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What games are available that run natively on Ubuntu?
Please limit one game per answer - and include why you enjoy the game.
A turn-based multiplayer strategy game.
I play this game almost everyday with my friend. This game is superbe with a beautiful music and a never boring gameplay you can play a map for 5 min or for hours, you can download a infinite number of addons and there is always players online. You can play it on Windows, Mac OS X or Linux so you don't need to have all your friends on Linux.
Here a screenshot :
Try it, you will not regret it.
An excellent puzzle game that runs natively on linux, DRM and region free.
It's $20, but there is a free demo available to see if you like it. If you do like it, note that it's developed by a small independent studio who trusts you enough to keep it DRM-free, so please buy it and your $ will be going to the right place!
€20Genre: Sandbox
If you follow gaming news site, you've likely heard about this one lately. It runs on java, and thus on Ubuntu.
Minecraft is a game about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine. At night monsters come out, make sure to build a shelter before that happens.
It's a funny little game where open-source mascots declare genocide and try to kill each other, bugs bunny style.
Try it, it's a lot of fun and runs well on old PCs. I get 15 FPS on my Pentium 3, which is perfectly fine, seeing as the game is turned-based. It's also in the software centre, but there's an offical PPA you should add, considering netplay only works with the latest version.
Beware: the name will soon be changed to Warmux.
and FreeCol Those two games are inspired from Civilization and Colonization. I really enjoyed those 2 games in the past, I don't play much nowadays.
They are both strategy games, turn-by-turn.
FreeCiv
FreeCol
Both are available in the Ubuntu repositories, so you can install them via Ubuntu Software Centre. However, on Ubuntu 10.04 the package are a bit old. You could try to use PlayDeb to get newer version.
You can give a try at FreeCiv online without installing it.
$10Hemisphere Games
Genre: Puzzle
It has a very nice and relaxing atmosphere, but it's still very challenging in the later stages.
The goals and gameplay are hard to describe so it is best watch the video on their website.
Your objective is to grow by absorbing other motes. Propel yourself by ejecting matter behind you. But be wise: ejecting matter also shrinks you. Relax… good things come to those who wait.
Wildfire Games
Genre: Real-Time Strategy (RTS)
0 A.D. (pronounced "zero ey-dee") is a free, open-source, cross-platform real-time strategy (RTS) game of ancient warfare. In short, it is a historically-based war/economy game that allows players to relive or rewrite the history of Western civilizations, focusing on the years between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D.
The project is highly ambitious, involving state-of-the-art 3D graphics, detailed artwork, sound, and a flexible and powerful custom-built game engine.
$20Frictional Games
Genre: Adventure
From the website :
The last remaining memories fade away into darkness. Your mind is a mess and only a feeling of being hunted remains. You must escape.Awake... Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a first person survival horror. A game about immersion, discovery and living through a nightmare. An experience that will chill you to the core.
You stumble through the narrow corridors as the distant cry is heard. It is getting closer.
Explore... Amnesia: The Dark Descent puts you in the shoes of Daniel as he wakes up in a desolate castle, barely remembering anything about his past. Exploring the eerie pathways, you must also take part of Daniel's troubled memories. The horror does not only come from the outside, but from the inside as well. A disturbing odyssey into the dark corners of the human mind awaits.
A sound of dragging feet? Or is your mind playing tricks on you?
Experience... By using a fully physically simulated world, cutting edge 3D graphics and a dynamic sound system, the game pulls no punches when trying to immerse you. Once the game starts, you will be in control from the beginning to the end. There are no cut-scenes or time-jumps, whatever happens will happen to you first hand.
Something emerges out of the darkness. It's approaching. Fast.
Survive... Amnesia: The Dark Descent throws you headfirst into a dangerous world where danger can lurk behind every corner. Your only means of defense are hiding, running or using your wits.
Do you have what it takes to survive?
Nice fast paced online deathmatch.
From the Nexuiz website :
Nexuiz is a 3d deathmatch game that has been in development since the summer of 2002. The goal of the project is to create a high quality first person shooter that can be played freely across all platforms in one package: PC, Mac, and can be even included in Linux distributions. The game is entirely open source, with the sources of the engine, gamecode, map files, and compiling tools, all included with the download, all under the GPL license.The gameplay is deathmatch with the most excessive possible speeds and weapons, giving incredibly intense fast paced action. Along with deathmatch, there are multiple gamemodes such as team deathmatch, capture the flag, domination, and many mutators and weapon options like rocket arena and instagib. The user can fight through the single player campaign, going through over 20 levels, or play online with our server browser.
A turn based strategy, artillery, action and comedy game, featuring the antics of pink hedgehogs with attitude as they battle from the depths of hell to the depths of space.
As commander, it's your job to assemble your crack team of hedgehog soldiers and bring the war to your enemy.
Game Features
- Hilarious and devistating turn based combat for up to 6 players
- Both local and network multiplayer, with optional AI opponents
- Battle on an infinite number of randomly generated maps, with over 20 environments
- Utilise 47 (and counting) devistating weapons! Including the piano strike and explosive robotic cake
- Play the game your way, with 18 different game modifiers, tweak almost every aspect of the match
- Customize your team, with over 120 costumes, 30 graves, 12 forts, 100s of flags and unique voice packs
- Huge battles with up to 48 hogs
- Play both singleplayer and multiplayer minigames
- Plugin your own custom maps, costumes, and other artwork
Hedgewars has a similar game style to Worms and Wormux.
Machinarium is a point-and-click adventure game by the Czech independent studio Amanita Design, edited in 2009. It is the story of a cute little robot which living in a poetic futuristic city. The entire environment is really beautiful and charming.
It runs natively on Ubuntu, although it needs Adobe Flash to run. There is a freely downloadable demo, and the full version of the game is only worth $20, including all its mp3 soundtrack.
Genre: Arcade
Chromium is a classic top down scrolling shooter game where you pilot a spaceship attempting to deliver packages and supplies to troops on the front line.
The game features many levels - increasing in difficulty and a variety of unique enemies and bosses. There are also various upgrades available in game between weapon systems and health
Genre: Roguelike
NetHack is a single player dungeon exploration game. Unlike many other Dungeons & Dragons-inspired games, the emphasis in NetHack is on discovering the detail of the dungeon and not simply killing everything in sight - in fact, killing everything in sight is a good way to die quickly. Each game presents a different landscape - the random number generator provides an essentially unlimited number of variations of the dungeon and its denizens to be discovered by the player in one of a number of characters: you can pick your race, your role, and your gender.
The above link installs Nethack Qt version but there is also an X11 version
.
Genre: FPS
Urban Terror is a game based on the quake3 engine. It uses io-quake3 engine which is free and runs on all major platforms including 32 bit and 64 bit Ubuntu. To quote the Urban Terror website:
Urban Terror is a multiplayer FPS game. It is set in rather realistic environments, and is hence named "Urban Terror", where "Quake meets Reality". Its supposed to have the same game rules as Quake3, with similar game types like assault, deathmatch, team deathmatch, Capture The Flag, capture and hold, bomb mode, Free for All, Follow the Leader, etc. But it looks rather like Counter Strike, and has almost exactly similar weapons. Weapons are chosen at the start of the round, and you can have acceosaries like Kelvar vest, kelvar helemet, lazer scope, scilencer, etc.
Is a Tron styled "Light-Cycle" game that has many gamemode, it has a lot of servers on-line and on each servers can have a completly diffrent customized environment, and gameplay.
I usually play on the server ===<<<[ 2Fast2Dangerous ]>>>===. I like this game because, I is simple, but can take a while to become good and learn all the tricks.
From the website :
Cube 2: Sauerbraten is a free multiplayer/singleplayer first person shooter, built as a major redesign of the Cube FPS. Much like the original Cube, the aim of this game is not necessarily to produce the most features & eyecandy possible, but rather to allow map/geometry editing to be done dynamically in-game, to create fun gameplay and an elegant engine.
$9.99Genre: Puzzle-Platformer
And Yet It Moves is an award-winning physics-based platform game in which players rotate the game world at will to solve challenging puzzles. Tilting the world turns walls into floors, slides into platforms, and stacks of rocks into dangerous hazards. Players navigate through a paper collage world created with colorful pieces of cardboard and set to distinctive music. With four different environments and unlockable modes, And Yet It Moves is a platformer that will provide gamers with endless challenges.
A really surprising game.
Genre: RTS
Inspired by DOTA (custom mod for warcraft3), where you pick one of the 70ish available heroes and team with 4 other people to compete against another team of 5. Gameplay is incredibly rich, it is a game that you can play for years without ever tiring of it because playing with and against other players makes the experience much more deep.
However I must warn you that the learning curve is pretty steep, you will be called a noob, you will get yelled at, it will take you a couple of weeks to get used to all the heroes, their abilities and the various items available. However, the guys at S2 have added a new game mode, which is supposed to be much easier, with a smoother learning curve - casual mode. The game becomes overall more forgiving of mistakes, for example there is no more gold penalty on death.
Definitely one of my favorite games on PC
Genre: FPS
Take Quake 3 remove what is bad, improve what is good mix it with great graphics and you get Warsow. In Warsow it's a little easier to do strafe jumping and you can wall-jump and get speed easily so that make that you'll hardly find slow noobs but it is still hard to become good at this game and it'll need a lot of training.
In this game there is a lot of gamemode and one of this is race, that the same as the DeFRaG mod for Quake 3, if you don't know DeFRaG you probably don't know why so many people love Quake 3 and that's a shame, so I play this gamemode most of the time even if there is not a lot of server on this gamemode. When I get my friend to play Warsow I usually play on instagib deathmatch.
$28Old-style tower defense strategy game. It was part of Humble Indie Bundle 2.
From the website :
Tremulous is a free, open source game that blends a team based FPS with elements of an RTS. Players can choose from 2 unique races, aliens and humans. Players on both teams are able to build working structures in-game like an RTS. These structures provide many functions, the most important being spawning. The designated builders must ensure there are spawn structures or other players will not be able to rejoin the game after death. Other structures provide automated base defense (to some degree), healing functions and much more...Player advancement is different depending on which team you are on. As a human, players are rewarded with credits for each alien kill. These credits may be used to purchase new weapons and upgrades from the "Armoury". The alien team advances quite differently. Upon killing a human foe, the alien is able to evolve into a new class. The more kills gained the more powerful the classes available.
The overall objective behind Tremulous is to eliminate the opposing team. This is achieved by not only killing the opposing players but also removing their ability to respawn by destroying their spawn structures.
Genre: RTS
A free 3D real-time strategy game, where you control the armies of two different factions: Tech, which is mainly composed of warriors and mechanical devices, and Magic, that prefers mages and summoned creatures in the battlefield.
Glest is not just a game, but also an engine to make strategy games, based on XML and a set of tools. A few mods already exist.
Genre: FPS
Another game based on the CUBE engine, very fun FPS. There's no campaign or something, but the online multiplaying is great, very fast-paced.
$15Introversion
Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Defcon has a native linux client available.
Like a graphically beautiful, real-time version of Risk. It gets generally excellent reviews.
Genre: MMORPG
A free-to-play MMORPG with native Linux and Windows clients. Only the Linux client has a 32 bit and a 64 bit version. It is developed by the Argentinian NGD Studios, which also manages the international servers. There are dedicated German servers hosted by Gamigo, although people there have been complaining about Gamigo's service and policy. There are three realms you can choose from—Syrtis(mostly elves), Ignis(mostly dark elves) and Alsius(mostly dwarves and Utghars)—and there is an invasion system.
Genre: Survival Horror
Native, but commercial at ~20€.
It's creepy, has an great atmosphere, just a little short.
Doom 3 runs natively on linux... and lots of idSoftware games too :)
Genre: Racing
The Open Racing Car Simulator. TORCS is a highly portable multi platform car racing simulation. It is used as ordinary car racing game, as AI racing game and as research platform. It runs on Linux (x86, AMD64 and PPC), FreeBSD, MacOSX and Windows. The source code of TORCS is licensed under the GPL ("Open Source").
Open Arena
OpenArena is a free network enabled multiplayer first person shooter based on the ioquake3 fork of the id tech 3 engine. It features many game types including the traditional deathmatch and sports a varied cast of sadistic characters. Due to violent and occasional racy content it is probably unsuitable for children under the age of 17.
You can install openarena from the software center.
Unreal Tournament 2003
Pretty much everyone is familiar with Unreal Tournament. This version had native Linux support.
There are around 100 commercial Linux games listed on LinApp, and many have demos.
Commercial game, costs $10
From the official Wiki:
Altitude is the best multiplayer 2-D aerial combat game on the internet.
Note: Don't purchase on Steam if you're going to play under Linux. Steam version works only when launched from the Steam client.
You're a space colonist, and the planet you're colonizing happens to have an overabundance of steam, thanks to geothermic vents on the surface. It's your job to build up a network of these vents to keep your city growing.
Of course, there are plenty of hazards in your way that make this difficult; earthquakes, storms, and the alien natives don't want you to get your colony going.
I find it to be a highly addictive game, although frustrating at times. I'm pretty sure they added the "Expert" difficulty as a joke. Reminds me of computer networking, in all the worst ways!
Vdrift is a great racing simulator, it works best if you have a joystick or a steering wheel. It's partially open-source and a native Linux game. It isn't in the repos due to licensing issues but you can get it from playdeb.
Vdrift has lots of tracks and a lot of cars. There are 2 racing modes: the first is trying to gain as much points as possible by drifting, the second is the traditional game.
Dofus is a Flash based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Ankama Games, a French computer game manufacturer.
Originally released solely in French, it has since been translated into many other languages. It is primarily a Pay to Play game, though it still offers a limited amount of free content. Its success has led to the marketing of spin-off products, such as books, art and comics. It has also led to the development of two continuations: Dofus Arena, released at the beginning of 2006, which is an alternative "tournament" version of Dofus; and Wakfu, a continuation of Dofus, which is currently in the process of beta testing. The game has attracted over ten million players worldwide and is especially well-known in France where it is sold in stores as an explicitly Linux-compatible game.
Steel Storm is an old school top down arcade shooter with score oriented competitive gameplay, and is designed for people who like fast paced action and have limited amounts of time to play computer games.
The events take place in an alternative universe where you control an advanced hovertank, packed with the most advanced and sophisticated weapons. Your task is simple, but, nevertheless, is not trivial. In the fight with presumed extraterrestrial invaders, you must prevail!
OpenTracks is an open-source railway simulation game that I just recently started. It has progressed quite rapidly, as you can see by the screenshot below:
The project is still under heavy development but you can try it out (in Maverick) via my PPA:
ppa:george-edison55/george-edison
Prey is a first-person shooter. The story revolves around a young, rogue Cherokee who wishes to uproot and leave the old ways behind. Unfortunately, an alien invasion puts a halt on those plans as he tries to save his friends and family from the insurgents. To achieve his goal, he has to learn the true way of the Cherokee and the magic within.
If you want to run it natively go here: Prey For Linux
This game is more of a tech demo, with loose physics and and anti-gravity gameplay but that doesn't stop it being a cardio workout. It's really gross too. I bought this from a charity shop for £1.99 and got it working on linux within minutes. Well worth it. One of the better looking games that can run on linux natively, that I know of.
Genre: FPS
A game by id Software designed to run on x86-based computers via a web browser plugin. It is a variant of its predecessor, Quake III Arena (Q3A).
Quake Live is free to download and play. Additionally, there are subscription options that include more arenas, game types and game server options.
Globulation (package named glob2) is a real-time-strategy. I had fun playing it, but not everyone might like it.
StarControl 2 was made open source awhile back and has the new title, "Ur Quan Masters". It's the complete game. Great melee battles against either the AI or a friend and has a fun and challenging story mode. It's available in the Software Center.
Speed Dreams is a fork of the open racing car simulator Torcs, aiming to implement exciting new features, cars, tracks and AI opponents to make a more enjoyable game for the player, as well as constantly improving visual and physics realism.
Unreal Tournament 2004
Following on from 2003. This version also had native Linux support.
Cave Story is one of my favourite games.
Very similar in gameplay to Super Metroid or Metal Slug with a hit of RPG. What's staggering about this game is that it was written - including all of the music and art - by one guy.
Genre: Tennis Sim
The most notable features of Free Tennis are:
- Real tactics are useful in the game. For example, it is best to take the net with a slow, low shot (backspin); it is best to play diagonal when you are decentered horizontally, in order not to give angles; you should get back to center and behind the baseline after the shot, in order not to be caught in No-Man's-Land when the opponent hits;
- The A.I. is very advanced and reflects those tactics;
- You have total control over the parabola described by the shot;
- The graphic gestures are realistic and elegant;
- Different players have different skills;
- The game is developed by a former tennis player;
Check http://www.penguspy.com/ and http://ubuntugamer.com/ they have most games listed
BZFlag rocks! Open Source 3D first person Multiplayer tank game for any system.
Check out ubuntugamer you can find lot of games that run in Ubuntu. This site is dedicated for gaming in Ubuntu.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, a roguelike like no other. You can play offline, using graphic tiles or your terminal and also online over ssh. I've played it on and off for a few years now, still addicted :)
According to this article, many popular games from 90's can be played natively using free open source game launcher GemRB by only using game data that comes with original CDs. Games include Baldur's gate, Icewind Dale etc. In the end of article there is also a video showing games running natively on Ubuntu. Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4DgDTRf_Sk
i also find PlayDeb
The creators of getdeb.net present to you our latest service that caters to the Ubuntu gamer.
Not sure what game you want? Just looking for something to kill some time? All games are well categorized and we offer a comprehensive search.
How to Install follow this instruction
