MrFlibble

Looks like this is heavily inspired by Dune of all things. And, uh... StarCraft? Looks sort of nice.

Just as the title suggests, this is an attempt to list free games that very closely follow a well-known product or franchise and can thus serve as an alternative to that particular game. What I have not included on the list are multiplayer-only games, browser-based games, and all kinds of free-to-play and "freemium" online products. I have also tried not to include projects that make use of original assets like graphics and sounds (unless authorized by original copyright holders, as is the case of T2002), so projects like Gods Deluxe are not on the list. Any further suggestions as to what games qualify as free alternatives are more than welcome Update from 2023/12/14: Another complete overhaul of the lists, with simplified groupings and presentation. Clones and similar games A-Train - FreeTrain Abuse - fRaBs Advance Wars - Tanks of Freedom Age of Empires - 0 A.D., The Fertile Crescent Alien Breed - Alien Assault II Alien Shooter - Theseus: Return of the Hero Anno 1602 - Unknown Horizons Another World, Flashback - onEscapee (MajorGeeks.com) Arcade Volleyball - Hairy Harry Arkanoid - PopCorn Asteroids - Roxx Astrosmash - Cosmosmash Atic Atac - The Burps (TheBurps.zip) Atomix - WAtomic, Atomic, Moleculix, Atomix (NiMuSi Software) Bard's Tale Construction Set, The - Bt Builder Bard's Tale, The - The Bard's Lore, The Bard's Quest, Tower of Fortune Battle Isle II - Advanced Strategic Command, Crimson Fields Bejeweled - Freegemas Bomberman - Mr.Boom, Fracas, Bombs and Bugs, I Can't Believe It's Not Bomberman (Wayback Machine) Bombuzal - Bombzuka Boulder Dash - GDash, Rocks'n'Diamonds, RockRush Bouncing Babies - Gargoyle Revenge Breakout - Mega Breakout Bubble Bobble - Acter World Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble - Bobble Puzzle, Frozen Bubble, Zorx Carrier Command - Thunder&Lightning Castlevania - Silver Night's Crusaders Catacomb Abyss, The - The Vigilance of Nephthys Centipede - Megapede'95, Crawly-Pede, The Rustic Classics Chaos - Anarchy, Chaos Reborn Chip's Challenge - Tile World Choplifter - Airlift Rescue (rescue.zip) Chuckie Egg - Chickie Egg Clonk - OpenClonk Columns - Bref, Columns (Brian Boese) Command & Conquer - Dark Konflict, Future Conflict (fc_101pm.zip), Arrakis, Eudora, Dark Konflict (caiman.us), OpenHV, Annex: Conquer the World Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun - Fractured Realms Commander Keen (second trilogy) - Planet Cloudius IX Connect 4 - Velena Contra - iiChantra Crayon Physics - Numpty Physics Crillion - HitBlock, Crillion '97 Crimsonland - Bloodworks, Violetland Crusade - Conquests Crystal Quest - XQuest Daedalian Opus - Puzmania Defender - Defendguin, Abductor, Glook Defender of the Crown - King Arthur's KORT (download), Knights of War Deflektor - Mirror Magic, Reflektor Descent - Sublevel Zero (Prototype) (mega.nz) Diablo - FreedroidRPG, FLARE, Summoning Wars Doom - Freedoom (Phase 1), Harmony, Shaw's Nightmare, Anarch Doom II - Freedoom (Phase 2), HacX, Shaw's Nightmare II Duke Nukem 1 - Dave Gnukem Duke Nukem 3D - Mr The Killer, Shadow Warrior Dungeon Keeper - OpenDungeons, Dwelvers (Alpha), OpenDungeons Plus DX-Ball / MegaBall - SDL-Ball Elasto Mania - XMoto Elite - Oolite Empire Deluxe - GEMpire Escape Velocity - NAEV Fantastic Dizzy - Giddy 3: The Retro Eggsperience Flight Sim Toolkit - OpenFly Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures - Dungeon Craft FreeCell - Bolitaire Freespace 2 - Wings of Dawn Frogger - Revenge of Froggie, DIV Frogger, Toad Frontier: Elite II - Pioneer Galaga - Cosmic Ambush Galaxian - Galaxi Gradius - Hydorah Grand Prix Legends - Dolphinity Racer Great Giana Sisters, The - Akiko and Minami Guitar Hero - Frets on Fire Gun - Guns and Spurs Heretic - Blasphemer Herzog Zwei - Herzog 3D, RAD - Rapid Aerial Deployment Hovertank 3D - Robot Redemption (source code) Jetpac - Jetpak (JETPAK.zip), Jetman (jetman.zip) Knights and Merchants - Knights Province Kula World / Roll Away - Cubosphere Lemmings - Lix, Pingus, Hamsters, Lemmis Lethal Tender - Industrial Killers (ikillers.zip) Lode Runner - Infiltrator, Scavenger Lords of Midnight, The - Lords of Midnight PC, The War of the Solstice Lost Vikings, The - freeVikings M.A.X. - M.A.X. Reloaded MadTV - TVTower Magic Carpet - Ogrian Carpet Master of Monsters - The Battle for Wesnoth Master of Orion - Star Lords, Remnants of the Precursors, FreeOrion Mastermind - Dr. Mind Mechwarrior - Linwarrior 3D Mega Lo Mania - Gigalomania Mega Man - Rockbot Minecraft - Manic Digger, Minetest Mortal Kombat - Open Mortal Natural Selection - Tremulous, Unvanquished Nibbles - Zmiy, The Rustic Classics, Nibbles (George Tzoumas) OutRun - 'GhiniRun, RunOut Oxyd - Enigma Pac-Man - Paku Paku, Greedy, Open Greedy Pang - Pang Zero, PANGG! Panzer General - LGeneral + K.u.k. General Panzer General II - Open General, OpenPanzer / Panzer Marshal Paradroid - Short Cut Paratrooper - Ack-Ack Attack! Pengo - WetSpot 2 Pong - Emeritus Pong Populous - Reprisal Universe (Beta) Pulsoids - Pulsoid Puzznic - Brix, Wizznic!, Japure Quake - LibreQuake, Open Quartz, Open Quartz 2, Nexuiz Classic, Rexuiz, Xonotic Quake II - CodeRED - Battle For Earth, CodeRED - The Martian Chronicles, Alien Arena, D-Day Normandy, Warsow Quake III Arena - OpenArena, Acid Arena, World of Pandman Quest for Glory - Heroine's Quest R-Type - GazerStar Raptor: Call of the Shadows - Kraptor, Rafkill Repton 3 - Rock 'n' Spin Rescue! - Rescue! Max Rick Dangerous - Lao's Quest Rise of the Triad - Rise of the Wool Ball Robbo / The Adventures of Robbo - GNU Robbo Robotron - Llamatron Rogue - Rogue Clone IV, TileRogue RPG Maker - EasyRPG, Open RPG Maker Scorched Earth - Atomic Tanks, Scorched3D Scramble - Zeroth Zone Secret Agent - Special Agent Sensible (World of) Soccer - YSoccer, Tux Football, Open World Soccer Sentinel - Sentry Settlers II, The - Widelands Settlers of Catan, The - Pioneers Sid Meier's Civilization - Freeciv, Great Nations, Kingdoms, Conquests Sid Meier's Civilization II - Freeciv, C-evo Sid Meier's Civilization V - Unciv Sid Meier's Colonisation - FreeCol SimCity - Lincity, LinCity-NG, OpenCity SolarFox - SolarWolf Sonic the Hedgehog - Open Surge Sopwith - Sopwith (The Author's Edition), Sopwith 3 Space Hulk - Alien Assault Space Invaders - Spaced-Out Invaders, XInvaders 3D Space Quest - Cosmos Quest Spit Wad Willy/Pea Shootin' Pete - Bubble Jeopardy (dpdl_bubble.zip) Star Castle - Star Fortress Star Wars: TIE Fighter - Space Combat StarCraft - Priority: Survive, Bos Wars (latest Windows build), Astroseries Starion - Starion 2010 Stars! - Stars! Nova Street Fighter II - Super Fighter, Tough Guy Stunts - Ultimate Stunts Super Hexagon - Open Hexagon Super Mario Bros. - Secret Maryo Chronicles, SuperTux Super Mario Kart - SuperTuxKart Super Monkey Ball - Neverball Super-VGA Harrier - Jaguar GR1: Strike Force Delta Zulu, Tornado Squadron, Skyhawk Attack Terminal Velocity - TerraScape: Breakdown Velocity Tetris - Super ACiD Block Attack, Falling Block Game, Ptakovina, Tetris QUEEN Thief: The Dark Project - The Dark Mod Thrust - Thrust Titan - Colossus Total Annihilation - Zero-K, Robotic War, War Machines, Beyond All Reason Tower Toppler - Tower Toppler Trailblazer - Blazing Trails Transport Tycoon Deluxe - OpenTTD, Simutrans Tron - Cycles 3D Trugg - Heartlight PC Turrican II - Hurrican Ugh! - CaveExpress Ultima I-III - The Kingdom of Syree, The Kingdom of Syree 2 Ultima IV-V - Haxima Ultima VI - IRE Ultimate Doom, The - Freedoom (Phase 1), REKKR Warcraft II - Aleona's Tales, Wyrmsun, Dark Oberon, Astroseries Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos - Glest, MegaGlest, Loria Warlords - Hostile Takeover Warlords II Deluxe - LordsAWar! Wing Commander - Flight Commander Wizardry VII - Escape from the Maze, Wizardry Legacy Wolfenstein 3-D - Zillion 3D Worms - Hedgewars, WarMUX X-COM: Terran Defense Force / UFO: Enemy Unknown - X-Force: Fight for Destiny, UFO: Alien Invasion, UFO2000 Official/authorized remakes, source ports and fangames Abuse - Abuse for Windows Alien Breed - Alien Breed: Obliteration, Alien Breed Remake (Rob Farley) (1980-jeux-pc.com) Alien Breed 3D - Project Osiris Amulets & Armor - Amulets & Armor (Windows) Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021 - Anacreon v2.1 Arcade Volleyball - GAV AstroMenace - AstroMenace Atomix - Atomiks Blades of Exile - Open Blades of Exile BlockOut - BlockOut II Blood - Transfusion Boppin' - Boppin' 2.0.5 (Windows) Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Broken Sword 2.5: The Return of the Templars Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space - Race Into Space C-Dogs - C-Dogs SDL Castlevania - Castlevania 2: The Lecarde Chronicles, Haunted Castle II Chex Quest - Chex Quest 3 Command & Conquer - OpenRA, Dawn of Tomorrow, Tiberian Aurora Command & Conquer: Renegade - Renegade X: Black Dawn Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun - Twisted Insurrection Cyberbox - The Continuing Adventures of Cyberbox Cybernoid - Cybernoid I Cylindrix - Cylindrix (Windows) Cytadela - Cytadela D/Generation - rE/Generation Death Rally - Death Rally (Windows) Deflektor - Deflektor X4 Der Clou! - Clou! Open Source Project Digger (Alexander Lang) - Digger 2, Digger (Lutz Roeder) Digger (Windmill Software) - Digger Remastered Dink Smallwood - GNU FreeDink, Dink Smallwood HD Duke Nukem 3D - Demon Throne, The AMC Squad, Hectic Realms Eat the Whistle - Eat the Whistle GPL Elite - Elite: The New Kind Escape Towards the Unknown - Escape Towards the Unknown GPL Fish Fillets - Fish Fillets NG Gladiator - Openglad Gravity Force 2 - Gravity Force 20 Great Giana Sisters, The - The Great Giant Sisters, Giant Worlds, Giana's Return Greedy - Open Greedy Gunocide II - Gunocide II EX HacX - HacX 1.2, HacX 2.0 Homeworld - House Globe Jet Set Willy - Top Hat Willy Joe Snow - The Rustic Classics, Joe Snow Ken's Labyrinth - LAB3D/SDL King's Quest I - King's Quest I VGA King's Quest II - King's Quest II Enhanced Edition King's Quest III - King's Quest III: To Heir is Human, King's Quest III VGA Remake Laser Kombat - Laser Kombat (Wouter Wijsman) Liero - OpenLieroX Maelstrom - Maelstrom 3.0 Marathon, Marathon 2, Marathon Infinity - Aleph One Mercenary, Damocles, The Dion Crisis - MDDClone Mindbender - Mirror Magic No Gravity - No Gravity (Classic) PopCorn - PopCorn 1988 PowBall - PowBall Deluxe Power Pete - Mighty Mike Prince of Persia - MININIM Quest for Glory II - Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire Ragnarok / Valhalla - NorseWorld: Ragnarok Rick Dangerous - xrick Rise of the Triad - Return of the Triad Robbo / The Adventures of Robbo - Robbo (JavaScript) Seven Kingdoms: Ancient Adversaries - Seven Kingdoms Ancient Adversaries Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge - Space Quest II VGA Remake Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters - The Ur-Quan Masters, The Ur-Quan Masters HD Steel Panthers - SPWW2, Steel Panthers: World at War Steel Panthers II: Modern Battles - SPMBT Styx - Styx Remastered Supaplex - OpenSupaplex, Supaplex Online, Rocks'n'Diamonds Telengard - Telengard Remake Triplane Turmoil - Triplane Classic, Triplane Web Turrican II - T2002 Tyrian - OpenTyrian VGA Civil War Strategy Game - Civil War Strategy Game Warzone 2100 - Warzone 2100 Wolfenstein 3-D - Wolfram

I haven't visited here in a while, but recently I reworked the entire list towards a hopefully more informative and intuitive format, and have just updated the first post accordingly.

Recently I found, via the Wayback Machine, this little and apparently highly obscure gem: Future Conflict. It's a free (technically shareware) DOS RTS game, lovingly copied almost verbatim from Command & Conquer and Red Alert (and not in the least ashamed of that mind you!) by Chris Jones, better known for being the author of the Adventure Game Studio toolkit. If you look past the "programmer art" level graphics (that aren't very bad, actually), it's a fully-fledged game with a single-player campaign (only one side though), skirmish mode against up to three AI opponents, and functional multiplayer mode. There's even an equivalent of Red Alert's rules.ini. The author accepted registrations, which would endow the user with a mission builder, a unit editor and a campaign editor (no idea if anyone registered). But otherwise the unregistered game is fully featured and has no limitations. Oh, and it fits on a single 3.5" floppy disk too. It's a bit tricky to get it work with sounds in DOSBox though, but a pre-installed version is available here. Make sure you use the current SVN build of DOSBox, not the latest stable version (0.74-3) from the DOSBox website.

Prince of Persia and Warcraft II

Here's a little hotfix for Aleona's Tales sprites: tales-quick-fix.zip It repairs some extra transparency in Peasant, Fawn, Knight and Gryphon sprites, and adds shadows to Footman and Archer sprites. Additionally, I replaced Footman and under attack voice with higher quality alternatives by David Slimp which I found in the old CVS repo, plus I attempted to repair some other speech and sounds with clicks and noise using Audacity.

Updated the Aleona's Tales fix: aleonas-tales-2.4.3-fix-r2.zip

Recently I discovered that the latest version of Aleona's Tales (bundled with Wargus 2.4.3) does no work out of the box - in fact, no 2.4.x release does. I figured out that this is caused by errors with PNG files, which I was able to correct and threw together a fix for the latest version: tales-2.4.3-fix.zip To use, first install the 2.4.3 release from GitHub, then unzip the contents of the fix archive, overwriting the files.

It's not clear because the game eventually fell into obscurity. I think about trying to contact him and ask, it would be fun to have the source code and the extra mission--building tools. The game looks like a nice counterpart to Freecraft/Aleona's Tales (you know, I've come to appreciate Aleona's Tales art lately, I just can't run the latest Windows build that comes with Wargus 2.4.x).

Syndicate Plus, Syndicate Wars and both Ultima Underworld games are available for free off GOG and I believe Origin until 3 September.

Did a major update/overhaul of the first post. I decided to focus on accurate recreations of non-free games, and ditched those free projects that can be thought of as an Ersatz of several games in a certain genre, but aren't specifically emulating any particular title (like Cube, MegaGlest or Annex: Conquer the World). Note that direct unauthorised/unofficial remakes which use proprietary data or other content are not included in the lists. The games are now grouped based on completely different principles that hopefully reflect the field in a more meaningful way than before. I corrected some classification errors too -- previously some games that were not engine recreations with free data were labelled as such (e.g. Dave Gnukem -- it does not use original Duke Nukem 1 data). I updated links where necessary, and added Wayback Machine links if project pages are no longer available. Abandoned projects that have not reached any meaningful stage of development are no longer features in the lists.

Here's a nice game: Robot Redemption. It's based on the source code of Hovertank 3D and plays rather similarly. And The Vigilance of Nephthys is fairly similar to / inspired by Catacomb 3D games.

I've been browsing archived copies of the Next Generation online gaming magazine, and stumbled upon a preview of Counterstrike. The article is pretty short, but this little shot caught my attention: Close to the bottom left corner, there are what appear to be two Allied-owned Tanyas - but they have red hair. I don't think I've seen this shot before. It's most probably just an official (?) mock-up, but interesting anyway

So I've been scouring old magazine coverdisks for promo screenshots and found these: You've certainly seen them all but these are in lossless, presumably original quality. I'm not sure if they are available like this before so posting here. The coverdisk they were found (originally in BMP format dated 13 April 1998) is for the Slovak magazine Riki issue No. 31 (CD 9), available here.

This is fun, I'm getting a Cars vibe here, very cool.

Thanks! However this mode does not seem to do any aspect ratio correction, it just draws the same 1:1 square pixels over an area of 640x480 instead of 640x400. I was kinda hoping for something like this:

Apologies for the noobish question, I'm trying to configure the game to run in 4:3 aspect ratio as shown in the screenshots on the site, but so far without success. I haven't played C&C in a long while admittedly, and never used CnC-DDraw before. Any advice on how to to it? I'm using the portable version and picked the ddraw.ini which said "full screen aspect ratio with shaders", and set the correct resolution, but it does not render the image at 640x480 but at 640x400. Or is it not possible at all?

Have we finally got a spiritual successor to Emperor of the Fading Suns? (I just watched the video a bit and this is my first impression)

@PurpleGaga27Thanks! I'd love to (once I settle on what is the optimal upscale model that is), but alas my current computing power is not suitable for processing even a single FMV in a reasonable time frame. Theoretically, it would be optimal to first make 4x upscales with a model that gets the image right, then do a second iteration of the upscaled images with either the same or maybe a different model and then scale them down a bit whilst correcting the aspect ratio (the DOS version videos are "squashed" vertically to account for the 320x200 image stretching to 640x480 on a typical 4:3 display).

@MilkeyWilkey I always appreciate constructive criticism, so I ran tests with a different model interpolation that does not accentuate the edges so much (I believe the one responsible for that effect is LyonHrt's Fighter Alt 2). Here are the results, what do you think of them? I also believe the pure CGI elements like the MCV truck now look less plastic-ey as @Plokite_Wolf said. Nod officer in a guard tower GDI Orca mission briefing Nod desert sweep GDI engineer at the construction yard entrance Construction yard unpacking The model for these is a 0.5 interpolation of Spongebob v6 De-Quantize and DeviantPixelHD, which was then interpolated at 0.9 with 4xMisc. All these models are available from the Model Database.

I'll just show you what put me off in the Reastered videos: These jittery lines appear because the model chosen for the upscale was not optimal. For comparison, here's more or less the same image upscaled by the model that I used: The straight lines here look more or less what they're supposed to be. I'm assuming that the effect you're talking about stems from the CGI nature of most images. Let's take one for which we have a high-res render released by Westwood: I used a variation of the same model as above but which makes images even sharper, then scaled to 640x480 with Paint.NET (best quality method). And here's the original render: I'm not noticing any edges, e.g. of the crates, being sharper compared to the high-res original.

Well, after a bit of playing I can definitely say I don't like the upscaled videos at all. Having less sharp edges is actually a non-issue with neural upscales, whereas MPEG compression leaves a ton of JPEG artifacts in frames like mosquito noise and ringing, which are all too noticeable in the upscaled videos. I ran a few tests of my own in ESRGAN with frames from the PC/DOS FMVs, and I think the results are pretty decent: Gen. Sheppard Col. Morelli GDI engineer at the construction yard gate Construction yard unpacking Gen. von Esling A GDI soldier ambushes Nod trooper in a forest I added some HSV noise in GIMP at default settings to the upscaled images but otherwise no editing or pre-processing was involved. Also here's the interpolated model I used, this is for the "old architecture" ESRGAN.

I don't think there was ever consistent lore developed by Westwood for Kane's origins and nature. His final pose in the ending FMV seems more like a nod (no pun intended) to the original C&C's GDI ion cannon ending, while the missile itself is a kind of downer ending for the player ("You just blew up the Earth. Have a nice day!"), and at the same time an unexpected surprise because the Nod campaign narrative in TS went away from portraying the Brotherhood straight out evil to something more of "they have their own cause to fight for", only to find out that they were ultimately manipulated by Kane to wipe out humanity (apparently). The Nod ending in TS was probably not intended to be canonical for the planned sequel so they just went with what seemed cool I guess. Also in C&C Renegade (IIRC), Kane almost straight out states he's the biblical Cain, when the player discovers the tomb of Abel under the temple in the final mission. BTW, it's your best explanation of why Kane is immortal, and you could give it a sci-fi twist in the style of Stargate if you wish.

I wonder what models were used for the upscale (if it was ESRGAN). As I mentioned elsewhere, there are some models which are better suited for upscaling certain types of images than others.

Some days ago I stumbled upon this little game called The Fertile Crescent. It's clearly inspired by the Age of Empires but gives some clever twists to the mechanics. While still being in development it's very playable already, singleplayer on a random map and multiplayer as well. The pixel art is also quite admirable I should say.