Strange Adventures in Infinite Space is a game of space exploration that can be played in under twenty minutes. Its adjustable difficulty and random maps make it very replayable, and for the first time ever, it's completely free. PC and Mac versions are available. [more inside]
posted by CrunchyFrog on Sep 29, 2009 - 37 comments

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall Released as Freeware . The download (Fileshack) requires DOSBox to run; the linked article includes instructions for running the game under DosBox. Also related are DaggerXL, a game engine being developed to update / enhance Daggerfall for modern systems, and The Daggerfall Workshop.
posted by Dark Messiah on Jul 10, 2009 - 32 comments

Freeware Genius is a large review site for various freeware apps, from desktop organizing tools to philosophical flash games . There are literally hundreds of applications reviewed, as well as a few compilations to get you started. [more inside]
posted by scrutiny on Jul 2, 2009 - 11 comments

Walkie Tonky is a physics-based action game which puts you in the shoes of a giant robot invading Earth. Smash and kick your way forward using the robot's every limb to cause mayhem and clear the road ahead. (Download required, from a sort of funky filehosting site. Probably Windows only, but I'm not sure.) [more inside]
posted by Caduceus on Jan 19, 2009 - 9 comments

Spelunky is a (Windows-only) game that blends roguelike elements with a platform game reminiscent of La Mulana or the original Spelunker. Add this to the pile of fantastic indie platformers, I guess. [via]
posted by sonic meat machine on Dec 31, 2008 - 8 comments

Alien Breed + arena shooter + online highscores = Alien Deathmatch 2. Windows only.
posted by pancreas on Dec 18, 2008 - 7 comments

Nearly a month ago jbickers made a post that mentioned the TIGsource Demakes competition. The competition is over, and the winners have been announced. All of these are playable. Most are for Windows, except for those that are Flash or something else:
1. Soundless Mountain II (Atari 2600 Silent Hill) (from previous post)
2. Gang Garrison II (Kyntt Stories-like Team Fortress 2, complete with multiplayer)
3. Aquarium (NES-ish Aquaria)
4. Little Girl in Underland (Soviet McGee's Alice)
5. House Globe (Homeworld)
6. S.T.A.C.K.E.R. (Nuclear Tetris)
7. Squish
(Crush is a PSP game where the player can switch the world between a 2D and 3D representation. Squish is a game in which the player switches between a 2D and a 1D representation. See for yourself.) 8. (tie) Fillauth and Advanced Set The Rope On Fire Cartridge (an Intellivision-like remake of this, previously mentioned)
9. Sexy Seaside Vollyball (NSFW, pixelated breasts) (Sinclair Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Vollyball)
10. Macarena of the Missing (A thematically-appropriate demake of Limbo of the Lost)

Lots more after the jump! [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Oct 7, 2008 - 29 comments

Muslim Massacre. Satire or just for shock value? You decide. Windows only.
posted by pancreas on Sep 9, 2008 - 57 comments

It's not often that a freeware game can truly be called a masterpiece but Daniel Remar has finally released Iji, an action platformer with touches of RPG, in which you control a female heroine with a whole lot of engineered superhuman abilities. What makes this game so good is the sheer of polish that has been put into the production and the large amount of choices there are to make. You can choose what abilities to level up with, whether or not to bother killing enemies and the path you take through each sprawling area, which can effect the outcome of the unfolding story.
posted by pancreas on Sep 5, 2008 - 25 comments

Artweaver is a freeware "natural media" paint program, of the same type as Corel Painter. Natural media means it uses tools that are intended to simulate actual art tools, like oils, pastels, pencils and so forth. It's not as feature-rich as Painter, but it's getting better. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jul 23, 2008 - 22 comments

Oskari Tammelin picks up where he left off. Jeskola Buzz, a flexible and formidable (and free) piece of music composition software created in the late 90's by Oskari, had its growth unexpectedly stunted by a hard drive crash. Oskari indicated no immediate desire to continue the project at the time, but users of the software were so enamored with it they continued to create plug-ins, enhancements and hacks to pick up where the program left off. Oskari made the replay code available to those who wanted to develop software around the Buzz engine (for a price) and soon a number of Buzz clones followed, including variations for Mac and Linux. And so the Buzz community ran...until last week...
posted by deusdiabolus on Jun 8, 2008 - 22 comments

Developers Helm, Fuzzpilz, Ptoing, DarkStalkey, Lackey and Ghormak formed indie game development team, Umlautgames, around the 85% completion mark of Thrustburst. A stylish and beautiful take on an old game called UrthWurm (scroll down), Thrustburst is now complete.
posted by pancreas on May 24, 2008 - 4 comments

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 on Jan 20, 2008 - 19 comments

Many freeware games were released in 2007. How to seperate the crap from the good stuff? It can be a little hard admittedly but this thread on the Tigsource forums might help you. With around 30 categories (and a winner announced for each) ranging from 'Best Shooter' to 'Best Bosses,' there's probably something there to please just about anyone.
posted by pancreas on Jan 4, 2008 - 20 comments

Alex Adventure and Space Barnacle are both freeware platformers that have small cult followings but have possibly been overlooked by a wider audience.
posted by pancreas on Jan 2, 2008 - 11 comments

Chromatron 1, 2, 3 and 4 just became freeware. In these little standalone puzzle games for PC and Mac, you align splitters, benders, and mirrors to direct colored laserbeams into like-colored targets. Enjoyably difficult, and an example of great game design. [more inside]
posted by ikkyu2 on Nov 28, 2007 - 20 comments

Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw (previously), he of "Chzo mythos" and "Zero Punctuation" fame, has released a new game: The Art of Theft, a heist adventure in grand retro style.
posted by Iridic on Nov 23, 2007 - 17 comments

La-Mulana is a Japanese homebrew game, with English translation available, for Windows that exhaustively replicates the experience of playing on an MSX home computer, a machine not sold in the U.S. but was contemporary with the likes of the Commodore 64 and Amiga in other markets. (Fun fact: the "MS" in MSX stands for Microsoft!) Although it looks very much like retro warez, La-Mulana is freeware. It is also notoriously long and difficult, with a character who controls like old-school Castlevania, enemies that will frequently knock you around like a rag doll, puzzles of amazing deviousness, and traps that think nothing of walling up a player without escape, or forever restricting access to certain powerups.

That said, the game does have charm, and is basically a love letter to the MSX hardware. Those who want to see it without beating their hands bloody against the keyboard can watch a guy play through the whole game in 85 installments, cursing at it all along the way.
posted by JHarris on Jun 4, 2007 - 14 comments

5 Days a Stranger. 7 Days a Skeptic. Trilby's Notes. 6 Days a Sacrifice. The great retro-fun of the Chzo Mythos adventure games, all of which are freeware.
posted by jbickers on May 16, 2007 - 6 comments

RavenViewer. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers free sound analysis software that allows you to simultaneously listen to and watch spectograms of animal communication, such as the uncanny mimicry of a lovesick Satin Bowerbird or the chilling call of the Common Loon. If birds aren't your bag, there's lots of other animal sounds (and stunning video) to explore.
posted by melissa may on Dec 13, 2006 - 13 comments

Sid Meier's 1990 DOS game Railroad Tycoon has been released as a free download. There's no need to worry if you don't actually have a vintage DOS machine available, as it's packaged with an Windows installer that includes the full game, PDF manual, and DOSBox emulator. [via]
posted by Rhomboid on Nov 22, 2006 - 31 comments

The Twelfth Annual Interactive Fiction Competition begins today. Non-contestants can take part in the proceedings by grabbing a torrent of the competing games and judging them over the next six weeks. If you're new to interactive fiction, Emily Short's "How to Play" will acquaint you with its conventions. And if you're enough of an I.F. expert that even a full slate of Comp games won't satisfy you, you can find every competition entry since 1995 archived at Baf's Guide.
posted by Iridic on Oct 1, 2006 - 3 comments

Free Computer Version of Board and Card Games with Artificial Intelligence Computer Opponents and with Screen Shots is exactly what is says. Now those of you who've had their interest piqued by such games as Settlers of Catan or others mentioned in the Top 100 Boardgames thread can try games such as these without ponying up the thirty bucks for a big box of boards and pieces.
posted by jtron on Jul 26, 2006 - 10 comments

400 FREEWARES Direct links I just wish it was categorised.
posted by rinkjustice on May 30, 2006 - 18 comments

Freetar Hero - Create and play any song on your PC. In development.
posted by mrgrimm on May 17, 2006 - 30 comments

FlashMute is an essential Windows utility to mute Flash and other sounds from the browser.
posted by Sharcho on Apr 4, 2006 - 15 comments

Safely install software in a virtual layer. Sick of buggy or beta software screwing with your Windows install? Altiris SVS provides a free and nifty alternative to the software diet by letting you install software into protected layers which can be removed or restored with a single click. (It's like a thinly-sliced version of VMware.) Altiris's Juice site lists lots of interesting tricks such as easily rolling back software patches. Pre-layered software installs available here.
posted by yoz on Mar 30, 2006 - 16 comments

Mono wants you to have a seizure. Fast paced 2D shoot-em-up where your goal is to paint the screen white (or black) by shooting aggressive blobs of red, blue and green. (Free downloadable exe) [More Inside]
posted by boo_radley on Mar 13, 2006 - 16 comments

It has always amazed me what people will do for free and how much innovation goes on outside of the commercial videogaming industry. Gamehippo, Caiman, Acid-Play, Noodan and Planet Freeplay collectively have thousands upon thousands of freeware games of varying quality, with everything from Super Mario clones to completely original titles.
posted by pancreas on Feb 24, 2006 - 3 comments

The Portable Freeware Collection tracks free Windows software that can be launched from a USB flash drive with no installation. It advises on how to prepare and launch the software (usually as simple as saving and double clicking an exe file), and if/where settings are written to the computer. I'm particularly keen to get to grips with the Pimmy email, newsgroup and RSS client; the KM@ web browser (portable versions of Firefox and Opera are also available); and organizational joygasm NeoMem.
posted by nthdegx on Jan 3, 2006 - 23 comments

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities There are a lot of great freeware products out there. Many are as good or even better than their commercial alternatives. This list features my personal pick of the "best of the best."
posted by Postroad on Nov 25, 2005 - 45 comments

"We believe everything should be free!" Oolsi is a new zine about free tools, self-learning and living free. Won't somebody just make a new Whole Earth Catalog already?
posted by mingusmingus on Oct 25, 2005 - 31 comments

Temptation Blocker So, have a major deadline looming or ripe opportunity closing and just don’t have time to waste playing Half Life 2 or checking Bloglines one last time? Well then, add Half Life 2 and Firefox to the list of programs you want to block in Temptation Blocker, set the timer for how long you want to block them and then hit the “Get Work Done!” button. [Windows freeware]
posted by srboisvert on Aug 3, 2005 - 25 comments

Windows users: are you on the lookout for good free software? Worried about spyware, adware, malware, hijackers, or just plain lousy code that likes to play havoc with your system? Look no further. It's pricelessware to the rescue!
posted by MotorNeuron on Jan 23, 2005 - 39 comments

"Home of the Underdogs is a non-profit site dedicated to the preservation and promotion of underrated PC games (and a few non-PC games) of all ages: good games that deserve a second chance after dismal sales or critical reviews that we feel are unwarranted."
posted by Hildago on Apr 4, 2004 - 27 comments

Lido STF is a freeware serif font of sufficient quality to be used instead of Times. Are there any other worthy freeware alternatives to the main system fonts? (via Lines and Splines)
posted by ecvgi on Jul 16, 2001 - 19 comments

MS VP Challenges GPL on Moral Grounds In Speech
Admitting that the company is feeling pressure from open source, free alternatives, Microsoft's Craig Mundie, lecturing at NYU, will speak out against G.P.L., which he considers impractical, dangerous and morally wrong. Stallman is quoted as saying something ludicrously funny about the American revolution.
posted by rschram on May 3, 2001 - 14 comments

Forbes.com suggests you IT people use shareware or freeware office packages instead of that expensive Microsoft stuff.
posted by jhiggy on May 2, 2001 - 14 comments

The Opera Browser is now ad-supported freeware. What does this mean for Internet Explorer and Netscape?
posted by milnak on Dec 10, 2000 - 23 comments