This may be an unpopular opinion, but I've been preaching to friends for years that FOSS versions of Starbound and/or Terraria would be a big hit.
The Sims.
It will never happen but one can dream
There are actually a few projects doing exactly that, at least for the early entries;
- FreeSO - Open-source version of The Sims: Online but with a bunch of modern improvements, main server shut down at the end of last year
- Simitone - Single-player interface for FreeSO
- FreeSims - Open-source engine for The Sims
- OpenTS2 - Open-source implementation of The Sims 2 engine in Unity
Development pace for them is somewhat slow due apparent lack of interest - and a healthy dose of fear of EA interference - though.
Those are more like engine reimplementations rather than alternatives, which explains the fear of EA interference.
It's a pity so many open source games go in that direction. I honestly wouldn't mind even if the graphics were ugly placeholders or it took a minecraft-style pixelated approach.
EA are pretty smart here to kill any community interest in developing a free clone, by letting their end users mod the main game very easily.
Hard to compete with that
Same! There are almost no proprietary alternatives either!
It's funny that the first comment is about The Sims 😅 My wife and I are working on a life simulation game in Rust using Bevy. I've been working on it for almost a year, and feeling a we are feeling a bit demotivated recently. So right now I took a small "break" and focus on improving crates that I used inside the game (input management and networking). I know the project is quite ambitious, but I've always wanted to create something like this. Seeing this many upvotes on your comment is quite encouraging 🙂
I post my progress at [email protected] and here is the GitHub page. The project name is a placeholder. I haven't managed to come up with a nice name yet.
Kerbal Space Program 2
This is my choice as well. After how much of a disaster KSP2 was, it should be turned over to the public for ownership and control.
It can't be worth very much as IP anymore, as they've killed all the goodwill the brand had. So the least they could do is give back to the community.
To be fair, it doesn't have to literally be KSP2. It just needs to be a Kerbal-like space exploration game with an engine not subject to the various problems KSP has.
KSA (kitten space agency) might be the next thing
Factorio
Not a clone, but imo still very worth mentioning: Mindustry is an automation game with a heavy focus on factory building and a sort of tower defense aspect. The community is very active and there seems to be a lot of variety on multiplayer as well.
Stardew valley and kind of in topic. I’d like to see an mmo that is federated.
A federated MMO would be interesting! But cheating might be a concern. Anyone could create a server with fully-equipped character and just federate.
But maybe servers could whitelist trusted servers? 🤔
If you actually do mean "MMO" and not traditional "MMORPG", then there are skill-based games that would not necessarily depend on "fully-equipped characters" and could be made to be "Massively Multiplayer Online".
You could have an MMO puzzle game where each federated server can host puzzles that other players have to solve.. and where players can create their own puzzles for others to solve (something in the spirit of "the Castle Doctrine" game, for example, but with fixed gold for everyone).
A federated mmo could only work if there are no significant attributes/stats to keep track of, or if said attributes are only accepted from bubbles/whitelisted servers. In the end, it'd be something like Opensimulator, which is a FOSS Second Life of sorts.
I'm curious what you think making SD FOSS would add. Imo, it's a standout example of a game that hits way above it's weight class and price point, and a dev that just won't stop adding content.
It’s more about longevity. If it’s open source, the game could be ported to modern systems in the future if the dev stopped updating it.
It would also allow for bigger mods, but the dev has really worked with mods already so maybe not too big of a change.
Cities skyline, rimworld, random one neopets, lowkey aqworlds, idk I really liked using aqworlds as an afk auto battler chatroom
Federated neopets! Anyone can run an instance but progress and data is shared across instances so if one goes down you can just hop servers?
Probably doable with an plugin for Hubzilla.
My twelve year old self is screaming in excitement at this.
Skyrim and the Sims. Both are pretty much mod platforms anyway.
Sims
No promises, but I actually working on one 😅 See this comment.
SSBM Melee, straight clone.
Not a player of the SSB games. But I would love a straight clone of Double Dash keeping the specific physics of things and simple kart choices like they had. The love of the way things worked and feel for that are on par with how SSDM fans love that game!
For real, a Double Dash remake would go so hard.
Phasmophobia & other multiplayer horror games of sorts (eg. ghost watchers, Labyrinthine, Pacify, devour, etc). I don't think there's any multiplayer horror game like any of those in the open source world.
I searched and I think there was at least one attempt at the idea (openphobia), but I don't think it ever had a playable release before it was abandoned.
Gran Tourismo 2 & 3 and Unreal Tournament. Basically recreations in modern engines.
Those games defined the late 90s/early 00s for me.
https://github.com/dpjudas/SurrealEngine
But Xonotic is also a pretty good Unreal Tournament like game.
Unreal Tournament would be interesting since that would mean a basic Unreal Engine 1 implementation which could probably be extended to cover e.g. Deus Ex as well. And also blockbusters like Wheel of Time, XCOM: Enforcer, and Duke Nukem Forever. Look, they can't all be winners.
But yeah. Linux-native UT1 and DX with proper support for modern hardware sounds quite appealing.
Freelancer!
The Librelancer project is working on this.
Shut the front door! That's amazing, thanks for linking it.
Balatro
Train Sim World, yes it will sort of run via Proton, but it properly ported and optimized for Linux with fully opensource routes would be amazing. The commercial version has to be one of the most expensive games to collect a large number of routes. Ideally I would want it to support fully FOSS and commercially sold routes.
Something like Tetris Effect: Connected, Breakout: Recharged or Space Invaders Extreme. Oldschool classic games, but made with fancy new bells and whistles.
Binding of Isaac
AoE2 Expansion.
Woukd really like to see FOSS gaming community around that as well.Earth Defense Force. Something where a single player or a bunch of them level city blocks with overpowered equipment in order to stop giant insects, aliens, robots and whatever the hell else from destroying the city
https://shp.itch.io/earth-invasion-99
Rather basic game-jam title though.
Never heard about it, but looks cool!
EDF4 and EDF5 go on sale every once in a while on Steam. Both games can feel extremely repetitive, so ymmv. 4 has the best story (it's 100% grade B-movie cheese) and the best soldier song, 5 has significant quality of life improvements and is overall better to play and fuck around, but tries to take its story more seriously (though it has one of the best lines to my knowledge, when the first frog aliens come along)
Shadow President/CyberJudas. I know that it's an extremely unknown series, but I would kill for a spiritual successor that doesn't need dosbox. I'd also love to be able to play as other nations.
A president simulator? This sounds great! Never heard about these games, thanks for sharing!
Elastomania
- Super Street Fighter 2
- Street Fighter 3
- Starcraft: Brood War
- Warcraft 3
- Age of Empires 2
- Age of Mythology
- Grand Theft Auto 3/VC/SA
- Sim City 2000
- Counter-Strike 1.6
- Apex Legends
Magic Carpet and Startopia
