Free alternatives to classic games

[Gben 20]

I might try Pioneer. Looks okay.

 

Speaking of Elite - does everyone know a 2014 remake is on the cards?

https://elite.frontier.co.uk/

[MrFlibble 31]

Okay, I've put the Astral Entertainment website on this list instead, and also added some more titles here:

 

A-Train

• FreeTrain

Carrier Command

• Thunder&Lightning

Duke Nukem

• Dave Gnukem [download]

Escape Velocity

• NAEV

Half-Life: Counterstrike

• Assault Cube Reloaded

Quake III: Arena, Unreal Tournament

• Arena of Honour
  
• Red Eclipse

Star Wars: TIE Fighter, Descent: Freespace

• Space Combat

Super Monkey Ball

• Neverball

 

Also added another section to the list, with the liberated games that have both the source code and all assets released for free, thus making it possible to create new builds of the entire game.

[MrFlibble 31]

Risk

• JavaRisk
• NetRisk
• OpenFracas
• yura.net Domination

Edited June 30, 2013 by MrFlibble

[Gben 20]

Risk... I must check out.

[MrFlibble 31]

Driller

• Driller (remake)

Elasto Mania

• X-Moto

M.U.L.E.

• Planet M.U.L.E.

NetWars

• NetWarsGL

Stunts

• Ultimate Stunts

X-COM: Enemy Unknown

• Project Xenocide
  
• X-Force: Fight for Destiny

[MrFlibble 31]

Atlantis

• Atlantis

Puzzle Bobble

• Bobble Puzzle

BurgerTime

• Burgerland

Dogfight

• Dogfight: Battle in the Skies

OutRun

• RunOut

Oxyd

• Enigma

Paratrooper

• Dragon Fire

Planet Defender

• Planetary Defense

R-Type

• GazerStar

Rampart

• Cannon Conflict
  
• Kajaani Kombat

Sentinel

• Sentry

SimCity

• Mobility [shareware]

Solar Fox

• Solar Wolf

Space Spartans

• Space Spartans

Star Strike

• Star Strike

Starion

• Starion 2010

Telengard

• Telengard

Lode Runner

• Turbo Lode

Wing Commander

• Flight Commander

[r34ch 1]

black and white - ish?

 

http://www.reprisaluniverse.com/site/

 

 

R type - ish?

 

https://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/

[MrFlibble 31]

black and white - ish?

 

http://www.reprisaluniverse.com/site/

Nice, the authors seem to have modelled this after Populous. Apparently, this was originally a browser-based game BTW.

 

R type - ish?

 

https://code.google.com/p/opentyrian/

That's a source port of Tyrian, which itself is a free game (formerly shareware).

[r34ch 1]

I release you have purged the thread due to previous reviews, but do you have any other free / recently reverse engineered old school games?

 

Currently I only know of C&C95, RA1, Dune 2000 and warzone 2100 (which you list) - which all took old freeware/abandonware games and made them run on modern systems in high resolution with fixes.

Edited July 6, 2013 by r34ch

[MrFlibble 31]

I've reworked the list yet again. The shareware clones and the open source liberated game build sections were dropped, and now board game implementations are a separate category.

 

Also, added the following titles:

 

Castle of the Winds, Ancient Domains of Mystery

• Fame

Diplomacy

• Ludus Regius

Panzer General II

• OpenGeneral

RPG Maker

• Advanced RPG Maker
• Mokoi Gaming
• Open Legends
• Open RPG Maker
• Sphere RPG Engine

Sid Meier's Civilization

• Conquests

Titan

• Colossus

Wizardry VII

• Escape From The Maze

I release you have purged the thread due to previous reviews, but do you have any other free / recently reverse engineered old school games?

 

Currently I only know of C&C95, RA1, Dune 2000 and warzone 2100 (which you list) - which all took old freeware/abandonware games and made them run on modern systems in high resolution with fixes.

Warzone 2100 is different because it is my understanding that there has been an official source code release, whereas the Westwood Studios games are independently reverse-engineered by the people who work on them.

 

A complete reverse engineering project with further re-writing of the code and the resulting ports to modern OSs is that of yet another WS game, Dune II, and the project is called OpenDUNE.

 

Also I've just learned that the leader of the XL Engine project has been recently working on completely reverse-engineering and rewriting The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall (details are in the blog) with a view to create a 100% compatible and authentic implementation of the game, plus the much needed bug fixes (reportedly, Bethesda lost the source code of Daggerfall at some point).

Edited July 11, 2013 by MrFlibble

[MrFlibble 31]

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

• Aleona's Tales [screenshots]

[MrFlibble 31]

The list now has a separate section for free content replacement projects that use either the original engine of the respective game, or a game engine remake that is capable of handling original game data.

 

Also, added the following:

 

Half-Life

• Black Mesa (Source)

Quake

• Open Quartz (QuakeForge, DarkPlaces)
  
• OpenQuartz 2 (DarkPlaces)
  
• OQPlus (QuakeForge, DarkPlaces) [SVN]

[PurpleGaga27 37]

If Black Mesa is considered a remake replacement, what about Goldeneye Source and Renegade-X? Those are remade on a different game engine.

 

Edit: the following titles are missing from the first post of the list:

driller

m.u.l.e.

netwars

atlantis

burgertime

dogfight

rampart

simcity (mobility)

Space Spartans

star strike

starion

telengard

lode runner

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (Aleona's Tales)

Edited July 11, 2013 by zocom7

[Plok 316]

Renegade-X isn't a remake

[MrFlibble 31]

If Black Mesa is considered a remake replacement, what about Goldeneye Source and Renegade-X? Those are remade on a different game engine.

I know that Renegade X uses original Renegade data (speech), I suppose without any explicit permission from copyright holders (if I'm wrong on this please correct me!). Conversely, the guys who created Black Mesa had to re-record all dialogue in addition to creating all other game resources from scratch, as Valve asked them not to use any materials from Half-Life.

 

I know nothing about Goldeneye Source, thanks for mentioning this, I'll check it out,

 

driller

m.u.l.e.

netwars

atlantis

burgertime

dogfight

rampart

simcity (mobility)

Space Spartans

star strike

starion

telengard

lode runner

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (Aleona's Tales)

Well, first off Aleona's Tales is on the list. Secondly, I never stated that I'd include everything I find or is mentioned in this thread into the list in the first post. Currently I don't include remakes that preserve non-trivial (and probably copyrighted) titles of the originals that they are recreating. Remakes are a different thing altogether (although they overlap with clones to some extent) and should be considered as such.

 

Mobility is a shareware game now, no longer freeware. As a matter of fact, it was from the start not a freeware game, but a free commercial game because it was sponsored by the German government; when government sponsoring was withdrawn they switched to the shareware model to support the project.

 

Turbo Lode, while being inspired by Lode Runner obviously, is a completely different game (different mechanics). It might get on the list, as Scorched 3D is a similarly "inspired by" game with substantial differences.

[MrFlibble 31]

Not much of an update but still:

Hexen: Beyond Heretic

• Zauberer (Doom engine)

Quake III: Arena

• World of Padman (Quake III engine)

Edited November 16, 2013 by MrFlibble

[PurpleGaga27 37]

Mr. Flibble, what about Plants vs. Zombies? Is there a free alternative to that great tower defense game?

[MrFlibble 31]

Frankly I have no idea what kind of game Plants vs. Zombies is. You can look up free tower defence games (e.g. here or here) and find out if there are any that are like it.

[Nyerguds 100]

Plants vs Zombies is a tower defense game in (horizontal) lanes, where the attackers actually destroy your defenses if they get far enough in the lanes, and where you need to place down specific things (sunflowers) to give you the resource needed to place down defenses. It's a pretty nice concept

 

[Guest Stevie_K]

@Zocom Need no worry! I just googled "Plants vs Zombies free" and got a link to a free online version of the game.

 

http://www.popcap.com/agegate.php?site=PopCap.com&dst=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.popcap.com%2Fgames%2Fplants-vs-zombies%2Fonline

 

Edit: I suspect it might be a demo though.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Stevie_K

[PurpleGaga27 37]

@Jehal, I have already owned and played the game several times already!

[MrFlibble 31]

Following suggestions in another forum, I have updated the list with these titles:

 

Total Annihilation

• Zero-K (Spring RTS Engine)

Minecraft

• Manic Digger
• Minetest

Half-Life: Counterstrike

• Urban Terror

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

• MegaGlest

Edited December 6, 2013 by MrFlibble

[MrFlibble 31]

Chip's Challenge

• Tile World

Lode Runner

• SDL Scavenger

[Matthias 3]

Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Dune 2000

• OpenRA

[Nmenth 288]

It's not much of a free alternative when the originals are free. I would hope being free isn't the point of OpenRA.