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Free alternatives to classic/well known games

User is offline   MrFlibble 

#31

Well, for one, there are quite a few liberated games on the list, and some free-from-the-start projects also have good quality (e.g. C-evo or The Battle for Wesnoth, although I dislike the latter's combat mechanics). Many others have their own charm in spite of not-so-great quality, or are mostly of historical interest (for example, Jason Storm in Space Chase as a Duke Nukem clone; but the game is certainly playable on its own too).
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User is offline   leilei 

#32

....how is Amulets & Armor equal to Battlespire?! What the hell. Have you even played the games?! You can't be a naked elf picking up random enchanted thongs and bras in a hard as hell dungeon in Amulets & Armor. Battlespire is also much further limited so to say A&A's an alternative of it is illogical (especially considering when Battlespire came 11 months later)

Furthermore, how is Cube / Cube2 like Unreal? There's hardly anything in common. You don't even pick up weapons or have alternate fire. There's also a lack of full OO scripting.

Scorched3D is no Scorched Earth alternative either. It shouldn't even be named Scorched3D. It's more of an alternative for Blast Doors - and plays far worse, but is more overrated because it has pretty water and pretty lens flares to sell itself while overlooking the overencumbering terrible issues on the aiming interface that is integral to the gameplay.

Alien Arena switches flavors of imitation every few milestones so it can't be called a Q3A alternative any more. It started off being a very Q2 feeling imitation of Q3A (kinda like early Q3test) then it tried to be like UT2004 (obvious influence of DM-Gael from UT2003 is seen in most places, as well as the main menu) and last time I checked, it tried to be UT3 with heavy influence from UT3's bio goo materials and shaders. I don't want to know where it's going next... but somehow sticking some 50's alien invasion movie motif doesn't work in any of them.
It's also worth noting it started out as a singleplayer Mars Attacks! TC for Quake2, so being completely derivative is in its very core since the beginning.

This post has been edited by leilei: 27 June 2013 - 12:26 PM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#33

"It's like Unreal Tournament, but there's no tournament."
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#34

leilei, your criticisms are highly appreciated :)

View Postleilei, on 27 June 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

....how is Amulets & Armor equal to Battlespire?! What the hell. Have you even played the games?! You can't be a naked elf picking up random enchanted thongs and bras in a hard as hell dungeon in Amulets & Armor. Battlespire is also much further limited so to say A&A's an alternative of it is illogical (especially considering when Battlespire came 11 months later)

Heh, I actually drew that parallel from a passage found at your unofficial A&A shrine, which goes as follows:

Quote

this game is much better than Ultima Underworld, Stonekeep, Anvil of Dawn, Elder Scrolls: Battlespire, and the much later Arx Fatalis IMO.

I don't know why Battlespire stuck in my memory instead of some of the other games you mention here, but if you suggest another one I'll be happy to change it (Ultima Underworld perhaps? After all, it's an ur-example of the fantasy FPS RPG genre.)

Quote

Furthermore, how is Cube / Cube2 like Unreal? There's hardly anything in common. You don't even pick up weapons or have alternate fire. There's also a lack of full OO scripting.

Okay, I agree that Cube ~ Unreal is a big, big stretch, it's just that I didn't want the Cube games to go unmentioned so I did that. Once again, you're an expert in FPS games and your suggestions as of what could be a better parallel are more than welcome.

Quote

Scorched3D is no Scorched Earth alternative either. It shouldn't even be named Scorched3D. It's more of an alternative for Blast Doors - and plays far worse, but is more overrated because it has pretty water and pretty lens flares to sell itself while overlooking the overencumbering terrible issues on the aiming interface that is integral to the gameplay.

That game was someone else's suggestion IIRC and I put it on the list without checking.

Quote

Alien Arena switches flavors of imitation every few milestones so it can't be called a Q3A alternative any more. It started off being a very Q2 feeling imitation of Q3A (kinda like early Q3test) then it tried to be like UT2004 (obvious influence of DM-Gael from UT2003 is seen in most places, as well as the main menu) and last time I checked, it tried to be UT3 with heavy influence from UT3's bio goo materials and shaders. I don't want to know where it's going next... but somehow sticking some 50's alien invasion movie motif doesn't work in any of them.
It's also worth noting it started out as a singleplayer Mars Attacks! TC for Quake2, so being completely derivative is in its very core since the beginning.

Well, I think I'll have to add some generic categories to keep some of the titles.
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#35

You know what guys, you're right. Thinking of liberated games as some kind of Ersatz for other titles is counter-productive, so I've decided to drop the whole liberated game part from the list - after all, liberated games can be listed elsewhere.

In fact, the OP in its recent form was a result of my attempt to cram at least three separate lists into one:

1. More or less straightforward remakes or clones of well-known games. In many cases the authors will openly point to the game that they are trying to remake, and if not, the similarity is often quite obvious anyway.

2. Shareware clones of popular titles, mostly from the DOS era. These are generally of historical interest.

3. Games that are definitely inspired by famous titles, but the authors have added enough ideas of their own to make these games something more then direct recreations. As usual, this is the grey area as YMMV what makes for a simple clone and what constitutes an "inspired by" game.

So I've separated these lists in the OP, and also added the following titles:

Crayon Physics

Dungeon Keeper

Elite

Lemmings

Natural Selection

RPGMaker

SimCity

X-COM: Enemy Unknown

Bos Wars, Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Diablo

Empire Deluxe

Frontier: Elite II

Puzzle Bobble

Ultima series

Wizardry VII

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#36

A humble addition:

Super Monkey Ball alternative:

Tilt the floor to roll a ball through an obstacle course before time runs out. Neverball is part puzzle game, part action game, and entirely a test of skill.
Also found here is Neverputt, a hot-seat multiplayer miniature golf game, built on the physics and graphics engine of Neverball.
Neverball and Neverputt are both known to run under Linux, Win2K/XP, FreeBSD, and Mac OSX. Hardware accelerated OpenGL is required. A 500MHz processor is recommended.

Quake III alternative:


It's on the CUBE2 engine, not sure, it's a casual arena shooter, p. fun. :)

This post has been edited by uraganotkirki: 28 June 2013 - 07:13 AM

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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#37

Nice, thanks for the suggestions!

I remember reading about Red Eclipse some time ago, it's indeed the Cube 2 engine, but they planned some extensive overhaul of the playing mechanics compared to the more classic arena shooter titles.
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User is offline   Hank 

#38

View PostMrFlibble, on 28 June 2013 - 06:01 AM, said:

Elite

Cheers! I would not have found this in a million years! :)
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User is offline   leilei 

#39

Man, I wish there was a Duke Nukem 3D alternative up there. At least there's Dave Gnukem for a Duke Nukum alternative.

Posted Image


(Yeah i'm aware of the excellent ReDuke but that's not a data project)

This post has been edited by leilei: 28 June 2013 - 07:27 PM

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User is offline   Richard Shead 

  • "Dick Nasty"

#40

View Postleilei, on 28 June 2013 - 07:24 PM, said:

Man, I wish there was a Duke Nukem 3D alternative up there.



I think most of us would rather have a Duke Nukem Forever alternative.

:)


And fact that it's free would merely be the icing on the cake! :D
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#41

View Postleilei, on 28 June 2013 - 07:24 PM, said:

Man, I wish there was a Duke Nukem 3D alternative up there. At least there's Dave Gnukem for a Duke Nukum alternative.

Posted Image


(Yeah i'm aware of the excellent ReDuke but that's not a data project)

Wow, this is awesome!!! :) Thanks, I never heard about that one before :D

Also, nice new avatar you have here :D :D
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#42

I'm glad that I can contribute, I'm all about FOSS gaming whether it being an alternative, a supplement or outright better than the commercial, closed source counterpart.

Thanks for sharing Dave Gnukem, the latest version is available here: http://sourceforge.n...m/files/gnukem/

The main site is not updated, I guess.
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#43

Alrighty, added some more titles (including the ones suggested above):

A-Train

Carrier Command

Duke Nukem

Escape Velocity

Half-Life: Counterstrike

Quake III: Arena, Unreal Tournament

Star Wars: TIE Fighter, Descent: Freespace

Super Monkey Ball


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.
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#44

Risk


This post has been edited by MrFlibble: 30 June 2013 - 01:28 PM

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User is offline   Richard Shead 

  • "Dick Nasty"

#45

Many of these games seem to fall more into the "blatant rip-off" category as opposed to being "alternatives" but considering the price of admission(zilch), I can't complain. In fact, that's probably WHY most of them come at no cost- if the devs were to start charging gamers, plagiarism lawsuits could soon arise. :)

This post has been edited by Duke Rocks: 29 June 2013 - 12:55 PM

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#46

I don't think the devs started out with the intention of ripping off and cashing in on something, but just to develop a game that had the playstyle of a game they enjoyed 10 years back.
It can be a learning experience from them, it's also great because they continue to create and update new content for the game. Prime example is OpenTTD.

Elasto Mania alternative:


This game can get so weird when you are upside down and your front tire is lodged somewhere - somehow.

This post has been edited by uraganotkirki: 29 June 2013 - 01:33 PM

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User is offline   leilei 

#47

Trepidation is a OA fork that steals old community maps and models for Q3A and illegally relicenses them under the GPL without any source available, plus the guy that runs it also pushes a pirated version of Elite Force around. You should probably remove it.

This post has been edited by leilei: 29 June 2013 - 03:09 PM

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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#48

View PostDuke Rocks, on 29 June 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

Many of these games seem to fall more into the "blatant rip-off" category as opposed to being "alternatives"

Well, in fact that was one of the reasons I started compiling the lists, because blatant rip-offs are of a certain interest - as compared to the run-of-the-mill commercial clones that try to at least mimic originality so as to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits.

Some of the games here introduce a lot of new concepts though, or re-imagine the original games quite a bit, which is equally interesting :)

View Posturaganotkirki, on 29 June 2013 - 01:30 PM, said:

I don't think the devs started out with the intention of ripping off and cashing in on something, but just to develop a game that had the playstyle of a game they enjoyed 10 years back.
It can be a learning experience from them, it's also great because they continue to create and update new content for the game. Prime example is OpenTTD.

Yup, that's very true :D

View Posturaganotkirki, on 29 June 2013 - 01:30 PM, said:

Elasto Mania alternative:

Thanks, I didn't know about either game :D Added to the list.

View Postleilei, on 29 June 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

Trepidation is a OA fork that steals old community maps and models for Q3A and illegally relicenses them under the GPL without any source available, plus the guy that runs it also pushes a pirated version of Elite Force around. You should probably remove it.

Done that.

BTW guys, I have this feeling that there's some classic space simulation (maybe strategy, not sure) game clone/remake that I've seen some time ago somewhere but didn't have the time to include on the list, and now I can't seem to find it. Any ideas what it could be?

This post has been edited by MrFlibble: 30 June 2013 - 01:00 PM

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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#49

Driller

M.U.L.E.

NetWars

Stunts

X-COM: Enemy Unknown

I think it's NetWarsGL I referred to in my previous post, although I'm still not sure.
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#50

Atlantis

Puzzle Bobble

BurgerTime

Dogfight

OutRun

Oxyd

Paratrooper

Planet Defender

R-Type

Rampart

Sentinel

SimCity

Solar Fox

Space Spartans

Star Strike

Starion

Telengard

Lode Runner

Wing Commander

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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#51

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

Diplomacy

Panzer General II

RPG Maker

Sid Meier's Civilization

Titan

Wizardry VII


This post has been edited by MrFlibble: 11 July 2013 - 08:46 AM

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#52

Here's Epic Megagames' freeware game Xargon w/ it's source code.

This post has been edited by DustFalcon85: 08 July 2013 - 01:36 PM

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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#53

And the extra art Allen Pilgrim has released recently to the public, I might add :D He also gave official permission for a source port of the game, and even said that maybe he'll make some new levels if he ha time :)
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User is offline   Lunick 

#54

View PostMrFlibble, on 09 July 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

And the extra art Allen Pilgrim has released recently to the public, I might add :D He also gave official permission for a source port of the game, and even said that maybe he'll make some new levels if he ha time :)


I do wish it was finished :/
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#55

Just found this really huge blog dedicated to liberated games:
http://juegosliberados.blogspot.com/

It's in either Spanish or Portuguese (can't tell because I'm not very familiar with both languages), but everything is pretty self-explanatory. The blog seems to feature quite a few really obscure games too.
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#56

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

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User is offline   leilei 

#57

Aleona's Tales is another clone of the FreeCraft Media Project apparently (which was c&d'd in 2003 along with FreeCraft). They still have derivative voice acting (new imitation takes on all the original lines of the Warcraft II units), apparently not learning from the history of mistakes from the project it forked off of.

In the older screenshots featured on Stratagus it even uses the copyrighted Warcraft II fonts. And lol their music folder

Quote

All this stuff is from Wesnoth. Work out how to do the copywrite for it.

I think that says it all.

This post has been edited by leilei: 10 July 2013 - 02:01 PM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#58

Copywright. Fuck me LOL
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#59

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

Quake

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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#60

Not much of an update but still:
Hexen: Beyond Heretic

Quake III: Arena

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