FreeGameDev

Which games that are freely licensed both in code and art are good for being exhibited at conferences and parties?

Relevant factors are:
1) Single-device/screen multiplayer support.
2) Easy to pick up, just by picking up controller* and trying out buttons.
3) Low hardware requirements, as it's a hassle to organize and transport high quality 3d accelerated computers.
4) Fun without sound, as surrounding is extremely loud by comparison.
[update] 5) Interesting for non-players (waiting to play?) to look at.

*Gamepad support is rather optional, since it can easily be emulated with tools like QJoyPad, although native support does make the setup quicker.

I will use an Eee PC 1000h and an Eee PC 4G [Specifications] this saturday as part of an exhibition at a retro music & more party in Berlin, Germany, both with connected external screens. One of the machines will most likely run Word War Vi (WWVi), which is rather easy to pick up, has low requirements and impresses with force feedback.

I'm still looking for a suitable multiplayer title. Suggestions are welcome!

PS: the last time I organized a thing like this, it looked like this:

(WWVi is being played on the middle screen, the other two screens are connected to retro consoles)

You can try SpaceZero:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/spacezero/
a RTS 2D space combat, multiplayer (two local net players) and low hardware requirements.

Slime Volley! (dev version if you want something less ugly)
Super Tux Kart seems to feet your requirements (I already saw it used that way and it was a success as far as I know)
Maybe Pink Pony?
Slingshot is fun to play but turn based, I'm not sure if M.A.R.S. is multiplayer on a single computer.
Liquidwar is fun too, but I'm not convinced by the new version.

Xonotic LAN is superfun. Game modes like Key Hunt are really fun for multiplayer.

Or well, any LAN shooter for that matter, but by promoting Xonotic you not only promote open source but also the overlooked (nowadays) arena shooter genre!

Thanks for the suggestions!

I need to check if Pink Pony works on an EeePC 1000H. I believe it requires mouse for menus, which would be a big problem.

Liquidwar! Of course!

LAN games are not an option.

you may play Xonotic with bots. it's one of the best games we have in the community, so you really should consider showing it.

I would like to suggest the classics:
FreeCiv
OpenTTD
Battle for Wesnoth
Nethack

also:
OpenLieroX
Teeworlds
Hedgewars
Widelands

and lastly, I need of course to plug my game:
LIMBS OFF (latest git checkout has punching, so it almost definitely actually qualifies as a game ;-)

FPS: I know of no split-screen functionality in any freely licensed FPS. I expect most FPS to have too high hardware requirements and are beginner-unfriendly. I suspect there might be issues with gamepad mappings.

I forgot one important factor: the games must be interesting to look at for at least a few seconds while somebody else is playing.
Most strategy and turn based games would not qualify for being interesting to look at or easy to get into.
I expect Slimevolley to lack at being interesting to look at but it's probably very easy to get into.

Nethack? You must be joking.

SuperTuxKart might have too high requirements in my case. Last time I played it with 3 people new to it, I had to explain what to do in the menus, which is a problem if you want people to manage playing it on their own.

I just realized that Teeworlds has been freely licensed for a while. Yay! I don't think it has split-/same-screen gameplay though. OpenLieroX might be good.

I just tested Liquidwar5 (pre-packaged for Arch Linux), it runs very well on the EeePC 4G. I just have to make sure the gamepad mappings work and that it's possible/easy to start maps using gamepads.

Ah, well said! Hedgewars is a great idea. Can't wait till the Android tablet version comes out by the way, Worms on my friend's iPad is sooooo much fun.

Also, this is tehcnically not a computer/video game, but I think that if you've ever had a passion for chess, you will most certainly love Go, which is the East Asian equivalent of chess. You can learn how to play it here (this is the greatest of all guides).

You just realised Teeworlds had been freely licensed? I LOL'd. And yes, while it's a really, really fun game, it has no local multiplayer. OpenLieroX has great ideas behind it, but the interface is absolutely horrible.

I'll be goddamned if I can think of many more open source games that support local multiplayer though.

LIMBS OFF has local multiplayer, one of the players use gamepad (other two keyboard -- may be emulated or changed in the src), and it will happily run fine on a ten year old computer (and even older). :-) sadly, really short gameplay ATM... but should entertain you for a few minutes at least.

Blobbey Volley 2.

If you guys are looking for FPS, I have to say Xonotic is the best FOSS has to offer, to watch and to play. It's netcode is excellent as well. ^^

I would suggest Armagetron.
http://armagetronad.org/

-Screen multiplayer
-Easy to play
-Only 2 bind
-Pretty cool to look at
-Ultra low config

It's way to hard for me at high level :P

youtu.be/W6BeWs2v844
But I guess it's perfect for as a small party entertainment.

qubodup {l Wrote}:I forgot one important factor: the games must be interesting to look at for at least a few seconds while somebody else is playing.
Most strategy and turn based games would not qualify for being interesting to look at or easy to get into.
I expect Slimevolley to lack at being interesting to look at but it's probably very easy to get into.

Hum, I'd say some 2v2 multi-ball match can be fun to spectate. You could complete with bots if there are not enough people playing.

SuperTuxKart might have too high requirements in my case. Last time I played it with 3 people new to it, I had to explain what to do in the menus, which is a problem if you want people to manage playing it on their own.

Hum, Ok, I'd expect most people to understand quite wuickly how to play a kart game (because they already played one once)

I second the armagetron idea, it's good one. I also recommend JumpNBump which is lots of fun. You'll only have problem because of the absent menu, but you can use some jumpnbump launcher scripts (there are some in AUR).

One last idea, it's all a matter and taste, but I feel like having avoision plugged on a joystick would be a good idea. It's not multiplayer but you got highscore handling. The gameplay is so simple that it require zero explanation.

PS: if you want to allow people to switch thought several games, you might wanna use something like lxlauncher

I decided to put Liquidwar on the 4G and I'll try to hack it today in a way that makes it use a random map each time it starts a game.

Avoision is a good idea. I might switch between that and Word War Vi on the 1000H.

Wish me luck! I'll be back with videos of the event.

PS: Isn't Jump'n'Bump non-free?

qubodup {l Wrote}:PS: Isn't Jump'n'Bump non-free?

It seems you're right, how disappointing…

I was thinking about this last night. I should be able to offer more than a few names.

- Barrage is simple and fun.
- Cannonsmash is tough but can be amusing multiplayer
- Tuxpuck? Though I've never been able to beat the AI.

A few photos of the event/location

Video of people playing WWV and LW at the party:

youtu.be/MNmSgbmdYtU

I left Liquid War and Word War Vi on the entire time. There was also a SNES system that had Mario Kart and Street Fighter 2 running.

Liquid War had two SNES-style controllers connected to it (2-Tech SNES Style Gamepad). It was confusing as to how to use the gamepad to control the menu. I mapped some buttons (start and the bottom and left buttons) to left mouse button and placed the cursor over the top right "play" button, but some people (accidentally?) got into the menus and changed for example maps, which was a good thing. At one point "play" required an internet connection, which was either a bug or a setting I didn't know of. I restarted the game to solve that problem.

It would be ideal to have a mode in Liquid war, which would automatically randomly switch between a set of levels. Some levels and some textures are horrible, so it'd be useful to be able to exclude some of these. I set the game length from 4 minutes to 2.

Some people couldn't figure out the game but the ones that did seemed to have a lot of fun with it.

Word War Vi had an XBox 360 controller (I bought it specifically for Word War Vi years ago) with rumble/force feedback enabled, which I think is a great feature for a party/exhibition. It would sometimes fall to the ground when nobody was playing due to the shaking. The game seemed to be doing good as for popularity. I don't think anybody was able to win a level but it didn't seem to matter, as the challenge to survive longer seemed to be enough.

Asus EeePC Resolutions: I believe I used 640x480 on the 4G (LW) and 800x600 on the 1000H (WWV). The external screens supported more but I failed to configure the 4G and wanted the lower for the 1000H to increase performance (you can see it shaking with lots of explosions sometimes).

Thanks for all the suggestions! I shall try out some other games next time.