Suggest some desktop games to attract a person to Linux

[K.Mandla]

I'm setting up a show-off machine for a friend, to try and convince him to use Linux over Windows.

He's not a gamer, but he does like to play Solitaire and Minesweeper on his PC, as well as a Frozen Bubble-type game (I forget the name ... it's something like "Squelbs" or something ... it plays almost exactly like Frozen Bubble).

I'm looking for some good desktop games that don't rely on heavy 3D acceleration and don't take longer than a half an hour to play. Things like Gweled and FB are perfect , but Wesnoth is a bit too involved. Crack-Attack is good, but that's about the limit of the 3D workload this machine can handle. I've tried Fizzball, but it's a little heavy for the machine.

And I'm trying to avoid as much of the Gnome framework as I can, since it burdens the machine too much. So please don't suggest the Gnome (or KDE) game packs.

I was thinking about PySol and XMahjongg, but I want them to look nice and hopefully avoid that primitive old GTK1 look. Pingus is kind of cute, but he's not into cute, and it looks a little archaic.

Any suggestions? They don't have to be in the repositories, and I'm not afraid to compile.

[Artificial Intelligence]

AstroMenace is good. I play it alot. You can save the game if you get tired of it. If you are to something like space invaders 3D'ish

[tkjacobsen]

xmoto, lbreakout and supertux..

Be sure to get the latest supertux (0.3.0) from edgy-backports

[EvilMarshmallow]

Console emulators might be good too. Yeah, I know, they're available for windows as well, but just a thought...

It may be a little much but I love Falcon's Eye. I was always a Nethack/Angband fan but I really like the way that looks. Might be too deep, might not...

[hikaricore]

You might try I Have No Tomatoes (http://tomatoes.sourceforge.net/) it ran fairly well on my integrated intel video card before I installed my Nvidia, so it's not too taxing on graphics. The game itself takes about 10minutes to play through and it can be quite addicting.

There's even a ubuntu package here: http://www.getdeb.net/getdeb.php?file=tomatoes_1.5-1getdeb1_i386.deb

[K.Mandla]

Sweet. Thanks for the ideas.

XMoto (and AstroMenace) are just too taxing; I should have given an idea of the system specs. This is a lowly 750Mhz with an 8Mb ATI in it. It's going to do rudimentary acceleration at best, but nothing beyond that. I actually tried Armagetron and it will work ... if I turn off everything but the cycles and the grid. :rolleyes:

SuperTux is perfect; thanks for reminding me. I'd add an emulator but as far as I know he's not an emulator guy. lbreakout is good, but I think Falcon's Eye would be too intricate. My friend isn't really a gamer (he writes novels) but he does like a distraction now and again.

I'll try some of these others and see how they work. Thanks again!

[jake3988]

Great games. I've always had a fondness for lbreakout2.

thanks for Xmoto, its a nice game. Although, its INCREDIBLY difficult. And I can't stress that enough.

[K.Mandla]

Actually, I'm glad you said that. I thought I was having a problem, because I could hardly get through the first level of the game. I see now that I'm not the only one who thinks it's tough. :D

[RomeReactor]

If your friend is into Contra-style sidescrolling shooters, Abuse is a nice option and probably not too taxing on a modest system; it's in Synaptic.

[K.Mandla]

You might try I Have No Tomatoes (http://tomatoes.sourceforge.net/) ...
Okay, that tomato game cracked me up. :lol: #-o

[petersjm]

There's always Barrage - a good old shoot-em-up-in-three-minutes game... Runs well on my 'puter and this thing is ancient! (graphic acceleration? My graphics card needs a walker!)

[hikaricore]

Okay, that tomato game cracked me up. :lol: #-o

Hehe it's awesome. My girl flips out evertime she hears "Potato Man!"

It's a fun game to play when you're waiting for something to compile or in that 10 minute before work when you just don't wanna leave the house or start doing actual work at the office. :)

[RomeReactor]

I just remembered this game i used to play with 3 of my friends, all huddled around the keyboard: Jump n' Bump! great way to kill a few minutes with a few friends (don't be put off by the little bunnies; once you see what the game is about, i guarantee you'll have a few laughs! It's in Synaptic also, in case you haven't seen it...

[link141]

What about doom? I used to play that on my old 486 when I was about 4. It's got several difficulty levels, and is regarded as one of the best games of all time. There's a package called prboom (I think) in the repositories, and you can find the shareware doom 1 file there too. PrBoom allows the doom game files to run natively under ubuntu, and considering how doom was made for pc's in 1994, it shouldn't be too heavy on system requirements...

[tkjacobsen]

What about "Blob Wars : Metal Blob Solid" (blobwars) in synaptic. It's fun.

[argie]

I just remembered this game i used to play with 3 of my friends, all huddled around the keyboard: Jump n' Bump! great way to kill a few minutes with a few friends (don't be put off by the little bunnies; once you see what the game is about, i guarantee you'll have a few laughs! It's in Synaptic also, in case you haven't seen it...

I was going to suggest Super Mario War when I saw this. It's nearly identical, but it's also got AI players (which I don't think Jump 'n' Bump has) and many different modes. Plays at half-speed (38/62 fps) on my integrated Via card (1 MB shared memory) but it's smooth.

[highneko]

This thread made me go looking for games and I found an awesome one very quickly. There must be many great games out there if I found this so easily. http://icculus.org/neverball/#screenshots

I just had to do a:
sudo apt-get install neverball

[Linuturk]

technobalz is fun

[cdevilrun]

I have a lot of fun with PowerManga. It's fairly brainless and takes a while to play out.

[K.Mandla]

technobalz is fun
I can't seem to find that one. Do you have a link?

This thread made me go looking for games and I found an awesome one very quickly. There must be many great games out there if I found this so easily. http://icculus.org/neverball/#screenshots
I like that one as well, since he's something of a golfer, I included it. It doesn't run very well, but this is really only for demonstration, so it's something that could be included later if it catches on.

What about "Blob Wars : Metal Blob Solid" (blobwars) in synaptic. It's fun.
That's a good one. I had forgotten that one.

What about doom? ...
:D Doom was one of my first thoughts, but when I mentioned it, he went on a tirade against violence and video games, and blah blah blah. I don't think he's ever played it, only heard about it. No matter. I'm not selling Doom, I'm selling Linux. :biggrin:

I just remembered this game i used to play with 3 of my friends, all huddled around the keyboard: Jump n' Bump! ...
Cute! I liked that one. I'm not sure about the whole splattered bunny thing, but it's good for a laugh. Too bad it's not single-player too.

[muguwmp67]

Enigma is very polished, yet should be easy on system resources. Its a great puzzle game.

I really like cuyo too. Its a tetris-like game, but the rules on each level change.

MAME is a blast if you have the ROM's.

Slash 'em (the current heir to nethack) is a good way to test their nerd factor. if they can't through the ascii graphics to see the awesome beauty of the game, then they aren't a geek. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your personal preferences.

[nihilocrat]

Console emulators are a good idea. Also, Galcon (http://www.imitationpickles.org/galcon/index.html) is an awesome, easy-to-learn, somewhat casual RTS that natively runs in Linux. It's commercial, but the demo is really fun anyways.

Also, TA Spring (http://spring.clan-sy.com/) is a great, free RTS, but it's probably way too intense (read: steep learning curve, for hardcore gamers) for your friend.

Happypenguin (http://www.happypenguin.org) is a good site for keeping on top of games available for linux, especially obscure ones which you wouldn't hear about elsewhere.

[hikaricore]

I can't seem to find that one. Do you have a link?

Here's a link to TechnoballZ: http://linux.tlk.fr/games/TecnoballZ/download/

But I honestly thought this was in the repos as well, I have it installed from somewhere on my system at home lol.

[blore123]

Sorry, but get one of the latest iso-tileset versions of Freeciv on there, I'd have thought a LAN game of this on display would really cheer people up.

I think that's a no-brainer if you have the equipment. ;)

[Breepee]

Mafia works flawless in Wine, it's one of those games that you'll remember for the rest of your life cause of the strong story.

Mafia is to games what the Godfather is to movies: one of a kind.

[ubuntu27]

:D Doom was one of my first thoughts, but when I mentioned it, he went on a tirade against violence and video games, and blah blah blah. I don't think he's ever played it, only heard about it. No matter. I'm not selling Doom, I'm selling Linux. :biggrin:



I have a suggestion:

How about BomberClone (http://bomberclone.sourceforge.net/homepage/)?

Just like the name implies is a clone for the Nitendo's game "Bomber Man"

It is quite cool. But since he is against violence.. I wonder if he will like it...

It's just about couple of character throwing bombs...


PS: It's in the repos.

[ADT]

Beneath a Steel Sky (BASS). You can download it from the repositories. It uses ScummVM to run. It's a point and click adventure game which is very similar to blade runner but with alot of humour. Great game.

Any lucas arts adventure game would be worth getting aswell such as The Dig, Sam and Max: Hit the Road, Full Throttle and the Monkey Island games. They all work great using ScummVM, which you can download from the repositories.

[K.Mandla]

Thanks for all the great ideas. I've gotten lots of great input on this, and way too many new games for my own amusement as well.

I'm going to add my own suggestion to the list ... Kobo Deluxe (http://packages.ubuntu.com/edgy/games/kobodeluxe)! \\:D/

[grojam]

i like tux racer/ planet penguin racer witch unfortunatly only on mandrive linux and my favourite game on ubuntu is supertux

[fl00d]

My top games:
Chromium
glTron
Planet Penguin Racer
Tremulous
Xmoto

:)

[hang3r]

ArmagetronAD, massive community of players, plus one of the most addicting games you will ever play. Possibly one of the best open source games (I have seen) created solely by open source developers.

The version in the repositories is fairly old, best to head over to http://armagetronad.net and grab bin package of the latest version.

It's a multiplayer game, but has a single player mode as well, although the most fun will be had against real players online. There are so many different types of play I wont even try to mention them all here.


Sorry for bumping an old thread, but it's too good not to be mentioned in this list.

[K.Mandla]

I found another one: Starfighter (http://packages.ubuntu.com/edgy/games/starfighter)!

[ADT]

I found another great game for linux. It's called Gate88 and you can get it here (http://www.queasygames.com/gate88/index.html)

It's a cool vector game. The gameplay is a mix of arcade shooter and real time strategy. It's got online play aswell which is great fun.

[charlieg]

OpenTTD (http://www.openttd.org/)

There's tons of games. Just look in the right places. ;)