Top 10 Most Influential Linux Games

13 April 2007

I just read an article on Wired called ` Top 10 Most Influential Amiga Games`_, I remembered every one. After a nice feeling of nostalgia, I thought about what have been the most important Linux games. While a few Linux games are very good, the Linux game scene is still in its infancy, it only really started about five years ago.

While lots of impressive proprietary games are being ported to Linux, in this article I will concentrate on the free/open source games. As you will see by the games later in this list, we are starting to get there.

The difference between the community produced free/open source gaming world and the proprietary gaming world is that we only need a few games to really make headway in the gaming world. We can then maintain them and improve them over time. We only need one good football (soccer) game and we can then update it each year. We only need one civilisation game and we can produce new levels and graphics.

Within a few years we will have 25-50 really top-quality games, each having its core engine maintained by half a dozen hobbyists with the player community producing new levels and graphics. We have about a dozen of these already, and hundreds and hundreds of half-finished mildly amusing small games.

So without further ado, the 10 most influential Linux Games, feel free to provide your alternatives and reasons in the comments.

Most of the pictures are copyright wikimedia commons, click on them to get to the original.

MUD

The first networked game started at the University of Essex and soon spread around the world. When I went to Essex it was still very much played in computer labs at night and at weekends. Indeed MUDs are still heavily played now. While technically a BSD phenomenon, the MUDS and other adventure games of the 80/90s were far more popular as a gaming platform relatively speaking than Linux has managed to achieve.

game screenshot

`Tux Typing`_

One area that Linux does do well is educational games, especially scientific/mathematical ones for some reason. There are a lot of really nice games that a child can play without being subjected to adverts, Disney characters or other corporate propaganda.

`.. image:: http://commandline.org.uk/images/posts/games/tuxtype.jpg

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`Bastet`_

A tetris game where the blocks do not come out randomly but the computer tries to defeat you with the worst blocks. You can never go back to normal Tetris again.

`Tux Racer`_

Not the most complicated game in the world, but when it came out in 2000, it did prove that beautiful graphical Linux games were possible via OpenGL.

`.. image:: http://commandline.org.uk/images/posts/games/tuxracer.png

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`Frozen Bubble`_

Frozen Bubble, alongside Crack Attack, were some of the first puzzle games on Linux to have really good graphics, again not massively impressive for gaming in general, but for open source Linux games it was another small step.

`.. image:: http://commandline.org.uk/images/posts/games/frozen_bubble.png

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`Freeciv`_

It first came out in 1996 and is still going strong, one of the classic Linux clones. Extensible and playable over the network. Globulation is another notable contender.

`.. image:: http://commandline.org.uk/images/posts/games/freeciv.png

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`Gnome Games`_

A dozen or so simple but very polished little games. Important because it allows all the non-technical people to move to Linux, "don't worry, it has solitaire".

game screenshot

`Liquid War`_

You and your friends get together and become liquid blobs and try and kill each other. Exciting yet somehow disturbing.

`.. image:: http://commandline.org.uk/images/posts/games/liquid_war.png

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`Enemy Territory`_

First person shooters based on commercially produced and open source engines such as Quake and Doom has long been one of the strong areas of Linux gaming. Considered fairly, they should have at least half the spots in the list. Sadly, I always die first, I need to get a joystick really. While Enemy Territory was completely produced by a game company, but the fact it was all released as open source meant it has a massive modding community. Die Nazis die!

`.. image:: http://commandline.org.uk/images/posts/games/et.jpg

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**Nexuiz **

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A modern and commuinity produced Quake type shooter, beautiful on new machines and you can turn off the advanced effects for speed on old machines. Run around fast and kill everyone on the net.

`.. image:: http://commandline.org.uk/images/posts/games/nexuiz.jpg

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`Battle for Wesnoth`_

My favourite Linux game. It has good AI, a level editor, loads of third party levels and an online mode. Become an Orc general and kill all the elves, what more can you want?

`.. image:: http://commandline.org.uk/images/posts/games/wesnoth.png

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So that was my selection. What what you add and remove and why?

1 E says...

No Nethack ?

Posted at 2:38 a.m. on April 13, 2007


2 bug says...

I wanted to remove 'Gnome Games', because it is part of Gnome which not everyone like. But I can't, just because it has Mine Sweeper. Enemy Territory and Wesnoth are indeed great games!

Posted at 6:58 a.m. on April 13, 2007


3 Zeth says...

Nethack, good suggestion, Like MUD that was an early Unix breakthrough game.

Off topic, just watched on YouTube, a cat defending its territory against a printer, classic!

Posted at 9 a.m. on April 13, 2007


4 Jason says...

StepMania is a pretty influential game in my opinion. It's cross platform, runs on the big three beautifully. Very consistent, very powerful.

There's not too terribly much you can do to make a music game flashy, but bringing the experience home is big deal, and the SM devs pulled that off well.

Not to even mention the high themeability of the thing, and the sheer mass of StepMania themes available out there. Ranging from crap, crappier, more crappy, to some absolutely beautiful overhauls.

It's influential in that it's a Natively running simulator that runs wonderfully. Top 10? Dunno, I admittedly do not play games (very often) on Linux. I think I've only ever played SMClone, Kolf, StepMania, TuxRacer (I've played it in an arcade even!), and uhhhh... angband, doom_rl. I think I played Doom via ZDoom or something just once quite long ago (I still want to play PSDooM!).

I played LiquidWar after reading this post, interesting game. I wouldn't mind getting into FreeCiv and Wesnoth, my problem is the video card for rich graphics/rendering in Linux is higher. And my little Radeon 7000 still has issues.

Posted at 4:01 p.m. on April 13, 2007


5 Jason says...

Oh man, I'm retarded. I played Nexuiz back in 2005 too, I wonder how much better it's gotten. Not only that, but I played it on a LAN with my roommate and a friend that was over.

The net code was poor for local play at the time, if it's still active I wouldn't mind giving it another try.

Posted at 4:03 p.m. on April 13, 2007


6 Jonathan says...

And what about Tremulous ... a pretty nice game .. If you dont konw about it .. you should at least check !

Posted at 3:45 a.m. on April 25, 2007


7 fenris says...

Free MMORPG - Come Check us out.

http://fenrisonline.googlepages.com/home http://fenrisonline.blogspot.com/

Posted at 3:30 a.m. on July 7, 2007


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