If you’re interested in games for a Linux platform, then you know that game probably is open source, free from cost in most cases, and free to modify. The latter attribute is why Linux games are so popular…a developer can take a great game and make it even better, share it with the world, and become a hero. So, why waste your time and money on proprietary games when so many great Linux games are available?

Syntensity isn’t a single game, but rather a platform that can run all kinds of 3D games. There are already a few games, and anybody can create their own. The main game is a multiplayer first/third person shooter (sort of like Quake 3 Arena), and there is also a simple drawing game (in which multiple people can draw and see what each other are drawing in realtime).

I’m tired of people who are afraid to switch to Linux because of its so called “lack of games, or at least good ones.” What I think is they just want the games they like ported to Linux instead of trying new ones. Or maybe it’s because the games are free and that is already a sign the game is bad, but I’m beginning to think quite the opposite.

Some weeks back, I wrote a blog entry entitled "Game Makers, Please Investigate the GNU/Linux Niche". The article was aimed at computer game developers and asked game makers to investigate whether porting many of their popular games to GNU/Linux might be profitable and successful venture.

If you are exhausted from playing your favorite FPS games like Urban Terror or Alien Arena, how about you relax a little and play some good old "platform games" on your Linux box. I have here a list of some great free and open source platform games that you may enjoy.

Alright - enough speculation and assumptions, lets look at some cold hard numbers. Two recent games that had successful Linux ports would be 2DBoys World of Goo and Frictional Games enumbra Series. 2DBoy reported that since they released their Linux port of the game 10% of their total game sales have been for the Linux platform.

Alien Arena, Wormux and Crack Attack and a lot of other free cross-platform games will be found in this comprehensive list. Some games may not work on all operating systems but most of them surely will. There are also games in my list that aren’t true Open Source software, but most of them are and all the games are at least completely free to download and play.

In my last post one of the the feedback responses I received quipped that Linux was not ready for everyone. Among the many reason was that people wanted to play the latest games and that the latest games don’t come on the Linux platform.

"...So when I speak of GNU / Linux as the ultimate gaming platform, what I mean is that games should all be made to work on a standardized software platform. This standard software platform should not be able to be controlled by any particular company..."