10 Best Open Source RPGs (Role-Playing Games)

 
Top ten RPGs - I made a video of this. People who love text so much they would marry it, will be delighted to see this concise side-product of that video. A list of sorts. With thoughts that came to me after the fact. Especially nagging thoughts.

Spaced Out - Vega Strike and Pioneer betas plus Multiplayer Simutrans and MotoGT

The recent blogging activity, spurred on by the growth in official Free Gamer blog authors, is a pleasure to see. When I started the blog back in 2006, I didn't think it'd ever be so popular, let alone last this long.

* Casual reference to remind readers that I am the original author and, should I ever be displeased, I will smite thee with banana flesh limbs.

^ Reference to IVAN; LIVAN or IVANX are better - see community site for variants.

Vega Strike Shaders

There's a new beta release for Vega Strike. Version 0.5.1 beta 1 (forum announcement) is a bigger point release than the 0.5.0->0.5.1 step implies. Improved planet shaders, lots of bug fixing, lots of general tidy up, video support (mainly for mods) and a lot more ships.

Coincidentally, one of the original Vega Strike authors is working on a project called OurBricks for online collaboration of 3D resources. Lots of the Vega Strike ships are already uploaded.

The ever impressive Pioneer Space Sim project, an Elite-inspired game, continues its activity with the release of Pioneer beta 9. Changelog includes rewritten combat AI, lots of HUD work, some even nicer planet terrain, trade ships, and more.

Also there's big news for Simutrans fans. There was a lull in releases after Simutrans 102.2.2 as the team worked on introducing multiplayer. After nearly a year, version 110.0.1 (and 110.0.0 before it) has arrived with the usual plethora of fixes and well as full multiplayer support.

Our final exciting release is for the fourth beta for MotoGT. Changes include new tracks, effects, joystick support, full championship mode, and more. A video:

Fellow adventurer, turn back while you can!

Crikey, it's been a while. What can I say, life gets busy, and games sometimes just can't be a priority. I know, it's crazy talk. I meditated long and hard, facing many demons, moments of utter despair, but I couldn't get past the conclusion that sometimes Free Gamer won't be on my list of things to do. Fortunately Q has been on top of things so it's not silent when I'm off the radar.

Today is a temporary reprieve, brought on somewhat by enjoying the current development pace of the Scourge project. Timong, of JCRPG fame, has been taking a break from Java coding to indulge in his new found passion for music composition. You can listen to the new main theme music he has composed for Scourge, one of many he has contributed lately. I think it sounds pretty damn good. Meanwhile you can now roam around a massive persistent outdoor world in Scourge, with generated villages and NPCs as well as varying climate and weather conditions. It all sounds quite impressive.

IVAN

On another dungeoneering frontier, Iter Vehemens ad Necem (aka IVAN) is probably the most challenging and addictive nethack variant I ever played. (Although I only ever played a couple.) It has surprisingly good 2d graphics, which aren't done justice by the screenshot, but alas development stalled after 2005. The IVAN community seems to be filling the void left by the developers who[se motivation] seem[s] to have met some kind of gruesome demise - perhaps their brains turned into banana flesh by a vindictive god.

There is the IVANX project which seems to pull together a lot of the popular community contributions, and should be more likely to compile on Linux. There's also LIVAN which stands for Linux IVAN, thus should compile on Linux. Neither compiled for my Fedora laptop, somewhat thankfully as it means I can't play it and thusly be more productive! \o/

IVAN 3D

Of extra interest is IVAN 3D which turns it into a bit of a funky pixelated adventure. There's obviously quite a few challenges to overcome when transposing a totally 2D described game into a 3D world without it looking a bit other-worldly. Still, I don't think pixels are a bad thing. After all, it's a game, not a life simulation!

OWS

Hey look, Open World Soccer is moving steadily towards being a modern Sensible Soccer clone. Impressive looking! However the AI doesn't do too much yet, just keeping the two teams level with the ball.

Raidem is one of those vertical scrolling shooters, a nice classic pixel explosion fest. It is surprisingly well done, but it's also bloody hard - I never survived more than 20-30s. From the intro screen, it looks like the author needs an additional graphic designer but other than that it's a very nice looking game. No development since 2006 though so I guess it's to be taken as-is.

Another game that is surprisingly well done is Abe's Amazing Adventure. It looks weird, really weird. However the animations are very smooth and the game plays pretty well, far better than it looks. Still, I couldn't quite get over the game's oddness.

Gaming Goodness... Sorta

I'll start with a couple of interesting freeware titles...

A while ago I came across (but forgot to mention) Hidden and Dangerous which has been released as abandonware by it's commercial developers Illusion Softworks. Linux users will need Wine but other than that it's another free gift to the gaming community.

Clonk

Another game to highlight is Clonk This freeware puzzle game seems full of potential. However I found the controls unintuitive and the tutorial rather unhelpful - I couldn't get past the second tutorial level! Still it was interesting and had a nice old school Amiga-ish feel to it. Again it's Windows only but should work with Wine.

I did a little article on IVAN the other day. It appears that IVAN development has stagnated but, no fear, the power of open source is here! The community created their own forum found at attnam.jconserv.net. There is an unofficial 0.60 version of IVAN as well as a fork called VLAD. Thanks to blogger user noIse for the tip on that one.

I had something else to rant about but I'll leave it until tomorrow just in case I have nothing else to talk about then. (It'll be a nice long rant!)

Music tip:

Moby - New York New York (Tocadisco NYPD Vocal)

Also it appears that the rss/atom feeds are only publishing old posts from Free Gamer. It should get fixed at some point before 2011. Thanks to Stefano Maffulli for pointing that out!

Ivan Another Go

Ivan another go... Ivan... I want... get it? Sigh.

Anyway, Iter Vehemens ad Necem (Ivan) is a simple graphical roguelike. It's fiendishly hard, which is encapsulated by the translation of the name, "a Violent Road to Death."

The graphics look, at first glance, very basic. With first impressions counting for an awful lot in this shallow society of ours, many people will probably turn away before even trying out the game. However, the simplicity of the graphics allows for some really nice touches that screenshots just don't portray. Characters bleed, metals shine, dogs drool, and it makes it surprisingly immersive.

This fella is in trouble



How did he get this far?

One of the major differences between Ivan and traditional roguelikes is the body system it employs. You can lose limbs, Gods can remake them out of various materials - to be told you have been given a new arm made of banana flesh is amusing to say the least.

Make no mistake about it though, this game is hard. You will meet many violent deaths. However the challenge is part of what makes this game so addictive. You are always intrigued by what you will find that little bit further into the game - although I doubt I will ever finish it so finishing it isn't even a motivation to play!

One of the things I have yet to master is genies... how do you make meaningful wishes? I always end up being given something crap! When I ask for arcanite armor why do I get hardened leather? But all those little frustrations make you come back for more.

I have lost a lot of time recently to a game I would not normally have played. I, like many of you, glanced at the screenshots and thought, "looks rubbish." True geeks don't need graphics, but I'm not a true geek and I really do not enjoy nor will never play ascii art games again. But this is not ascii art, and in this rough looking piece of coal you will find an absolute diamond. Play, and enjoy.