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)
https://veloren.net/ is a voxel MMO and it is already very playable
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
BAR is so good!
It is indeed, got all my friends addicted as well :)
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.
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OpenRCT (not totally free but a damn impressive project nonetheless)
OpenRCT is free iirc! You can just get the RCT2 demo for the assets OpenRCT needs
- 0 AD
- 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!
SuperTuxKart and OpenTTD.
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.
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.
Great game, although someone recently told me not all graphics were licensed free licenses.
Supreme Commander & SupCom Forged Alliance are super cheap on discount on GOG. Forged Alliance Forever is incredible with the amount of work they’ve done to patch the game and keep the community going.
Xonotic, if you like very fast paced shooters.
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.
Really nice recommendation, thank you!
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.
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
When I played open source games around 15 years ago, these were all the same games mentioned. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of progress
Veloren is written in Rust and is inspired by Zelda Breath of The Wild. Both of those are relatively recent.
OpenTTD, OpenRCT and OpenRA are all great!