# Single Player Open Source Gaming **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [April 7, 2014, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579 "2014-04-07T19:52:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/1 "2014-04-07T19:52:40Z")
I finally got a decent laptop and now I want to get a couple of games to use on it. Right now all I have for gaming is Minecraft. I don’t have time to commit hours to gaming so i want something I can pick up and put down as needed. Back in the good old days I had some fun with the original Wolfenstein and similar FPS, dungeon crawl type, shoot’em ups. Now when I go looking everything out there is an MMO or, at best, has a limited single player “training” mode where you can shoot monsters offline. Does anybody know of an open source game that has a decent single player experience? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/2 "2014-04-07T20:14:44Z")
Not sure what you mean by open source; if you don’t have much time for gaming, you probably don’t have a lot of time to spend re-coding the game, so your open source may not be my open source. That said, I have been having a lot of fun with Rift, which is free to play. It works well as a single-player game in spite of being an MMO; I have gotten characters up to max level and had a ton of fun in the game without being in a guild or groups or anything. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/3 "2014-04-07T20:14:46Z")
[Dungeon Crawl is still around.](http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/) If you liked the space trading game [Elite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game)), there’s an open source remake called [Oolite](http://www.oolite.org/). There’s also [Vega Strike](http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/), sort of a single-player open source EVE Online, but it doesn’t like my computer for some reason. Keeps crashing. ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/4 "2014-04-07T20:19:12Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Not sure what you mean by open source; if you don’t have much time for gaming, you probably don’t have a lot of time to spend re-coding the game, so your open source may not be my open source. > > That said, I have been having a lot of fun with Rift, which is free to play. It works well as a single-player game in spite of being an MMO; I have gotten characters up to max level and had a ton of fun in the game without being in a guild or groups or anything. Some examples: Urban Terror [Urban Terror](http://www.urbanterror.info/home/) OpenArena [OpenArena EX - オープンアリーナ](http://www.openarena.ws/smfnews.php) AssaultCube [http://assault.cubers.net/](http://assault.cubers.net/) Red Eclipse [http://www.redeclipse.net/](http://www.redeclipse.net/) ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/5 "2014-04-07T20:21:49Z")
Yea, I don’t really get how the rest of your post has to do with games being Open Source. I think the only open source game I’ve played was Battle for Wesnoth. Its a turn based strategy game, and is pretty fun if you like that type of game. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/6 "2014-04-07T20:24:25Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Yea, I don’t really get how the rest of your post has to do with games being Open Source. **Pábitel** is using “Open Source” to mean “Free”. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/7 "2014-04-07T20:31:10Z")
[Wikipedia has a list.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_video_games) ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/8 "2014-04-07T20:56:28Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > **Pábitel** is using “Open Source” to mean “Free”. Ah, there we go. Rift is probably not free, but I bought it when it was not free to play, so I’m not sure any more. Might be that it’s free to play with a free download and only mildly crushing pressure to BUY MORE STUFF in game, as opposed to SW:TOR which had huge pressure. ---
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/9 "2014-04-08T04:32:33Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > **Pábitel** is using “Open Source” to mean “Free”. But the two terms mean completely different things…or don’t, depending on what you mean by “free”. If you mean free as in “no charge”, then the terms are not identical. There is nothing stopping anyone from charging money for distributing open source software, unless the license explicitly forbids it (in which case, it probably doesn’t fit into the second meaning of free–see below). In fact, you’re perfectly within your rights to legally acquire open source software for no charge and turn around and sell it to someone else if nothing in your original acquisition of that software prevents you from doing so. Though, good luck trying to sell something easily acquired by others by other means at no cost. The GNU project encourages people to charge whatever fee for distribution and support they feel is appropriate for software released under the GNU license. However, if you mean “free” as in freedom from restrictions, which is what GNU is about, then any software designated as “free” in that case is open source by definition. ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/10 "2014-04-08T13:58:41Z")
I’m not really sure what the confusion is. I genuinely am interested in Open Source projects. Part of that is because Open Source tends to be free to play, part of it is because I feel that open source development tends to move in an ever more playable and entertaining direction because the motive of development is the creators’ own enjoyment. There are a ton of Open Source MMOs out there, a few of which I gave above as examples. I am not interested in multiplayer though because I don’t tend to spend much time gaming. I am looking for something that I can fire up for half an hour and wreak some havoc. I’m not looking for validation/condemnation of my lifestyle, a debate on the “true meaning” of Open Source, or a debate on whether I should just go out and buy something off the shelf. I just want to know if anyone has played any good Open Source FPS games that don’t require logging on to a server. If you want to have a different discussion feel free to start your own thread. ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/11 "2014-04-08T14:11:32Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > [Wikipedia has a list.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_video_games) Thanks, I have found innumerable lists. I am looking for recommendations. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/12 "2014-04-08T14:21:12Z")
Have you looked into mods? I’m sure there’s a billion Source Engine/Half-Life 2 mods by now with a single player focus. Mods tend to be Open Source by their nature. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/13 "2014-04-08T15:06:35Z")
Out of the games on that Wikipedia list, I’ve played and enjoyed Battle for Wesnoth, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, and OpenTTD. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/14 "2014-04-08T20:57:07Z")
[8 Awesome Free Open-Source Games You Can Enjoy On Windows, Mac and Linux](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-awesome-free-opensource-games-enjoy-windows-mac-linux/) [Top 5 best (free) open source games](http://apcmag.com/top_5_best_free_open_source_games.htm) (Actually 6; I have #6 around somewhere.) [http://www.maynedon.com/game-reviews/](http://www.maynedon.com/game-reviews/) has some open source reviews. ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/single-player-open-source-gaming/685579/15 "2014-04-09T02:55:45Z")
I like the RPG Tales of Maj’Eyal. It isn’t open-source, but it’s free and fun. It won’t challenge your hardware though. It’s pretty easy to play in chunks.