Top 10 best open source games

While open source development isn’t as prevalent in the gaming industry as it is elsewhere, there’s still a number of freely available open source games that cater to all types of gaming.  To help guide you in the right direction, here’s a list of the top 10 open source games in terms of popularity and development.

Before we dive right in, it’s important to understand why open source hasn’t evolved in the gaming community as it has elsewhere in software.  The very nature of games being very short-lived with consumers doesn’t lend itself to the benefits of going open source.  Open source development is intended for software projects that will be around for a long time, and can benefit an entire community of users by constant development and improvement.  Since games, once they’re beaten and are old news, die off in terms of both users and popularity, there’s usually no need for continued development.  The open source model, overall, just doesn’t make sense for most games. 

On the other hand, hugely popular games such as Doom and Quake were released as open source software well after the games had already become immensely popular.  Since games like these have proven they can produce a long-tail effect with consumers, the open source model makes sense again.  Once a large enough community is created around a certain game overtime, the benefits from going open source become more obvious.  Unless it’s a known fact that a new game will be an instant classic, open source doesn’t make any sense.  With that said, there are still numerous open source gaming titles available.  Some are obviously better than others, so let’s get started on the top 10 (in no particular order).  As a quick note, when searching for open source games, remember that sometimes only the game engine is open source, while the game content itself is not.

1.)  Tremulous – This is hugely popular open source title, being downloaded millions of times since its inception in 2006.  Tremulous is a team-based first-person shooter with real-time strategy elements as well.  The game is very similar to Quake II and III, and was actually born out of the commercial modification of Quake III Arena.  The game-play is inspired the Quake II modification known as “Gloom.”  If you’re a fan of Quake, you’ll like Tremulous.  There’s already a huge development community and support structure in place, and it’s available on all major platforms – FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

2.)  Netrek – This is another long-time favorite in the open source gaming genre.  It’s an Internet-based game that can be played by up to 16 players.  The game can actually be classed as a hybrid multi-directional shooter and real time strategy game.  It combines “twitch” style action-game “dogfighting” with extensive team play and strategy.  The game is loosely based on Star Trek Universe, in which each player controls a starship, and has been under development continually since 1986 when it was created a successor to Xtrek.  Netrek is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Unix (many variants), Linux and NetBSD.

3.)  LinCity – This, as you can tell by its name, is an open source version of the popular SimCity game that has been around forever.  The newest version, known as LinCity-NG, is a classic city simulation game that’s similar in every way to SimCity- making it a very viable alternative all together.  Game-play and the overall interface is almost identical, but in LinCity, the two ways to win the game are to create a fully sustainable city, or evacuate everyone in the city by spacecraft.  It’s available for all major platforms, and has a huge community surrounding it. 

4.)  FreeCol – Following the theme of simulation-oriented games, FreeCol is also a very popular game released as open source.  Like SimCity and LinCity, FreeCol is based on Colonization, a popular traditional game that also has a large following.  FreeCol is almost an exact clone of Colonization, except that it’s freely available and continually improved via a community of active developers and users.  FreeCol is similar to SimCity in that you start with nothing, and create a civilization overtime using a variety of tools and situations.  Instead of building a city, you create colonies in the “New World,” while dealing with rival Europeans. 

5.)  The Battle For Wesnoth – This is a popular RPG-based game that was created with the intent of providing a freely-available, open source strategy game that had very simple rules, a strong artificial intelligence, and was actually challenging and fun for people who truly enjoy RPG.  Wesnoth, as it’s commonly refered to, is based on the Sega Genesis games “Master of Monsters” and “Warsong,” although it also strongly resembles “Fantasy General.”  If you’re a fan of RPG, Wesnoth is definitely worth a chance. 

6.)  FlightGear – While not a traditional game, FlightGear deserves a mention due to the fact that it’s one of the most popular and most detailed flight simulators available, and it’s completely free of charge.  First developed in 1997, FlightGear has seen 10 years of uninterrupted development and improvement which has resulted in a very high quality flight simulator.  Anyone who enjoys flying will appreciate the attention to detail and the bevy of options available.  The last major release of FlightGear was in December of 2007, and it’s available on everything from Windows, Mac and Linux to IRIX and Solaris even. 

7.)  Crimson Fields – Battle Isle fans will appreciate Crimson Fields, as it was the inspiration behind the development.  It’s a unique turn-based tactical war game that’s available on almost every OS imaginable, even mobile-based OSs such as Palm, WindowsCE and PocketPC.  Game-play is closely based on Battle Isle in that it uses hexagonal tiles as a basis for the maps with different terrain, etc. 

8.)  AssaultCube – This is a first-person shooter based on the popular Cube engine.  Although its main focus is online game-play, a single player mode exists which consists of computer-controlled bots.  AssaultCube is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, and while the Cube engine is free software, parts of the accompanying game media, such as the graphics, are released under other non-free licenses.  Other than this obvious downside, AssaultCube is an impressive game, and worth a look. 

9.)  Armagetron Advance – For fans of racing games, this one provides unique game-play in that it’s meant to emulate and expand on the “light cycle” sequence from the movie Tron.  Two or more players are represented by dual-wheeled motor vehicles, or light cycles, in a grid-lined arena.  The vehicles constantly move forward, leaving a colored trail behind them as they travel.  Contact with either the arena walls or a trail left by a player will result in death and elimination from the battle.  It’s a very simple and sometimes un-impressive game, but addictive by nature nevertheless. 

10.)  Nexuiz – This is another first-person shooter that uses “DarkPlaces,” a heavily modified Quake engine.  The game includes nine weapons, 24 official maps, 240 community-contributed maps and 15 player models.  Nexuiz is rather advanced for open source, and it shows in terms of smoothness and overall graphics during play.  It’s definitely one of the better open source first-person shooters available. 

While this is only 10 titles out of many, I’m sure your opinion of each will vary depending on what games you prefer playing.  When it comes to RPG and first-person shooters, there are several good alternatives to the expensive titles.  Even simulation-based and war-based games have very decent alternatives nowadays as well.  Hopefully, you’ve rediscovered some old favorites with this list, or learned of some new titles to try- this time free of charge.

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