I’m usually a fan of open source games but rarely do they manage to be actually great. People like giving recommendations like Super Tux Kart that haven’t aged well and don’t play well. What are some open source games that are legitimately good that I’ve missed?
My favorites are:
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Mindustry
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Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart
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Powder Toy
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GZDoom (and all the amazing mods for it)
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Veloren (even though it’s still in alpha)
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Battle for Wesnoth
This one never gets the love it deserves. It’s a fantastic turn based strategy game with multiple campaigns and storylines, multiplayer, and campaign design tools. It’s an old project (started in 2003, IIRC), but it’s still fantastic
Hedgewars
Basically, this is Worms but with adorable little hedgehogs instead of, well, worms. Single player is okay, and it has online multiplayer I guess, but the real fun (just like in Worms) is local multiplayer. Also, it has Portal Guns. There’s really no downside to this one.
- https://www.hedgewars.org/
- Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2223810/Hedgewars/
- Itch: https://hedgewars.itch.io/hedgewars
Re-volt io and RVGL
This one’s a little iffy. Re-volt was a fantastic R / C racing game with bright graphics, fun tracks, excellent controls, and a killer soundtrack. For good or ill, it was put out by Acclaim, which self destructed in 2004. The Re-volt fan community, however, doesn’t know the meaning of the word “quit.”
Nowadays, you can join a lively community with regular online tournaments of the game. There’s a new cross platform engine called RVGL (that’s Re Volt Game Launcher), and metric tonnes of mods and fan content. You still need the original game’s assets, though, which is where it’s dicey; they’re technically abandonware not open source, unless I’m mistaken.
Anyway, links!
Unciv
This project’s aim is to be Civilization V, but with more abstract visuals, and, or course, free. In short, it’s FreeCiv, but Civ V instead of II and a UI from the 2020s rather than the 80s. (Not throwing shade here; FreeCiv is an amazing project that is exactly what it wants to be!)
If that’s not enough to keep ya’ happy, I know a few more, but they’ve mostly been covered by other folks here.
Edit: formatting
I just discovered Unciv on the fdroid store very recently and it blew me away. It is such a well done little Civ 5 clone.
I am definitely going to try Hedgewars. Worms was one of my favorite games when I was a kid.
Thanks so much for the suggestions!
I never even knew about Hedgewars’ existence, but Warmux on the other hand… Now that’s my childhood right there
I feel you. Warmux was really neat. Sadly, it never got as much development as Hedgewars, even though the mascot theme was really cool. AFAIK, Warmux has been inactive (or at least extremely slow) for years, while Hedgewars has been thriving.
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- Battle for Wesnoth
- Tales of Maj’Eyal
Adding to this:
- Veloren
- Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead
- Mindustry
- The Dark Mod
- Oolite
- Flare: Empyrean Campaign
- Xonotic
- Unvanquished
- Frozen Bubble
- Nethack
Yes the interface is a mess. But it’s ridiculously deep once you get into it.
Oh my goodness, yes! I spent hundreds of hours playing this as a kid. Angband too.
Did you ever finish it?
I wish! I can’t even be sure I got past level 50. I was young haha.
I think I only managed to get past the dungeons couple of times and get to the first open space. I tried getting back to it later but learning all the rules about amulets and scrolls wasn’t that fun the second time.
I only got so far based on pure RNG and nothing more.
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Xonotic is my favorite shooter too date. Just start it up and jump into an instaglib game for grapple hook sniper fun. The other game modes are good too though.
The dark mod is amazing.
Tales of Maj’Eyal is a great little game if you’re an rogue-like fan! I played so many hours of that game a few years back, it’s seriously great!
Endless Sky.
It’s an open world 2D spacefaring game, with a good core story and more being added by the surprisingly-active dev community.
Not without its flaws, but anyway I think it’s a fantastic game in its own right. And it’s both “finishable” and under continued development & expansion.
It’s surprisingly well written. Both major story arcs had me on the edge of my seat.
Endless Sky is great. It was inspired by the old Escape Velocity games by Ambrosia Software.
My favorites:
- OpenTTD: Old transport tycoon game, but really fun especially in multiplayer
- Minetest: Minecraft-like voxel game engine, which means there a many different game modes
- Beyond All Reason: Great RTS, also great in online multiplayer or with some friends. (Disclaimer: Possible unfree licenses for artwork)
- Dwarf Fortress (free but not open source, thanks for telling me that one): not everyone’s cup of tea, but sometimes you just get stuck in it for hours on end
Dwarf Fortress is not open source. It is freeware. Parts of the game (some graphics stuff) has the code available but you have no license to distribute it.
Possible unfree licenses for artwork
I’d still consider the game open source, even if the art is copyrighted.
Dwarf Fortress
Is there an open source version? It’s a great game (also try the steam edition if you check it out), but I thought it was closed-source.
Dwarf Fortress is not open source. You are correct.
BAR is so good!
It is indeed, got all my friends addicted as well :)
Does open source implementation of proprietary game counts? OpenMW
We only reimplemented the engine, not the game. You still need to own a copy of Morrowind so there’s something for the new engine to actually run. That said, it is possible for it to run other potentially-open-source games, such as OpenMW’s example suite (which isn’t finished enough to even call a game yet) or the Robowind demo (which I can’t remember the licencing details of) .
I have wasted almost as many hours in OpenMW as I have with the official engine. It is just that good.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon and other forks of Pixel Dungeon (but SPD is my fave).
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a great game if you are into rogue-like games. Expect to die waaaay more than you win. There is a lot of depth and quite a few ways to solve the the puzzles and enemy encounters.
The developer has done an amazing job picking up where the original developer of Pixel Dungeon left off. Very consistent and solid updates and has plenty of plans for future updates which look interesting.
There are plenty of forks ranging from adjusting difficulty to overhauling the art or expanding the gameplay significantly. If you ever get bored, you can just try something new.
I’ve enjoyed the growth of this game over the years after the development of the original game stopped.
Yes, I love that the dev is so engaged. He also started up a community here for Pixel Dungeon as well.
I’m glad Shattered csme along. I didn’t care for item degradation that the original dev of PD built in towards the end. Shattered forked at just the right time.
Sprouted PD is fun if you enjoy grinding.
OpenTTD. IMO mindustry, for example, is better but it’s still worth to try OpenTTD
I’ve played this game so much as a kid. It’s nice to see that this game is still maintained (as OSS) and still being mentioned. :)
osu! is an amazing rhythm game. Try osu!lazer, it’s the new client: https://osu.ppy.sh/home/download
I also like Pioneers and Endless Sky, both space sims.
This might not count, but both Lichess, a chess website, and OGS, a Go website are open source.
There is also Mindustry, but I haven’t played it.
Not only is Endlessly open source, it has been crowd developed for years and years. It’s still actively adding user content (stories, outfits, ships, races, etc) and has the only actually functional launcher I’ve ever seen (like if you want to play a stable release, or play in your own sandbox development area, etc). It’s really great community of folks.
Really nice recommendation, thank you!
I play chess on lichess and go on OGS and I had no idea before opening this thread that they were open source.
Open source software is just better I guess
[email protected] is good to share such games.
Thanks, didn’t know about this.
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MineClone2 is addictive. All that Minecraft style fun, but free and open source. It’s pretty comprehensive and solid for the most part.
How does it differ from Minetest?
Minetest is the engine and Mineclone2 is a game/mod for it.
Minetest is the engine, MineClone2 is the game. Minetest has a default game (Minetest game), which has no mobs or anything. It’s dull without mods. MineClone2 is recreation of Minecraft on Minetest, but with some differences. For example, you can use a burger to lure villagers. It’s great fun and worth a try.
Nifty, I’d I let ever tried Minetest game, so that explains a lot. Thanks!
Warzone 2100, from the community project website and not Steam. Some douche just took the code and uploaded it to Steam themself and does a poor job maintaining it.
Warzone 2100 was my jam! They hadn’t actually got cutscenes working in the Linux port I was using so I was.very confused about the story.
Around the year 2000, I had to make a choice between Battlezone 1 and Warzone 2100. I chose Warzone and have never regretted it.
It’s always nice just to run through the campaign every couple of years.
OpenTTD, OpenRCT and OpenRA are all great!
tl;dr: a better Spore
From the site:
Thrive is a free, open-source game about the evolution of life.
From the lowly tidepools of your home planet, you will rise to cosmic dominance. At every step, powerful creation tools and deep simulation mechanics will aid your species’ development. Revolutionary Games is the open-source team of dedicated volunteers aiming to make Thrive a reality.
Our team seeks to accomplish two major goals: create engaging, compelling gameplay that respects our players’ intelligence, and remain as accurate as possible in our depiction of known scientific theory without compromising the former.
As a past spore player i really wished something like this existed earlier.
If you like that kind of stuff, check out The Sapling, which is being developed and devlogged by this cool nerdy dude who I think is dutch.
The game is like an “eco dwarf-fortress” evolution simulator, and it’s been amazing to follow the development of.
Seem’s awesome, sadly not open source but it has an appeal.
CDDA and Shatered Pixel Dungeon arey favorites.
…and another good roguelike: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
