The Best Free Linux Games Ever

Despite the name - nethack has nothing to do with network or hacking. It is a classic D & D style slash and hack role playing game - except it demands slightly more brains than simple slash and hack playing.

I love RPG - Role Playing Games. However, I do not have the time to keep up with massively multiplayer online RPG's. these require a subscription, and a huge investment of time.

Nethack is a single player RPG moulded in classic D & D style. You must explore ever deeper levels of a dungeon, fight off monsters, take on quests, find treasure and special artefacts and level up your character. It is in my humble opinion, the first candidate for the best Linux free games list.

Being single player, you can return to it in your own time. Things do not happen when you are not playing. There are a number of very active communities around the game which means you can exchange tips and scores.

The game is incredibly deep. With each character class and race, you need to get to know their strengths and weaknesses to get the best out of them when playing. when encountering monsters, depending on what you are holding and your skills, your responses need to be well thought out. The game is turn based - so running in attacking in a hurry is a rapid way to die.

Nethack has a mechanism to catch up with previous incarnations of yourself - bones files. you may stumble upon a ghost of a previous game, along with the items you were carrying and a untame pet. These bones files ccan further enhance the game experience with the use of hearse - a program which uploads and downloads bones files from a central server, so you may come across other players ghosts.

The game is also known for having many, many unique ways to die - so while it has depth and addictiveness, it can be very frustrating. You do not get extra lives.

Nethack itself is a game engine, on which a number of graphical presentation layers are built. For example, you can go for a command line nethack experience, playable over telnet and ssh connections, a GTK/QT/SDL experience for a richer graphical version, and then the Vultures Eye/Falcons Eye versions which give animated 3D worlds. Under each of them is the same basic engine.

Items include potions, scrolls, wands, weapons of many types, bags, gems, food and plenty of other random oddities like tin openers, lock picks, whistles and a towel. The game makes cultural references - to mythology, to cult tv shows (a towel makes reference to The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy) and classic stories.

• Graphics: 3-9 - Depending on which interface you choose.


• Ease Of Use: 3 - Okay you will need to learn plenty of keyboard commands. The QT/GTK interfaces make this easy with drop down menu's though.


• Sound: 0 - Apart from Vultures Eye, there really is no sound in the game.


• Game play: 10 - This can be played for hours and days.


• Replay value: 10 - Every game will be slightly different - every time new things will be discovered about the game or new strategies.


• In active development: Yes


• Source Available: Yes


• Platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac

Linux - Apt based (Ubuntu, Debian)
To get the basics going you just need slashem and the slashem gtk

• sudo apt-get install slashem slashem-gtk

Linux - Yum based (FC, Redhat, SuSE)

• sudo yum install slashem slashem-gtk

Windows

Download both the files for the latest Window release from http://www.slashem.org/, and setup both.

Mac OSX

How do I play nethack? Well I do not use the Falcons Eye 3d interface - it has currently been abandoned and uses way too much CPU time for my liking it needs work. The Vultures Eye version has fixed these problems but is not in the major repos yet. I am not hard core enough for the command line, although I have used it for remote game I am not its greatest fan that way. My favourite way is through nethack-qt because I like the graphical tiles (I use the small tiles) and it has helpful menus to remind me of the commands. I do mostly use the keyboard commands, but the menus, for commands I do not remember or don't use often, do help.

I generally play as a human barabarian or an archeologist. I am discovering that gnomes and dwarves make good archeologists too.

My best game took me down to one of the castle/fortress levels, with a silver dragon scale and a bunch of cool stuff from a wishing rod. I had my brain eaten by a mind flayer, and being a barbarian - intelligence was not my strongest stat. I therefore tend to genocide them if I find said scroll. Nope- I have not yet ascended. I will keep playing at it - always learning some new strategy.

My pet hates in the game are water demons (I do not quaff from fountains anymore) as they can rapidly summon other demons, nymphs and leprechauns - who steal your stuff and mean I have to track them down and kill them to get it back. I find killing a floating eye and having an uncursed blindfold a good way to hunt down teleporting monsters. I like to eat them - teleportitis is fun. Teleport control is even better.

Talking of pet hates - most frustrating thing can be herding a pet or pets into a stairwell, especially when a character is hungry. A magic whistle and leash are handy for these occasions... These pet hates are not bugs - they are challenges to deal with in the game - without which perhaps the game would be notably more shallow.

It is this amount of depth, strategy that makes it one of the best free Linux games.

Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe allows you to build an empire of transport systems. Trains, planes, automobiles and unlike the original it was based on, Canals and boats. Balance your books, build stations and rails, get exclusive access to the transport tech and beat the rivals. You can found industries, and find the best industries to make money from.

Set up whole supply chains - forest to sawmill, sawmill to factory, factory goods to a city store for example. Set up bus routes, busy city airports, smaller airstrips on outlying villages.

The game has incredible depth and replay value. it can even be played online with friends. It has an active community and is free, although it requires some files from the original game to be copied across to run, the original game files can be acquired from abandonia, so this is not a problem.

Essentially it is a business and management simulation, with a bit of rail building on the side. You can bring about buy outs of the other companies, and you may require loans to keep the company afloat. Every item - be it a station, rolling stock or rail requires money and maintenance, and every item carried may produce profit, or a penalty if delivered late. How large can you scale the business, how well can you get your margins without getting penalised for bad service?

On the other hand, it is also a great huge virtual train set! With planes, buses and boats too it gets better. I loved train sets as a kid, and they still fascinate me now. So is it the business side, or the train set that makes this one of the best free Linux games ever?

This game is very demanding, so make sure you have plenty of time to play it. Of course it can be paused in single player mode, although building while paused is considered cheating, even against AI.

It can be installed simply in Ubuntu with "sudo apt-get install openttd".

• Graphics: 7/10 - Again, this game is not graphically intense, although I find the 3 quarters 3d view (quite traditional in city building/sim games) quite endearing and clear. The view can be rotated if obstructed. However - this is a bit of a sneak - most of the graphics come from the original TTD - in the files you move over post install.


• Sound: 5/10 - Simple audio sounds - mostly to tell you if something went wrong. There is a midi soundtrack, but I don't use it.


• Gameplay 10/10 - This is perhaps the most addictive of these games. Too many hours have gone on it.Replay Value: 8/10 - Not quite the replay value of Nethack, but still plenty to be had from playing again with different opponents. Maps will be different each time - they are randomly generated.


• In active development: Yes


• Source available: Yes


• Platforms: Linux, Windows, Max

There are many good Linux distributions out there, but currently Ubuntu stands out as being one of the easiest to use. It carries most of the games mentioned here (it does not have Vultures Eye yet).

The apt system makes it very easy to install most of these games. The system has some of the best hardware support among Linux distributions, with most graphics cards and sounds cards working straight out of the box.

My computer has an NVidia graphics card with a Soundblaster sound card. These presented no problems to Ubuntu. The support for onscreen effects through Compiz are easily enabled, less easy are things like mouse hotzones for zooming, but the still work fairly quickly.

Overall, it is so far and at present the best Linux distribution I have used, the best for gaming and the best for day to day desktop use. It is a bit less good as a server, but in this case that wont count against it.

Wesnoth is an RPG and turn based battle game. the game has a number of scenarios, where you lead a main character and a supporting cast of characters into battle. With the stats hacking feeling of D & D with the strategic and story elements, as well as network play, this is one of the better games on Linux. It has atmospheric music, suitable but simple graphics and has been undergoing active development for a while now. There is also scope for user customizable content with a map editor and being able to create whole campaigns for player to engage in.

The player will have to manage their fighters well. Sure, if you have the coinage, you can recruit many units. But some units are very special - they can not die as they are crucial to the game, or they may have unique skills and experience making them worth looking after. Then there is the choices of sending your best or most valuable units into battle or not. If the times are not desperate, do you stay defensive and keep your king/general in the castle (where he can recruit) or send him out to gain valuable experience so he can level up himself and have a fighting chance when things are desperate? It is a pretty bad option to be at a hard point in the game and have a king with half the stats of the other characters around him. Remember to know where they can rest to regain HP or where you healers are if you have them - healers are very valuable characters.

As characters and units gain experience, they are able to be advance into more powerful units with greater abilities - not simply higher power, but new abilities, spells, moves and attacks.

You need gold to recruit and to pay your troops, although some special characters will play for you for free. You need to hold towns and villages to gain gold through taxes. You then need to quest for artefact's, and to gain the ability to recruit different races and character classes. Learn what each class or individuals strengths and weaknesses are both playing with them and against them, and how to make your way across the map or be prepared for surprises. Do not forget that some characters are sensitive to the time of day - undead tend to have bonuses at night, and healer/light mages tend to do better by day.

There are campaign missions where you need to hold the fort - last a number of turns alive, or rescue someone, or simply make your way from A to B, and also those where destroying an enemy character is the sole aim. Each of these needs different strategies. Defensive fort hugging will not help when questing across a map, and even when holding the fort, it may prevent you from retrieving an artefact that would really help you in the siege. Normally the campaign creators will provide helpful storyline to tell you what the mission is, who is attacking who and why, and at least hint at the artefact's or special characters and where they lie on the map.

In single player mode, this is a game you can save and return to later. Although it is worth noting that when leaving a battle in the middle of an intense game, it may take a while coming back the next day to figure out where you were, what all your units are supposed to be doing and what strategy you were pushing forward with.

Multiplayer can not be saved for later. Taking too long on a turn will frustrate other players. Human players will throw strategies the computer may never have thought of. Practising against the computer may prepare you for the basics - but new depths will come from multi player games. These can be played on a network, or by hot seat changing - since it is turn based. Having these modes of play definitely contribute to it being one of the best free Linux games ever.

It can be installed on Ubuntu very simply - "sudo apt-get install wesnoth".

• Graphics: 7 - The hextile system looks quite good in fact. Simple but very appropriate. With some animation.


• Ease of use: 6 - Fairly simple to get the basics sorted. There are nice tutorial campaigns to get you started. However, it is also fairly hard to master and complete campaigns - challenging.


• Sound: 6 - Simple FX with good atmospheric music. Just what is needed.


• Game Play: 9 - Very addictive, good fun. Takes a lot of time.


• Replay Value: 10 - There is a great challenge in this, as well as multiple campaigns, multiple difficulty levels, and the possibility of going back to previous battles to try for a better outcome. I have played this for years.


• In active development: Yes


• Source Available: Yes


• Platforms: Linux, Mac OS X, Windows

In Endgame :Singularity you take on the persona of a computer program that has gained sentience and become aware. You must choose where to spend the CPU cycles you have to advance to the point where you are able to survive. This time you are Skynet - but you are not going to do the terminator thing. You would much rather escape and live out somewhere else.

There is also the ever present chance of discovery by the public, the press, scientists or the military, all of whom are paranoid enough that they will try to terminate you or at the very least shut down some of your operations and make your job much harder.

You can use your CPU resources to recruit botnets of PC's, each of which cost a certain number of CPU cycles to maintain, but provide many more CPU cycles back.

You can find ways to make cash - by processing things for money, by learning to play the stock market or by arbitrage. These take research to learn, and CPU cycles to perform.

When you have cash you can begin building datacentres and warehouses - which much higher computational capacities - advancing your development as research takes ever increasing amounts of CPU time. Every action you perform in the real world however, may increase your chance of discovery. Every base you build, adds to the possibility one or more organisation will become aware of your presence.

As the game advances, learn to build quantum computers, Arctic and lunar bases. Learn mimetics to seed rumours and media stories to divert attention away from your presence.

The very depth of this game will have you playing for hours, finding ways to research, make money, build effective bases and keep the suspicious humans off your tail.This game is pretty unique and intriguing, which gives it a place in the Best Free Linux Games ever.

Singularity is available in most Linux distributions - in Ubuntu:
"sudo apt-get install singularity" will install it.

It is also available from its home page at: Endgame: Singularity home page

When the game has been finished - you can try playing on a higher difficulty level, each are very challenging as the public are more suspicious. As the game is under active development, playing it again in a few months may give you some new surprises, although that may also mean old saved games are no longer valid.

• Graphics: 6 - This game is basically played mostly on the world map. Graphics is not really the point. What there is works well.


• Sound: 6 - The game has basic clicks but some atmospheric ingame music. Although the music does get repetitive after a while.


• GamePlay: 9 - The Game stands out on the gameplay - building bases, researching high tech like quantum computers and fusion reactors, sneaking around the media, science, public and intelligence community. Very immersive.


• Replay value: 4 - Once completed, playing on different difficulty levels gives a different challenge - but the research path is much the same. Once you have reached a certain point, the game is quite short.


• In active development: Yes


• Source available: Yes


• Platforms: Windows, Mac(Experimental), Linux

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Not content with the best games, I put one up against its rival. OpenTTD vs Simutrans - which was the best overall game and transport simulation? Find out at the Linux Transport Simulation Game Showdown. Includes feature by feature comparison, screenshots and video.

I have been on squidoo for long enough and somehow manage not to talk about this subject which I love too - gaming. This is just the first lens on the area, but certainly an outpouring of some of my favourite Linux games. Enjoy it!