It's that time of year - free games all around.

January 20, 2008 1:42 AM

It seems that everyone wants to post their toplists for free game recommendations at the moment. First up is Gnomes' Lair with 100 excellent free games in bloom. Can't forget 1up with 101 Free Games 2008. And last but still well worth checking out is Indiegames' (formerly Indygamer) Best Freeware Arcade Games 2007 and Best Freeware Adventure Games 2007. If that isn't enough for you, also worth taking a gander at is Javet's Freeware Game of the Day thread on Tigsource.
posted by pancreas (19 comments total)

I've been replaying old games, being bored and hoping for something good to come out. These are perfect starting points. Thanks!
posted by Zack_Replica at 2:14 AM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Thanks for contributing to the steady decline in my productivity.
posted by Artaud at 2:33 AM on January 20, 2008

This is a great post, thanks!
posted by Edgewise at 6:50 AM on January 20, 2008

Also, previously
posted by broady at 7:51 AM on January 20, 2008

That was worth it just for Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself).
posted by sciurus at 8:23 AM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Best of 2007 from jay is games
posted by empath at 8:38 AM on January 20, 2008

are there any lists of good free mac games?
posted by empath at 9:17 AM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Here is MacFiltered version of the list under the first link: (Either has Mac OS X version, tries to use platform-independent java or is browser/flash based)

Glorious Adventure Games
Snowblind Aces

Lovely Retro Remakes
Munchmates (Not sure about this, claims to be Java)

Strategy Games of all kinds
UFO: Alien Invasion
Invade Earth
MegaMek
The Battle for Wesnoth

Intellectual First Person Shooters
Cube 2: Sauerbraten
The World of Padman
OpenArena (Older version)

Arcade-adventure action thingies
One Must Fall 2097 (requires DOSBox)

Role Playing Games of the SFW kind
Zangband
The Kingdom of Loathing

Unique weirdlings
The Passage
Pac-Txt
Frets On Fire

Puzzlers to... err... puzzle you
Avalanche

Massive MORPGs
Discworld MUD
A Tale in the Desert III
posted by Free word order! at 11:01 AM on January 20, 2008 [6 favorites]

I don't think I did anything to deserve Punishment.
posted by sonic meat machine at 11:09 AM on January 20, 2008

Thanks, I'm giving a look at MegaMek, Wesnoth, C-Evo, and Transcendence.

I really, really want to like UFO: Alien Invasion but the thing that made X-Com so great was the destructible terrain and buildings. Until they get that implemented it will always be a pale shadow of its forebear. No destructible terrain = failure.
posted by Justinian at 12:13 PM on January 20, 2008

Wesnoth is worth one play-through, but I don't think I'll play it again.
posted by sciurus at 1:05 PM on January 20, 2008

Transcendence readme: "Transcendence version 0.98 is a beta release. Some of the game is still not finished and in particular you may find that it is not that much fun".

Gee.

Guess I'll pin my hopes on MegaMek for now.
posted by Justinian at 1:09 PM on January 20, 2008

The Cube2 / Sauerbraten engine looks pretty good, and the license is nice if you want to produce your own game based on it.

Does anyone know of a Castlevania: Symphony of the Night clone? I would give my left pinky (or $20, whichever is less) for that. I'm almost tempted to write one myself, if no one else is going to do it.
posted by Pyry at 2:20 PM on January 20, 2008

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin goes for $20 (I don't know if they accept pinkies), if you've got a DS. There were also three games for the GBA, two of which (Harmony, Aria) also followed the Symphony of the Night paradigm.
posted by ersatz at 2:35 PM on January 20, 2008

Toribash consumes ungodly amounts of my time.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 4:11 PM on January 20, 2008

Transcendence readme: "Transcendence version 0.98 is a beta release. Some of the game is still not finished and in particular you may find that it is not that much fun".

Transcendence was fun when I was playing 0.96something.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 4:57 PM on January 20, 2008

This thread introduced me to Knytt Stories, and for that I will forever be grateful. What an astonishing game!
posted by jbickers at 5:43 PM on January 20, 2008

Transcendence is a total blast.
posted by infinitywaltz at 10:59 PM on January 20, 2008

No list of free games is complete without the CHZO Mythos, by Zero Punctuation's Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. If you dig Lovecraftian horror blended with old-school slashers and high-quality point and click adventures, start here.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:54 AM on January 21, 2008