Games

Linux isn't known for being a gaming platform yet there are a lot of games, both free software titles and proprietary commercial titles, available.

There's plenty of fun gems hidden in your distributions repositories and there's also a whole lot of commercial titles available both free and at a cost. There is also an increasing amount of Windows games which can be used in compatibility layers like WINE. Here's the latest games we have looked at sorted by review-time (not name).

• Lichess
  
  
  Lichess is an online, libre chess game. The website supports ranked games, anonymous play, puzzles, localization to Korean, high customizability, and much more.
  
• Teeworlds
  
  
  Teeworlds is a FOSS retro multiplayer puzzle and shooter game with an active community. You control a Tee character, and usually work with others to solve different missions. Teeworlds supports both English and Korean, with 500+ players online most days.
  
• MAME
  
  
  MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a complete computer emulator for so many ancient computer systems it is hard to count. Most of those systems were used in something called "arcade machines". The "arcade machines" were special computers designed to play just one video game. MAME lets you play those kinds of games on a variety of modern hardware like computers and smartphones.
  
• Wumpus
  
  
  Wumpus is a text-only turn-based strategy game written by Eric S. Raymond in C in 2015. It is an exact clone of a much, much older game named Hunt the Wumpus. The original was written in the BASIC programming language. It is not particularly fun or exciting to play.
  
• Lazy Chess
  
  
  Lazy Chess is a simplistic multi-platform chess game for novices who want to learn the game and people with some skill who want to learn some new moves. It uses the stockfish engine to propose the two deemed best chess moves each turn. You get to choose one of those two moves each round, and that is all you can do. It is not a regular computer chess game, but it is a nice chess game for those who want to learn chess or learn a trick or two from a computer chess engine.
  
• Sonic Robo Blast 2
  
  
  Sonic Robo Blast 2 3D platform game with all the concepts of a classic 2D platform game in a 3D world. The main character you play is a hedgehog called Sonic. The objective is to run around and collect rings and avoid monsters. The game-play is not very exciting and the graphics is mediocre by today's standards.
  
• Blue Nebula
  
  
  Blue Nebula is a free very fast-paced online teamed first person shooter with decent graphics. There are many game-modes like death-match and capture the flat to choose between. It has very few hardware requirements making it a really cool and nice game to play either at high resolutions at high frame-rates on modern hardware or standard 1080p resolution on old and/or modest hardware.
  
• Unvanquished
  
  
  Unvanquished is a multiplayer first person shooter strategy game where you can choose to be on a human team or a alien team and fight the opposing side. There are bases and structures to protect and maintain, weapons to acquire, resources to earn and enemies, either aliens or humans depending on what team you pick, that need to be eradicated.
  
• The Secret Chronicles of Dr. M.
  
  
  The Secret Chronicles of Dr. M. (TSC) is a free software 2D jump and run side-scroller game with great graphics. It is written using SFML and OpenGL. The code-base is based on the Secret Maryo Chronicles Super Mario clone. The graphics, music and the plot is mostly not, TSC is an original game with its own charm.
  
• Secret Maryo Chronicles
  
  
  Secret Maryo Chronicles (smc) is a free software 2D jump and run platform game very similar to the classic Super Nintendo "Super Mario" game. The gameplay is essentially the same. The graphics is much, much better. Secret Maryo Chronicles is made using SDL and it uses OpenGL to draw high-quality graphics. It is essentially like playing the old Super Mario game with prettier and more modern graphics.
  
• Monster Girl Island
  
  
  Monster Girl Island is a 3D adventure game with some adult-only elements set on a secret island filled with unusual female inhabitants. There's elves, androids and other non-humans on the island and more and more of them show up out of no-where as the games "story" proceeds. It is created by indie-developer Redamz who funds the game through Patreon. The game is only available for Windows. It runs fine under Wine using either Wine's built-in DX translation or the VXDK Vulkan translation layer. It has good graphics but the characters are shallow and not that interesting and the actual gameplay is far from exciting.
  
• Doki Doki Literature Club
  
  
  Doki Doki Literature Club is a visual novel self-described as "not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed". It has cute characters with distinct personalities and a fun story with many interesting and unexpected plot twists. It is, like most visual novels, a "game" where you mostly click next to move forward in the story. The game itself is free (add-ons cost money).
  
• Eagle Island
  
  
  Eagle Island is a typical 2D platform game set on an island with obstacles such as evil birds, man-eating plants and mushrooms. You play a red-haired hero who abuses his bird to kill all the things on the island that's out to get him. The game is non-free in terms of both freedom and price. There is a free to play demo as well as a paid full edition available on Steam with versions for Linux and Windows and something called "mac OS".
  
• Liar Liar
  
  
  Liar Liar is a visual novel game starring a young heroine named Yukari who's decided to kill her boyfriend. Her quest to do so has some obstacles who need to be murdered. The game is free to download and play but it is not free software. There are Linux, Windows and MacOS versions.
  
• Extreme Tux Racer
  
  
  Extreme Tux Racer is the best fork of the Tux Racer snow-hill racing came originally released in 2000. It features the Linux mascot Tux who's up on a mountain-top looking to race down. It was forked off in 2007 and last updated in 2018.
  
• Tuxpuck
  Tuxpuck is a really simple air hockey game featuring the Linux mascot Tux. It's not very fun and it opens a tiny fixed resolution window which can't be resized. The gameplay isn't all that exciting either. The last available version is from sometime around 2007.
  
• Doom
  
  
  Doom is a first person shooter game for MS-DOS released by id Software in 1993. There is also some modern version released in 2016. The original Doom game was revolutionary and ground-breaking at the time of it's release. It made a huge impact on games and set the standard for FPS games for years to come. id Software released the original source-code in 1997 and many different free software projects have made versions that are able to use the original game's WAD game map files. Modern Linux distributions have several packages that allow you to play the original game in their repositories.
  
• SuperTux
  
  
  SuperTux is a typical 2D platform game which is very similar to the popular Super Mario Brother series from Nintendo. You play Tux, the Linux mascot, instead of Mario and you're trying to rescue Penny, not a princess. Oh, and you're in Antarctica. That's about it when it comes to major differences between SuperTux and Super Mario.
  
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
  
  
  CS:GO is fun free-to-play first person shooter game made by Valve. The original game is old yet it looks very good since it has gotten many updates throughout the years.
  
• TORCS
  
  
  TORCS is an old racing car game with acceptable graphics for a game originally developed in 1997. The controls and gameplay isn't ideal and it's not very fun at all. The name TORCS stands for "The Open Racing Car Simulator" and it's website describes it as an "AI racing game and as research platform". Perhaps the developers simply didn't focus on making it a fun game for human entertainment.
  

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