What are some good open source games?
I've found a few really, honestly fantastic open source games and I'd like to share them and discover some new ones too.
Firstly, NullpoMino is a fantastic cross-platform Tetris clone. It's highly, highly customizable and is lots of fun to play. It's got a great community over at Hard Drop, and if you like Tetris - you'll like NullpoMino. However, there are a few issues with it; one in particular being the relatively low skill ceiling of Marathon. The skill ceiling is very low (compared to other titles such as the NES edition), but this is solely exclusive to Marathon as far as I know. It turns into a test of patience rather than skill. Another issue is with installation; as the game was made for 32 bit systems it is rather slow, and it's finicky to run on Linux. However, it is a fantastic Tetris title (and open source!)
Another good open-source game is Osu! I've never played it competitively, but it's a fair bit of fun to play with friends and is a great game. It's cross-platform, although I've only ever played it on Windows, and it has a nice community. Fantastic game that I don't see mentioned too much.
The last game for this post is SuperTuxKart. It serves as a great kart-racing game, that's fun and has a low barrier to entry. Graphically, it's not drop-dead gorgeous, but it's not bad at all either. It's decent solo, and a lot of fun with friends. Would highly recommend. Cross-platform and available as a snap.
0 AD is kind of like ages of empires. It is a little sparse for content but it has a community and is pretty fun.
Open RA is an open source clone of Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 (I think). It's very fun and works well.
Edit: I'll have to give super tux cart a chance. I was put off by the graphics but I've certainly enjoyed worse looking games.
I've heard of 0AD - I've never played Ages of Empires - is the barrier to entry high? If so, is there a wiki to reference?
I haven't heard of open RA, but it sounds interesting, I'll give it a shot when I have some time :)
There is a proper looking website so I assume the docs are adequate.
Granted I did play AoE 2 and 0 AD is very similar in mechanics and interface but the barrier is extremely low. You could get a good feel for the game very quickly.
If you do end up checking out Open RA don't be put off by how initially impossible multiplayer is. Open RA is one of those games with a small group of obsessed players. (But reasonably pleasant in my experience). I just enjoy the bot matches.
Thanks! I'm glad the barrier to entry is low, I tried playing some NetHack but could never figure out how to do anything. Same with ASCII jump. Will it run on weak hardware?
I tend not to play much multiplayer in games, so I don't think it'll effect me too much. Thank you for the information, though!
Hardware will not be an issue. It would probably run on a watch. It's written in C++ and the devs, like the community, seem to be pretty engaged.
You are welcome and the same to you. Good topic! I always forget about the open source gaming scene but I should pay more attention because I tend to pick a game and play it to death.
Thank you! Same here to be honest, when it comes to open-source software my mind immediately springs to productivity software like LibreOffice or command-line utilities like ffmpeg and youtube-dl.
All wonderful additions to technology but the shame is that programmers are so practical. Come on guys, I need free premium games, not free premium office suites. (Joke)
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. One of the most interesting and full of depth roguelikes ever put together, imo. Obligatory Nethack mention as well.
It's not one of my favorites but mentioning open source roguelikes, I can't leave out Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, either.
I also think Space Station 13 is worth a mention. Yeah, there's some servers that are not entirely open source, the community itself leaves a LOT to be desired, but BYOND code is really a shiny nugget coated in garbage. If nothing else, playing SS13 servers and hearing the tales from people who work on code for some of the servers is one of the most unique experiences I've ever had dealing with video games.
Haha, nice! I'm glad you made your comment though, I always struggle to feel like I can put what I love about CDDA into words, and your post is a really good write-up about it.
SS13 is very fun but I find it a bit of a struggle to get around to playing now. If you can bear some of the people, it's a very good experience, but I find that I don't really want to bother with that a lot now. If you ever get into it you should try station hopping a lot, there's so many unique differences between each station that it's a bit of an adventure in itself seeing how they all work!
Glest / MegaGlest were always the shining examples in that area, imo. Wonderful if you like WarCraft III-style RTS games, though if you want to seriously play with others you'll need to find some community hubs and see when players get together.
I've never played any RTS games, but it sounds interesting. Is there local multiplayer support? What makes it so good?
Is there any sort of campaign, or is it soley multiplayer? (Does it support local LAN?)
Battle for Wesnoth was basically my childhood. Great game.
Skimmed over the Wikipedia article, the game looks incredible for being so old, and I'm pretty surprised that development is still ongoing. It's got surprisingly consistent design, and I can see why you like it so much :)
Wesnoth is an amazing game. It’s basically the whole genre that Heroes of Might and Magic held as king boiled down to its essentials.
But if you’re surprised at how long Wesnoth has been in active development, you really should read up the history of NetHack. NetHack itself has been in development since 1987, but is based on Hack from 1982. Hack, in turn, is a(n improved) clone of the original Rogue from 1980. You know … that Rogue, the one that the term “rogue-like” stems from? Yeah. :)
Edit:
The skill ceiling is low because by default it uses the "standard" ruleset that is a clone of the SRS (the ruleset that games nowadays have to implement lest they loose the Tetris license).
If you set the mode and rule to Grade Mania and Classic, you will get a good enough approximation of Tetris the Grand Master, which is a very good game and has a pretty high skill ceiling.
This is because the default ruleset is set to emulate SRS (the ruleset