An absolute gem I came across randomly many years ago. Picked up Mewgenics and it left me wishing it had some mechanics from Wesnoth like faster animations (Mewgenics caps at 4x), undo action (at least if the action doesn't trigger any rng/damage behavior), skip enemy turns.
I only wish they added more campaigns into the official lore.
If that's your jam then there's also a (non-open-source) "Hero's Hour" which tickles the old Heroes of Might and Magic stylings, works reasonably well on Xbox, where I've been doing most of my gaming lately.
As far as Open Source gaming success stories, I'd put this up there in the Top 5 for "Original IP and Concept" (if that makes sense). Just a stellar labor of love, worth giving it a shot to play!
only missing point about this game is some of the real word parameters like moral,flanking etc. Maybe a real history mod would be amazing like ancient era or medieval ages.
My only gripe with the game is that healing doesn't give XP to the healing units. This means you need to place them in combat to level up instead of placing them behind the fighters like they are intended to be, and with them initially having low health they are very squishy. I know you can kinda cheese it by reducing a monster to 1-2 HP and then getting them to attack, but it feels like going against their role.
Highly suggest connecting with one of the lead developers, Charles Dang/Vultraz, if you have any C++ jobs in the USA.
He's been a developer on Wesnoth since 2012 but only graduated university in 2024. Unfortunately, it's been an absolutely brutal market for new graduates. Even if you're a maintainer on one of the most popular OSS C++ projects on GitHub.
I work on the mapping team at Zoox (self driving) and we have c++ roles at the entry and mid levels. Requires onsite in the Bay Area though. Charles, if you're reading and would like to chat, I (Carl Chatfield) have sent you a linkedin request.
Thank you for your work on Wesnoth, I spent many hours playing back in the day. There's also a good android port.
I heard about this game many many times due to software developers showcasing it as an example of a good libre videogame. However, I don't know a single person who played it and I have never seen anyone recommending it for its gameplay.
Nethack/Slashem too in case of Roguelikes. Nethack adds tons of Terry Pratchett references as and homage and it's cool but Slashem has tons of weapons, classes, objects, environments...
And supertux2 has both the main campaingn add tons of downloadable ones too.
Ditto with Oolite, tons of community content.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon it's a fork and still has tons of contents and it might be the most playable FLOSS game in Android among Unciv. Oh, and it can be run on potatos.
I loved this game playing on an Arch Thinkpad in university with budget graphics capability.
The best part is being able to pin locations on the map for your teammates, so we were able to plot the adventures and battlegrounds of a goated unit by naming the pins "Ronant's Triumph," "Ronant's Revenge," "Ronant's Folly," and ultimately "Ronant's Last Stand." Great times with a few beers and the lads.
RIP Ronant, Wesnoth will never see another hero of your like again.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 60.7 ms ] threadI only wish they added more campaigns into the official lore.
If that's your jam then there's also a (non-open-source) "Hero's Hour" which tickles the old Heroes of Might and Magic stylings, works reasonably well on Xbox, where I've been doing most of my gaming lately.
As far as Open Source gaming success stories, I'd put this up there in the Top 5 for "Original IP and Concept" (if that makes sense). Just a stellar labor of love, worth giving it a shot to play!
I do wonder how realistic it would be to maybe crowdfund the dev team with 3 weeks of Claude Code in order to achieve a working WASM port?
He's been a developer on Wesnoth since 2012 but only graduated university in 2024. Unfortunately, it's been an absolutely brutal market for new graduates. Even if you're a maintainer on one of the most popular OSS C++ projects on GitHub.
I can't recommend him enough.
edit: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-dang-10994b1b4
So, uh, I'm now one of the leads of Frogatto and boy howdy could I use a job too after a recent mass staff reduction at my day job.
edit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-roberts-b9410654/
Thank you for your work on Wesnoth, I spent many hours playing back in the day. There's also a good android port.
Thanks for that.
(Subjective interpretation, but something like, "I couldn't believe it's free, I would have paid for it anyway.")
https://github.com/00-Evan/shattered-pixel-dungeon
EDIT: forgot to refresh comments, already mentioned
Doom RL (drl) is also amazing
https://drl.chaosforge.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_(series)
In the meantime so many other favorite games have disappeared or become obsolete.
There's no absolute reason great games can't be as immortal as chess. Maybe Wesnoth can be.
Ditto with Oolite, tons of community content.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon it's a fork and still has tons of contents and it might be the most playable FLOSS game in Android among Unciv. Oh, and it can be run on potatos.
Sometimes you don't need AAA graphics.
The best part is being able to pin locations on the map for your teammates, so we were able to plot the adventures and battlegrounds of a goated unit by naming the pins "Ronant's Triumph," "Ronant's Revenge," "Ronant's Folly," and ultimately "Ronant's Last Stand." Great times with a few beers and the lads.
RIP Ronant, Wesnoth will never see another hero of your like again.