R.L. Dane - FOSS Games are actually pretty good!
rldane.space

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/6819337

Mon 04 December 2023 by R.L. Dane

There’s a lot of talk about gaming in Linux these days, and that’s exciting, because it’s drawing attention to Linux’s capabilities. While the games being spoken of are mostly proprietary (and pretty awful, from a software-freedom perspective), it’s good to see people getting interested in Linux, even when for only pragmatic reasons.

But beyond the attention-grabbing AAA titles, there are many FOSS games worth checking out.

Admittedly, I am not much of a gamer, and never have been. I’m hoping to draw attention to the possibilities of FOSS gaming, but what will follow is hardly exhaustive. But I have tried to gather the names a few FOSS games on Android I’ve enjoyed burning time with, and a few desktop games I’ve heard of or played with occasionally that are worthy of more attention from the gaming community:

https://rldane.space/foss-games-are-actually-pretty-good.html

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.eeEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    1. I don’t see how anyone could play a game like Minetest on their phone. I have tried before and struggle like hell when compared to playing on desktop.

    2. It’s definitely not a maintained or worked on game anymore, but I really like Me And My Shadow (MAMS). It’s just a 2D platformer, but the twist is that you get to record movements for a shadow version of yourself to follow to try and help either you or it reach the end of the level. I don’t recall if there’s anything other than the windows version.

    3. I also would like to throw in HyperRouge (which took me forever to find because I couldn’t remember the name). Something, something, traverse top down isometric hexagon world fighting enemies, collecting things, unlocking new areas, something, something. It’s been a few months since I last played, so my memory is a little fuzzy.

    • alkheemist
      4·
      1 year ago

      Hyperrogue is not quite a top down hexagon world, it’s a top down heptagon world. The premise is that it is a roguelike set in a hyperbolic world, and different regions teach you different weird properties of a hyperbolic space. For example, the crossroads feature an infinite amount of parallel lines and yet there are still forks in the pathway.

      Even though it’s foss, it is also for sale on steam if you want to support the dev