Freeware Gaming

CygnusZ · April 27, 2003, 15:57

Occasionally I find myself going to the legendary Home of the Underdogs website to take a look at some of the freeware games that had been released since last time I visited. Usually these trips result in my finding one or two gems that had slipped my eyes last time. I thought I'd share a few in this thread, and hopefully some other people will post freeware games that THEY think are increadible too.

First up is a little game called "Blip Blop". This game is a metal slug clone (if you are unfamiliar perhaps Contra will ring a bell) but with a very humerous twist. Your character looks like this:

. The level design and gameplay mechanics are on-par with the hilarious antics of the gaming enviornment.
http://www.loaded-studio.com/bb3-index.html

Another neat little find comes from Japan. This game is called "Vsys" or "TechnoSylph". It is a shooter that takes place over the expanse of a beautifully rendered ocean with white fluffy clouds. The sceneary never changes but evolving your plane from a Baby into a full grown Slyph takes on an almost hypnotic effect. You can find this game here, just click on the "Soft 02" button in the frame.
http://www.nona.dti.ne.jp/~kbz/

The last game which I'll mention is a little time killer called "Orbital Sniper". This appears to be a computer adaptation of the game "Silent Scope", but it instead of sniping you are direct a sattilte laser to kill enemy assassins. Zoom down from a large map of a city to individual blocks and pick off nasty assassins attempting to kill VIPs.
http://sol.planet-d.net/files/OrbitalSniper120.zip

If you search, all of these are also availible at the Home of the Underdogs. Let's hear about some other freeware gems some of you have found.... besides nethack

Felch · April 27, 2003, 16:17

Haven't played any of these yet, but Blip Blop and Orbital Sniper sound pretty cool.

TechnoSylph looks like one of those 1943 style flight shoot em up games. I never really got into them, but they're fun for some random acts of blowing things up.

Jamski · April 27, 2003, 16:38

Scorched Earth - everyone likes a good nuclear war

Especially with Jesus, Hitler, Caesar, etc as "leaderheads" each with hilarious comments. Same location - the "not-to-be-mentioned-because-they're-not-quite-legal-dogs-of-overness"

FreeCiv, of course - need I say more?

And a fabulous shareware RPG is Avernum 3 - even looks fantastic, and has the most superb character design system.

And Nethack I play nearly every day...

-Jam

FrustratedPoet · April 27, 2003, 16:56

Quote:

Originally posted by War of Art
And a fabulous shareware RPG is Avernum 3 - even looks fantastic, and has the most superb character design system.

Sounds very interesting .. can you tell me more?

Jamski · April 27, 2003, 17:12

Its viewed in isometric, turnbased, move around in town in a group, in fights individually, and outside in a "smaller" group. The characters gain skillpoints through experience and these can be allocated to the many various statistics. There are no character classes as such. The statistics you can change affect the statistics you can't change, like to-hit-rolls, spell casting, health, speed, resistance, recognition of objects, how much people like you etc. Each game statistic is affected in a formula by more than one character stat, so you have to think a bit, and make trade-offs. You can also pick up a number of special skills which give you a penalty (if a good skill) or a bonus (if a "bad" skill) to the rate at which you acquire new skill points for your stats. Clear ?

Do a search, and I'm sure you'll find a link.

There's also a "fame" mechanism which has a big effect on the game. Not bad for Shareware, eh?

-Jam

FrustratedPoet · April 27, 2003, 17:14

Sounds awesome. I was sold on it after the first sentence.

I'll definitely give this one a try.

Jamski · April 27, 2003, 17:16

If you liked the "feel" of the old Gold box games you'll love this. It's close to Pool of Darkness in its scope (but isometric instead of the pesudo-3D corridors) Go for it!

-Jam

Urban Ranger · May 4, 2003, 23:49

Wow, they have MicroProse's Axis and Allies as abandonware. It should be a nice little time killer.

Rasbelin · May 5, 2003, 02:15

Quote:

Originally posted by CygnusZ

If you search, all of these are also availible at the Home of the Underdogs. Let's hear about some other freeware gems some of you have found.... besides nethack

Home of the Underdogs is an abandonware site, not freeware site, so try to watch your tongue and stay to the right terminology. There's a difference between these two words too.

Urban Ranger · May 5, 2003, 11:57

They do have freeware and Free Software however.

CygnusZ · May 5, 2003, 14:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Rasbelin

Home of the Underdogs is an abandonware site, not freeware site, so try to watch your tongue and stay to the right terminology. There's a difference between these two words too.

I never called it a freeware site. I simply indicated that I go there to check out the new freeware releases, which they do carry. What's the point of starting up a semantical fight like this anyway?

Nikolai · May 5, 2003, 15:01

I know I have a link to a site with freeware games made by the owner of the site, but since the pages is written in nynorsk(one of the two official written languages in Norway, almost similar to "normal" Norwegian), I guess it isn't worth much for you...

I do like the Commander Keen games, but is that freeware yet, or is it still abadonware?

Then we have Civ...

Rasbelin · May 5, 2003, 15:06

Commander Keen = abandonware

CapTVK · May 5, 2003, 17:01

Free software = software released for free (libre) by the author including source code with specific licence
Freeware = software that's released by the author for free (gratis). It's still copyrighted however
Abandonware = commercial games no longer sold or distributed through standard retail channels. The copyright still stands so it's illegal to distribute them (abandon ware tries to keep a low profile for a reason

) Some old commercial titles have been released however as freeware or even as Free software including source code (this doesn't always include the data files like graphics, music etc...).

CapTVK · May 5, 2003, 17:11

Some of my recent favourites are "grabber"-games where you have to take over the control of other droids like Paradroid and Quazatron.

Here's a nice Freeware remake of Quazatron
Quazatron

And
Freedroid a remake of the original Paradroid. Ver 1.0 is just out!

Ming · May 5, 2003, 19:53

Quote:

Originally posted by CapTVK
Abandonware = commercial games no longer sold or distributed through standard retail channels. The copyright still stands so it's illegal to distribute them (abandon ware tries to keep a low profile for a reason

) Some old commercial titles have been released however as freeware or even as Free software including source code (this doesn't always include the data files like graphics, music etc...).

Please keep this in mind folks... Abondonware discussions aren't allowed either. These games are still illegal to copy.

If you have provided a link to a site that provides Abondonware, I would suggest that you edit them before I check back here.

And I would recommend you keep you discussion to TRUE freeware...

asleepathewheel · May 5, 2003, 20:34

Quote:

Originally posted by War of Art
Scorched Earth -

helluva game/. I can't remember how long ago I played this one, great multiplayer fun for the time.

Also another one, not sure what it was, with worse graphics but more fun IMHO, called tanks or something similar.

love those games.

ravagon · May 5, 2003, 20:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Ming

Please keep this in mind folks... Abondonware discussions aren't allowed either. These games are still illegal to copy.

If you have provided a link to a site that provides Abondonware, I would suggest that you edit them before I check back here.

And I would recommend you keep you discussion to TRUE freeware...

Is this a new policy or somesuch?

I've previously linked/referenced several of the more "respectable" (ie: nothing available that is still sold commercially) abandonware sites and Mark has never objected (and he has oft posted within a few posts of mine so I'm pretty sure he did see the links).

Underdogs in particular has been linked too many times by quite a few people.

CygnusZ · May 5, 2003, 21:37

I don't see how it'd hurt to abide by Ming's request. After all, there's enough dicussion on the subject of the underdogs that somebody could easily find it without having the link explicitly spelled out.

Ming · May 5, 2003, 21:47

Quote:

Originally posted by CygnusZ
I don't see how it'd hurt to abide by Ming's request.

Thanks for the support...

And oh... to everybody else... it wasn't a "request"

Urban Ranger · May 5, 2003, 23:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Ming
Please keep this in mind folks... Abondonware discussions aren't allowed either. These games are still illegal to copy.

It's a grey area.

Some companies have gone poof, and the copyright reverted back to the programmers. Some companies know this, but they have no intention of enforcing the copyrights, since they no longer profit from the games. Some companies are anal rententive, and wouldn't allow others to copy the games even though doing so incurs no actual damage.

Jamski · May 6, 2003, 04:03

Exactly, if a company's gone bankrupt, then you're not really cutting into thier profits by DLing their games. And I'm sure noone has ever been prosecuted for hosting an Abandonware site. Who would do it? The defunct company's lawyers?

Anyway, Ming should not be defyed.

The games Sleepy was thinking of were Tanx and Scorched Tanks. The second is particularly fine with four players, and actually leads to some fist fights in my experience. (With 4 players its always 3 against 1, but one of the three will always turn traitor)

-Jam

Tuberski · May 6, 2003, 18:47

Quote:

Originally posted by War of Art
And a fabulous shareware RPG is Avernum 3 - even looks fantastic, and has the most superb character design system.
-Jam

It's nice but have you played Exile, Exile 2, or Blades of Exile? They are the earlier games in the series.

ACK!

Jamski · May 7, 2003, 03:34

Not yet, but I imagine I'm going to very soon... thanks for the tip

-Jam

Zero · May 7, 2003, 22:01

Wasnt there a talk about modifying copyright issues so that the copyright protection period is actually sensible to modern era?

Naiveplayer · May 7, 2003, 23:30

Funny.

I went to idsoftware.com after remembering Commander Keen (they were the ones that made it). I searched on Commander Keen...and found it! You can buy it for $15 but tech support isn't available.

I also went to apogee.com (I think they were the distributors)...and it's so funny! They make programming tools now instead of distributing games.

Urban Ranger · May 7, 2003, 23:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Calc II
Wasnt there a talk about modifying copyright issues so that the copyright protection period is actually sensible to modern era?

That's one of the hot topics in Off Topics. This is not one of the cases though, since most persons agree that the publishers still rightfully own the copyrights. It's just that they have the choice of letting gamers to freely copy their games once they no longer make any money from the games.

Tuberski · May 8, 2003, 13:09

Quote:

Originally posted by War of Art
Not yet, but I imagine I'm going to very soon... thanks for the tip

-Jam

Actually, I just found out that Avernum 1,2,3 are simply remakes of Exile 1,2,3.

Updated graphics and such, so just get Avernum 1,2. Also, get Blades of Exile.

ACK!

lord of the mark · May 8, 2003, 13:42

Quote:

Originally posted by War of Art
Exactly, if a company's gone bankrupt, then you're not really cutting into thier profits by DLing their games. And I'm sure noone has ever been prosecuted for hosting an Abandonware site. Who would do it? The defunct company's lawyers?

Theoretically the company's creditors, who would then own the copyright (IIUC). IIUC some sites make it a point of offering to pull the game if ANYONE contacts them to object. So it ends up being a question of who has the burden of contacting - the publisher to say dont offer my game for DL - or the site to contact the publisher to get explicit permission.

I agree - dont defy Ming.

lord of the mark · May 8, 2003, 13:45

by the way ming

I assume discussion of purchase of used games IS permitted here? Although theoretically in violation of some EULA's it is hardly low profile, and is in fact supported by some of the largest game retailers like EB, without legal intervention (AFAIK) from publishers.

A lighter shade of grey?