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 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.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon and other forks of Pixel Dungeon (but SPD is my fave).
OpenTTD. IMO mindustry, for example, is better but it’s still worth to try OpenTTD
MineClone2 is addictive. All that Minecraft style fun, but free and open source. It’s pretty comprehensive and solid for the most part.
CDDA and Shatered Pixel Dungeon arey favorites.
…and another good roguelike: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
OpenTTD, OpenRCT and OpenRA are all great!
Naev - an open world space exploration game. Cruise the galaxy as a bounty hunter, work as a freighter, enlist in the military, or become a pirate! Lots of ship customization and a huge map with lots of factions.
Xonotic, if you like very fast paced shooters.
Teeworlds is a good game. Unfortunately the player base got very small, even though it’s on Steam.
Sauerbraten
ScummVM supports many many games. Some people might think it’s an emulator, but it’s actually a collection of reverse engineered game engines.
eDuke32 and other Build Engine source ports
I had fun playing Dink Smallwood (I think the Dink Smallwood HD Version on Android). You run around, solve tasks, and work your way through the story.
It is, as you described, not actually great, but great in a sense that you can have much fun with it. I especially liked the humor.
Oh gosh, that’s a blast from the past. I forgot that existed.
Beyond All Reason if you’re looking for an RTS similar to Supreme Commander. I haven’t tried playing it in a few years though. I’m sure it’s gotten some updates since then.
Crossfire https://crossfire.real-time.com/ Battle for Wesnoth https://www.wesnoth.org/ Unciv https://github.com/yairm210/Unciv/ Dungeon Crawl http://crawl.develz.org Feudal Tactics https://github.com/Sesu8642/FeudalTactics
