
But: getting it to run is a bit of a pain. In my case (Ubuntu 9.04), I had to switch to the proprietary Nvidia driver. Which, when installed, killed the system (problems with permissions on /tmp). And then one must manually disable the screensaver through the system configuration tool (or gconf-edit) - apparently just the periodic idle-check interferes with the game.
After all that pain, the game runs well, and looks to be very immersive and a lot of fun.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
You would have access to thousands of titles if you installed some emulators for consoles and other game systems.
You'll love Nexuiz.
When I want to pull away from MMORPG time sinks, this is where I go. Total in your face FPS action. Multiplayer as too, tho' the bots can be taxing enough.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Greenhouse Games is the indie distribution website set up by the Penny Arcade team. There are more games for windows and mac than linux, but you will find a few titles that run natively, most notable the Penny Arcade itself, On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness (pt1 and 2).
Demos are available, so feel free to try before you slap down 10 quid or so.
"If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever." - George Orwell, 1984
Just an idea, but just to pass some time, there's noting that is much better than the Flash games at Kongregate. (Of course there are other good sites, but I like the achievements that you can win, and that you can pay little tips to the developers and even befriend them.)
I realize that this aren't Linux games per se. But they do the job really well.
Besides: Those little "in-between" games are by far the most played. Why do you think the Wii and its games are the way they are, and are the only ones raking in big profits? :)
Games got too big, too "epic", expect too much commitment nowadays. You could still play Doom 1 or GTA 1 in your breaks, but you can't possibly play GTA 4 that way.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
my little web addiction is
tribalwars.net
I would have thought a bunch of the older titles off gog.com will work well under wine - e.g. I bought Painkiller Black Edition and it runs very nicely on the basic 3D accelerator in my laptop, but there are plenty of 2D games, older Fallout etc. and no DRM to have to break. Also see World Of Goo, as some others have pointed out - a perfect port, and a really creative & fun title.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
My favourite: World of Padman (WoP)
A fast-paced FPS with Liliput-style maps and funny weapons. Also only mildly violent, compared to other FPS.
http://www.worldofpadman.com/
Seriously, im surprised no one mentioned that yet. Quake Live is the good old quake 3 arena on the web. In runs just fine on Linux and isnt a strain on the gfx card.
although your graphics chip might not be decent enough
NOT THE BROWSER! Although I love the browser, the Chromium B.S.U. game has been out for quite a bit longer. If you ever enjoyed playing fast paced jet fighter games like space invaders on crack, then you will like Chromium B.S.U. It reminds me a lot of "Raptor" for DOS back in the day, which also was quite a bad ass game. Other than that, quite a few people already mentioned Nexuiz. I particularly enjoy OpenArena as well even though it is just a new skin for Quake 3. It is free, and plays nice and fast. Lots of fun.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
TMW is a 2D MMORPG still alive and kicking after spending over five years in pre-alpha already.
We're slowly approaching alpha now so we can finally leave behind the temporary test platform. Using our awful circa 2004 eAthena testbed (a server emulator for Ragnarok Online, based on the tangled up source code of an old MUD) we have been able to get our client technology into rather good shape. It'll be nice to work on our own server, own gamesystem and have properly designed content instead of the current pseudo content to attract testers with bright colors.
http://themanaworld.org/ - should be good enough to kill a few hours every now and then even as it is now. The community is generally rather warm and welcoming.
Incidentally, if someone has the urge to waste time on C++, we're always looking for new programmers too. Especially if you'd be crazy enough to port (rewrite in this case) the entire client into QT. Lua skills might be nice too since we're going to use that for scripting the dynamical aspects of the gameworld and if that gets too heavy, we've already been considering luaJIT too.
Colossus (http://colossus.sourceforge.net/) is an implementation of Titan. You can play multiplayer, but I find it to be a great solitaire game. It's written in java so you can play it on multiple platforms. It is packaged for Fedora, so it's perhaps a bit easier to play there.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm with you on this one. My only regret is the current amount of lowlife cheaters (aimbots and other wallhackers) on public servers, but release 4.2 due real soon now will hopefully solve that.
Check out penguspy.com. It's got loads of games listed, and constantly being updated.
Top-down shooter. Pretty fun and challenging too.
I run Ubuntu skinned to look like a Mac on a PC. Go figure.
someone (ie you) missed that. fun depends on the people you find on a server, but in general its the best tactical fps i played. http://www.tremulous.net
Might I timidly suggest Egoboo?
Most of the fun comes in the forums though. As Zefz says, the best part about Egoboo, is that people can have fun anywhere, developing, drawing, writing, and even sometimes playing.
At any rate give it a go, it might not be the best game out there, but it's got a lot of heart.
http://egoboo.sourceforge.net/
But you forgot Crack Attack :p
Tibia is a very simple MMORPG. They have a client compiled to run on Linux so no emulator required! The many worlds usually have a friendly community base to help you along. The game is pretty grind intensive but once you start getting some levels you can start doing some entertaining party quests.
http://www.tibia.com/mmorpg/free-multiplayer-online-role-playing-game.php
Great solo scenarios are still coming out for AlephOne after all these years. For me this is the best reason to return to the Marathon. RubiconX (released 2006) has a great branching story-line, immersive art design (in an old engine), and some excellent maps. EternalX (2008) has an exceptionally well structured plot with an epic feel.
These scenarios (and others) are true labours of love for small groups who spent years developing them and the care shows.
If you play the campaign, you are looking at many, many days of game play. http://wz2100.net/ "you command the forces of "The Project" in a battle to rebuild the world after mankind has almost been destroyed by nuclear missiles. The game offers campaign, multi-player and single-player skirmish modes." Another option is to try a place like: http://www.getdeb.net/category.php?id=3
leather-dog muksihs
Blog: @muksihs
"hey, i've been playing 'Battlemaster' but i want to play some other LINUX games" ........
complete fucking advertisement with link to that web game. the article poster shamelessly throws in 'linux' in order to make the article 'legitimate, despite a php web game being IRRELEVANT to linux. it doesnt matter if you have linux, macos, sunos, windows or not, a php web game will play as long as you have a browser. actually noone here needs to be told that.
i dont know which is worse - the smartypants who shoved this blatant advertisement as an article, or the fools who approved it.
Read radical news here
A very addictive website with everything from easy puzzle games to complex MMOs all in flash. So all you need is a web browser and plugin. Doesn't matter if you're running Linux or anything else.
Basically the concept is you get achievements for playing these flash games and that achievement gets aggregated into a pool of "experience points" and as you get experience you level up. Of course there's no return other than lengthening your ePeen, but it's very addictive!
Use a NAT-ed virtual environment and make your spare drive the hard drive of the virtual system.
Getting the drivers right so it boots as a real machine can be a pain depending on your VM.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
and a firewall + malware combination of your choice
Hmm, what shall I use for Malware, there are so many choices.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The physical computer should be connected to the "open" internet. A temporary NATed VM would be okay though, but it's up to you to think to do it and configure it properly.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I highly recommend Armagetron. It's basically the light-cycle game from Tron. It's a lot of fun, especially against your friends over the network.
ArmageTron and glTron are fun for a bit.
I've not really played PC games since the Doom era so I'm really out of touch here.
Since you last played Doom, ID released the source code.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Games aren't for non-gamers.
Hello,
if you wan't to see a very big list (more than 1700) of Linux games (screenshots and links), take a look on my site (in French) :
"Le Bottin des Jeux Linux" at :
http://www.surlestracesdupingouin.tuxfamily.org/LesJeuxSousLinux.html
Enjoy ;).
Strategies continued...
* Use the Linux box to connect to the Internet and create a private network with NAT with default inbound deny, connect the Windows box to the NAT network so that worms don't infect it. Run all Windows updates on the relatively secured private network. (works every time, so far)
... all you have to do is carefully drink shot after shot of Jack Daniels till you hit the Ballmer peak. After that you can use your super human coding powers to re-implement Windows XP from scratch.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I can't recommend World of Goo enough.
Excellent varied gameplay and easy to get into.
(get it here: http://2dboy.com/)
Also check out Cave Story.
2d action-adventure like the good ol' metroid and castlevania series.
(http://linux.softpedia.com/get/GAMES-ENTERTAINMENT/Simulation/Cave-Story-30623.shtml)
and here's a list of flashgames I've found:
Bloxorz (http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/bloxorz)
Meat Boy (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/463241)
This is the only level (http://www.kongregate.com/games/ArmorGames/this-is-the-only-level)
you can find many more on db.tigsource.com .
mostly windows, but there's also flash and linux games in between.
Penumbra Series from Frictional Games. You can get three games for just $15 and they are absolutely a gem of a game. I am playing them right now and it's money well spent. But be prepared to scared though. They are scary games but tremendously enjoyable.
a settlers II clone.
http://soldat.pl/en/
There are a lot of good commercial games available for Linux. I am an independent game developer that writes family-friendly games, and we provide native Linux versions. My games require an OpenGL-compatible video card; however, I am also a reseller for games made by other developers, and many of them do not require OpenGL. We have a nice variety of casual games for you to browse at http://www.mygamecompany.com/
You can also find other commercial Linux games at:
http://www.linuxgamingworld.com
http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com
Hello, my site (in French) : Le Bottin des Jeux Linux (http://www.surlestracesdupingouin.tuxfamily.org/LesJeuxSousLinux.html) offer a (GPL) list of more than 1700 Linux Games in 2 formats of document : OpenOffice (.odf) or PDF format (take one of them). For each game : a screenshot, type of the games and links for documentations. Enjoy ;)
Basilisk Games makes a wonderful turn-based RPG in the vein of Might & Magic and Ultima that has a Linux version and ran fine on my 3 year old Intel embedded graphics hardware. It's fun, addicting and has great replay value. http://www.basiliskgames.com/book1.html
I don't have a real gamer box, just a simple video card.
Good news, everybody! If you want to avoid large, complicated, games with good graphics, linux is just the platform you should pick...
i cant beleive noone has mentioned Savage or Savage 2 yet! those games are amazing and free, great multiplayer.
You may need a decent video card though
Glest - A free 3D RTS game. To download for Linux, you'll have to go onto the forums, and get the loki installer, or you can use add/remove. Find the loki installer at: http://www.liflg.org/?catid=6&gameid=87
I've spent time on:
Fish Fillets NG - an aquatic themed puzzle game.
planetpenguin racer - a downhill racing game.
supertuxkart - a go kart racing game
torcs - a racing car simulator
All of which also have Debian packages.
Come on guys. Why hasn't anybody mentioned Abuse? http://abuse-game.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=58 You haven't wasted time until you've wasted it on Abuse.
I suggests scummvm (http://scummvm.org) Its an engine used in some old games, but some nice folks recreated and made it so it runs on modern computers and phones and whatever. Great to see some of these old games again :) Great fun :)
These are great games. They're for windows, but work with WINE. Knytt Stories has a level editor, and level packs you can download.
Link
If you like the old games, maybe you still have them hanging around somewhere? I'm a big fan of dosbox: http://www.dosbox.com/ and other emulators that run great under linux. I've got a couple of wireless logitech game controllers for the ROM emulators. http://tinyurl.com/yz6tyop
Take it easy? I'll take it anyway I can get it . . .
get an atari 2600 emulator (stella for example) and play space invaders or pac man
The Blender community created a free and open source game (that is also for sale) called Yo Frankie. They released it a while ago and it's an amazing game. I heartily recommend it to any person who likes the platformer genre or is looking for their first video game. It's also a great game for people who want to learn how to write video games. All of the stuff to write levels and write code for your own video game is right there staring you in the face.
http://www.yofrankie.org/
Braid is a great game, and quite enjoyable for non-gamers. You will need Wine to get it to run under Linux. And you will need to pony up some cash to pay for the game.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The sad truth is that practically all Linux games are for "non-gamers." Linux is known for its distinct lack of heavyweight, A-list titles. There are some, but they are not only rare but difficult to obtain (you can't just walk into Target and pick one up). Literally 99% of all games you can get for Linux are little amusements. The upside to this is that there are TONS of games for Linux, but they are all like that. Even very serious, high quality efforts like Wesnoth play like casual games even though they feature more depth than you could normally get from a FOSS game.
For those who love casual games, Linux is even better than Windows.
If you want a good casual, multiplayer FPS experience on Linux, try OpenArena, Urban Terror, and Nexuiz; all three are absolutely fantastic and loads of fun. You can even get Enemy Territory for free, which also provides good multiplayer FPS. Urban Terror is my favorite simply because it is the most realistic and similar to Counterstrike. Other FPS gems for Linux include Cube and Cube 2.
http://ss-discretion.sourceforge.net/
This is an open source port of an old Win95 online, multi-player, space shooter game that's also compatible with the Win95 version (originally Subspace, but is now called Continuum). Surprisingly, still great fun, and still has a strong community. In short, Subspace was purchased, then abandoned, then reverse engineered by a couple of elitist kids and recreated as Continuum. Unfortunately, instead of sharing development of the beloved game, they kept it closed, sharing it only with their closest friends, and halting development to a stand still. So, Discretion was created to offer a FOSS version of the game, and development for the game has started again.
Well, Wine will let you play Return To Castle Wolfenstein, but there's native ports out there for most all of the Quake series. Personally, I like FuhQuake or EQuake or whatever you call it. It takes a little juggling to get the sound working, but I can't get enough of it. Makes me feel like a young punk again, I guess. Quake came out back in the early days of pcs.
The Tea Party is just the GOP with a bag over its head.
There are tons of decent browser-based RPGs.
My personal favourite: http://www.futurerp.net/
http://www.riftwars.net/
http://www.fallensword.com/
http://www.kingsofchaos.com/
And so on.
runescape.com
Pick your flavor, Oldschool T2A, UOR / Hybrid (very fun PVP), or Demise - semi current. Google UOGamers.
Free, new 3d client. Blows official clients away. Probably not suitable for hardcore pvp. Runs natively on linux.
http://ghoulsblade.schattenkind.net/iris/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
I am not a gamer, but I shudder to imagine how many months of my life I have collectively spent playing Warzone 2100.
Emulators may be the way to go for lots of choice in games. If you have a load of old DOS games you can always run them in DOSBox, and even if you don't a lot of these can be downloaded free of charge from sites that offer abandonware. I'm particularly fond of Frontier: Elite 2 and UFO: Enemy Unknown. I also like Amiga emulators - K-240 is one of my favourite games of all time.
I recommened the Baldurs Gate Series. They both run fine under wine without any problems, including the Mission Packs. A really deep Single-Player Story will make you Play for months. It is Multi-Player capable though you have to configure wine to do it, that a bit tricky.
A very good job was done for World of Goo !
I was very happy to pay the 20 bucks for the game, with the Linux (.deb, .rpm, .tgz), Windows and Mac OS installers.
My biggest Linux time waster is scrabble:
Quackle: http://www.quackle.org/
As well as Zyzzyva for quizzes like out of the games section of the newspaper: http://www.zyzzyva.net/
Almost nobody does. Nobody cares about that. Nobody is really working on that.
Least of all, game creators. Sure, you can make a Linux-only game, but it's soooo easy to make a game portable. In fact, it requires more effort to make nonportable software, than portable software. You might go ahead and do it anyway (or just not bother with porting) but if you release the source to your game, then somebody is going to clean it up and get it to successfully compile/run for everything else. Windows and MacOS have OpenGL, Pygame, etc, even if those aren't the prefered APIs on those platforms.
Ergo, your only option is to release a proprietary game for Linux only. And then you're right back to the "nobody wants to" part. Nobody cares enough to bother doing that.
Who would do that? Certainly not pros; they want sales, so they're not going to go to extra trouble to eliminate 99% of sales. That leaves enthusiasts, and they would have to be awfully eccentric, to love Linux while simultaneously hating open source. Most will think that if releasing proprietary apps is ok, then proprietary OSes are ok too.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
How could no one have suggested this yet?
Works well on linux, old enough now to be supported by most hardware...
fun FPS, and utterly polluted with people running cheats. the game offers no protection against it. now you know why that guy keeps targeting your 2px head from across the map in 200ms.
http://www.lordsawar.com/ (GPLv3)
It's a free software remake of one of the greatest titles in computing history, Warlords II Deluxe. A very nice turn-based, optionally-multiplayer strategy game of conquest, romance and psychology. Ok, at least of conquest.
It runs quite nicely on my old hardware. With no 3D acceleration. (I refuse to install any binary blobs.)
A word of warning, it's highly addictive. Also, if you have any bright ideas about the game, the author seems like a very nice fellow, throw a mail his way and he'll reply to you! (Well, did to me.)
Now if you excuse me, I have an army to command! Fare thee well!
One problem with many roguelikes is that they are frustratingly difficult (at least for people who don't know exactly what to look out for). One good alternative is DoomRL. Yes, it's Doom in roguelike form, blending FPS and roguelike sensibilities - the game is much more fast-paced than regular roguelikes and much easier to get into. At the same time you not only have a nice skill tree but also a number of challenges ranging from the benign pistols-only "Angel of Marksmanship" to the brutal "Angel of Pacifism" where you can't use weapons (you do get a nuke for killing the Cyberdmon, however).
Add to that a lot of secret levels, unique weapons, weapon and armor mods, mystery levers etc. etc. and you end up with a really nice game with a lot of replay value. Oh, and it has sound and music, too.
Closed yource, though, which is why there are only Windows ans x86 Linux binaries available.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Try some java games, Try this for example, I released it just this Monday. http://skunkhunter.oxyhost.com/ Great fun.
I agree with a number of the other suggestions here, especially Wesnoth. However, one that seems to have been missed is Globulation2. It's a RTS but without focus on individual units.
There aren't any missions so far, but I've spent quite a bit of time playing "custom" games on the different maps that are there. You must use Nikowar as the AI if you want any challenge at all (Nikowar does do an ok job, especially if you play against a few of them). There's also LAN and Internet gaming options.
Philosphically, this is something I have done some questioning and research over. Why are there few great Linux games? (But lots of mediocre ones.)
Partly, it has do with market share. Linux games reach fewer users than other platforms.
But even more than that, it has to do with the conflicting goals. FOSS is ... open. It is openly discussed. it is openly worked on. There are some core coders but the whole idea is that anyone can add their bits.
On the other had, entertainment software, including games, requires the element of surprise to some extent. It needs to be new and interesting. It needs to draw in the player with an uncertain future. In other words, it is closed and secret to maintain the illusion.
In fact, game programmers in the private sector usually enjoy gaming...but not on their own games. They know too much. It's old and boring long before the final version. And yet they continue to work on it it until completion because, in part, they are paid highly to keep going. There is pleasure in the coding and the testing. But not in the game. In MMO gaming, they usually have a separate crew (not the central coders) to beta test in part for that reason.
So for an open-source game, one would have to find a large number of coders and artists wanting to work long arduous hours on a game they won't like themselves, but outsiders would enjoy. That is a tough combo. Most open-source programmers want to use the very product they work on. Only after the game is finished and released, would they also release the source code. I'm not saying it's impossible. It's just not likely. Just my opinion.
Thanks all for the massive load of games that you listed. Checking them all out should keep me busy for quite a while. /.ed.
Also welcome to all the new BattleMaster players that signed up today. The game designer even had let the players know we were
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Urban Terror is a lot of fun. www.urbanterror.net
I'm still waiting for a fairly realistic WW1 or WW2 combat flight sim for linux. FlightGear is a great sim but I want realistic combat. Shredded superchargers, oil spraying on the windscreen, wings being ripped to pieces and flying off, pilots bleeding out, etc. Basically I want a native IL2 port for Linux.
There is a new game in Beta now called "Heroes of Newerth" done by S2 Games. It's basically a port of DotA, it has Windows, Mac and Linux versions. I can't believe no one mentioned this before, but I couldn't go through all the posts. DotA is a 5v5 Warcraft III map, so this game is a 5v5 FPS game where you control one hero, leveling up over the course of the half hour to hour and a half game, leveling your four skills, trying to kill you opponents with the ultimate goal of destroying a building in their base. I love the team aspect of this game and I really really appreciate them taking the time to offer linux support. I hope more games companies do this in the future. It runs beautifully. http://beta.heroesofnewerth.com/
Its called WINE & I have an ancient version of Startrek voyager elite force that runs just great on it
Sounds like you've forgotten about the ever popular NetHack a.k.a. Slash'em. There are several versions of this, both graphic and text My favorite is GTK Slas'hem which can be played in either graphic or text mode.
As a long time Battle Tech fan I must mention Megamek.
Quote from the wikipedia:
Play chess, dude.
That'll make you smarter.
One day you'll realize that you could just google up the answer to your question instead of showing the whole slashdot community that you're a lazy lamer who deserves to be pointed to lmgtfy.com
What about all of the flash games?
No, I will not work for your startup
WMD Tank Battle, a free browser map conquest game. No turn limit, although that does increase the time-sinkyness...
A little late here, but I've recently started playing Oolite (an Elite clone) and really enjoying it. With a lot of expansions as well.
20,000 Light Years Into Space
Deceptively simple yet highly addictive and very low hardware requirements
Or for something more ambitious: Warzone 2100
I've collected a batch of links from this thread and posted them here.
-kgj
anyone know of great casino games for linux, such as poker?
Soviet Unterzoegersdorf is an excellent adventure (point and click) game. You take a role of a delusional communist in a post Berlin Wall world who has to adopt to the new, capitalist, surrounding.
The game is very interesting, mentally challenging and funny. Download it here: http://www.monochrom.at/suz-game (freeware, multi-platform, but not open).
Mahjong Zodiac for Linux:
http://www.CasualGameStore.com/mahjongzodiacinfo.html
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