Top Futuristic Open Source Racing Games on Linux
| 1:27 AM

By On 1:27 AM


F-Zero and Wipeout set the standard for the futuristic sci-fi racing games genre and inspire many game developers.

Over the years, four projects of that genre were started and developed to a playable state that are now open source code:




H-Craft by Irrgheist is a free sci-fi racer with IAP on Android. It is built with the Irrlicht engine and was recently released as free software with freeware data.

While gameplay is simple without pickups, boosts or weapons, the campaign keeps it interesting. The 180°-Turns used in H-Craft level design are very refreshing to the genre.




CoreBreach is a commercial anti-gravity racing game with combat gameplay. There is a freeware dataset that allows compiling and playing a simpler-looking version.

Being an Objective C project, it was unusual to compile for me on latest Arch Linux but possible. Campaign mode, weapons and split-screen multiplayer make it cover many bases.




Racer is the only project with 100% free as in freedom data, yet unfortunately it does not compile on current Arch Linux.

Of our four projects, this is the only that has the classic drive-over boost fields.




Ecksdee is the oldest of the bunch and has challenging time trial single-player gameplay.

There are weapon pickups but without AI or human competitors they serve no purpose yet.



Project Comparison



 H-Craft CoreBreach Racer* Ecksdee
Latest Version 2015-02-23 (1.3) 2012-11-30 (git) 2010-10-10 (r349) 2006-11-24 (0.0.9)
Campaign Mode yes yes no no
Split-Screen Multiplayer no yes yes no
Weapons no yes no yes
AI yes yes no no
Gamepad Support yes yes yes no
Menu UI Look good ok good ok
Music yes yes no yes
Sounds yes yes yes yes
Linux Builds or Compiling not tested, build used complicated but compiles fails fails, win32 build/wine used
Art Asset License(s) Mostly no-modify-no-distribute no-distribution, GPL, CC-BY 3.0 CC-BY-SA 3.0 GPL, CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-NC-ND
Is It Cool? yes yes yes yes
* Could not build racer, reviewing from long term memory



Related projects


Stunt Rally has a F-Zero-esque antigrav vehicles and futuristic levels but primarily it's a car racing game. The default physics don't seem to be working for a futuristic racing style.




The cool Blender Game Engine project RGP has it's .blend file available but it does not have license information. The .blend contains no audio and only one level without AI.




HexGL is pretty but has no sound, no ai, only one level and is CC 3.0 BY-NC licensed (including code) at the moment. If anybody is interested in contributing: the developer indicated interest in the MIT license.



TheRush seem to be Windows-only and does not run in Wine.

Godot Winter Game Jam
| 9:13 AM

By On 9:13 AM

Godot winter icon

A game dev jam to create a winter-themed open source game was community-initiated at the Godot forums. The (vote-determined) winner will get a budget of USD 50 to have donated to an open source project of their choice.

What is Godot?

Godot editor

Godot is a game engine. No wait, it's actually a game development IDE with its own Lua-based scripting language.

As far as I can tell, it's a promising project that is a bit buggy, especially when it comes to mobile exports. It has some UI flaws (subjectivity warning) but still, open source Godot is more appealing than proprietary Unity 3D.

If you want to try making a game in Godot, I recommend this official tutorial as a starting point. Good luck & great success to you!

What else?

Another way to support Godot: "like" it as a Unity 3D alternative on alternativeTo.

Terminal Overload 0.3 released + support the developer on Patreon
| 8:54 AM

By On 8:54 AM

The very innovative and awesome looking (+ fully FOSS) multiplayer FPS Terminal-Overload got a new release today. Edit: By now there is actually already a 0.4.0 release, get it here.

Charged x-jump on the new ETH5 map (3rd person camera turned on)
One of the new features is a charged jump that lets one take big leaps to reach good sniping spots or evade an enemy etc. Other changes for this release:
- New map: ETH5
- Prettier GUI
- Replace re-jumping with instant & charged x-jump.
- Tweak CAT movement speeds.
- Simplify disc controls.
- ETH mode: Each class only has one type of offensive disc.
- SMG changes: Increase firing rate, decrease damage, shorter range.
- MGL changes: Remove recoil, decrease firing rate, fire only one projectile.
- MG changes: Projectiles are affected by gravity.
- Remove etherboard from class #4 (Minigunner) loadout.
- Remove SG2 from class #2 loadout.
- Improve responsiveness of mouse look while in CAT form.
- New projectile visuals (except discs & grenade).
The new GUI looks like this:
New menu graphics with options window
While it is is quite awesome looking and playable already, it obviously still needs a bit of further development. Since the funds of an earlier crowd-funding drive have been used up, the developer is now looking for other ways to survive. If you like what he is doing, you can head over to his new Patreon page to support him with a monthly payment.

Yes, YOU! Right NOW! ;)

Developer contributions to code and art are of course also welcome.

Annex:CTW RTS version 4.0 close to release
| 12:06 AM

By On 12:06 AM

The MegaGlest based RTS Annex: Conquer The World is very close to a major update as version 4.0. Strait from the developer's mouth:

Yes! We are so close we can almost taste it.
He also posted a game-play video of the current development version:


He also recently stated that the new release will be fully FOSS, i.e. not only GPL source-code but also all artwork under a FOSS compatible creative-commons license (most likely CC-by-SA).

It's just a pity that the new much improved GUI code from MegaGlest seems to be not yet ready for the release.

P.S.: Also check out this Tower Defense mod for MegaGlest.

First public release of Terminal Overload!
| 12:59 PM

By On 12:59 PM

You might remember the crowd-sourcing campaign from the beginning of this year to make a fully FOSS remake of a rather unique game.

Well, a bit later than promised, but really awesome never the less:


Note that this is a really early alpha and most of the art still has placeholder quality. It is quite playable multiplayer game already though, and there is a Linux and a Windows version for download on their website.

Please don't forget to give feedback on our forums (also if you are interested in helping out).

This is by the way to my knowledge the first FOSS game utilizing the open-sourced version of the Torque3D engine and also the only one that uses the work in progress Linux port so far.

Support the development of the Terra Centauri RTS
| 9:13 AM

By On 9:13 AM

Not exactly hot of the press, but the developer behind the MegaGlest based RTS Annex: Conquer the world has started a new project:

In a lonely planet circulating a distant star, a war of survival rages on. There a sentient race, the Valkyries struggle to protect their world and themselves against the parasitic organisms Devourers. Explore large maps for resources, treasure, and other advantages to fight back the relentless horde of Devourers.

Terra Centauri: The Last Stand is a new unique MG based game. While game shares a similar art style to Annex, this game has radically different gameplay and much higher quality models.



He is also running a funding campaign on Patreon and you can give feedback on the Megaglest forums.

Speaking of Megaglest: while development has slowed down a bit lately, the work on the CE-GUI based new menu and HUD is looking great.