Platform Game Engine

The Platform Game Engine project is exactly what it sounds like, a game engine and toolkit for creating platform games. It seems very complete and feature-filled, with an advanced editor with all sorts of tools as well as advanced game features such as warps, doors and world maps. Long story short, if you want to create a platforming game without coding, this might be a good place to start!

Editing backgrounds in The Platform Game Engine.

The Dark Mod - 2.07

Impressive stealth-game The Dark Mod has got a new update. It's primarily a stability release that improves many of the new things introduced in the last release, such as soft shadows. There are also various smaller improvements to gameplay and a few new assets. As before, this is a very polished and nice looking game!

Sneaking around in The Dark Mod. Notice the impressive shadows!

Unknown Horizons

The description of Unknown Horizons from it's official page describes the project very well:

A 2D realtime strategy simulation with an emphasis on economy and city building. Expand your small settlement to a strong and wealthy colony, collect taxes and supply your inhabitants with valuable goods. Increase your power with a well balanced economy and with strategic trade and diplomacy. 

The game certainly lives up to that and I can attest that it is really fun to play. The game recently got a new release called 2019.1, which follows up from the gigantic release made in 2017. I've been following the progess of development and have been impressed by how much that has been done with this game during the last few years. This new release has, among other things, an isometric mini-map that shows the same rotation as the main game view and ambient objects that makes the world more varied and nicer to look at. There are of course also many internal improvements and fixes of all kinds. A great time to give this excellent game a go!

A nice little settlement in Unknown Horizons.

Wyrmsun - 3.5

Wyrmsun keeps up the regular releases, this time with a winter theme. This classic-styled RTS now has seasons that passes as the game goes on, making this a winter-release in more ways than one. Seasons change the terrain and the day/night cycle, adding new aspects to this tactical game. As always there is a ton of other changes too, so make sure to check this excellent title out.

Wyrmsun showing a small settlement in winter.

0 A.D. - Alpha 23 Re-release

Hasn't Alpha 23 of the impressive 3D RTS 0 A.D. already been released? It has, but now it's been re-released with several bugs and other maintenance-related things fixed. Many improvements has been made to online play and security and there are also a few other fixes. If you play this game an update is recommended while waiting for a new feature-release.

A battle at sea in 0 A.D. Notice the beautiful water!

SuperTux - 0.6.0

Legendary platformer SuperTux has got a huge update called 0.6.0. Since it was some time since the last one, there are loads of new things included. The Ice and Forest worlds has got a complete redesign, graphics have been updated and effects have been added, the rendering engine has been improved which means the game will perform better, etc, etc. This is a very fun game with lots of content, well worth it for fans of the genre.

An underground level with cool light effects in SuperTux.

Wyrmsun - 3.4.1

The really enjoyable classic RTS Wyrmsun still has an amazingly rapid development pace. Every day there seems to be something new. The game recently reached a new nice milestone in the form of 3.4.0, that among other things included a new civilization in the form of the Norse, several new buildings for Dwarfs, Teutons and Goblins, a few new units and a whole host of other improvements all around. If you like RTS games and have not yet tried this gem, give it a go!

A dwarven settlement in Wyrmsun.

EasyRPG

EasyRPG is a role playing game creation tool. It is inspired by the similar software RPG Maker and EasyRPG is also compatible with RPG Maker 2000/2003 games. The player seems further along than the editor, but the latest release certainly seems massive and there a loads of supported platforms, so you can get this to run on most devices if you feel like playing a few classic RPG:s.

A test-game loaded into the EasyRPG player.

OpenRA - 20180923

The extremely polished recreation of the classic Command & Conquer-games (as well as Dune 2000), OpenRA, keeps the banner high with regular releases. The latest is called 20180923 and includes several months worth of work. There is a new player account system bringing together more aspects of the games online community, several UI improvements, AppImage packages, performance improvements and many other fixes, balancing and tweaks. The Mod SDK has received large improvements too, and many interesting mods seem to be in the work. Personally I love the fact that one of them attempts to recreate another classic RTS: KKND.

New mouse-overs displays hints in OpenRA.

EmptyEpsilon

EmptyEpsilon is a multiplayer starship bridge simulator. Each player takes command of a certain station, such as Helm, Science or Engineering, each having a unique screen with information, controls and functions. There is also a main screen that displays what happens outside the ship. The challenge is coordinating all this, as the players must work together operating the ship to complete various missions. If you have ever watched Star Trek and (like me) dreamt of being captain of your own starship, this is as close as you can get. A very cool simulator with a unique concept and really smart co-op gameplay. An extra cool feature is that one player can act as a game master, controlling the game for the other players, a feature that can be used for cool RPG-like setups. It's also possible to script your own missions. If you have a few interested friends and enough computers this is a must try!

 

The relay officers station from EmptyEpsilon. Only that player sees this screen.

And here is an example of what the main screen displays. All players see this.

Mindustry

Mindustry is a very unique tower defense game where it's not enough to construct turrets to defeat the hordes of incoming enemies – you must also construct supply lines with conveyor belts to provide them with ammo. For those of us who love building and optimizing this game should provide plenty of fun! The game can be downloaded or it can be played directly in the browser. There is an editor so you can create your own maps and there is even cross-platform multiplayer over LAN or WAN, so get your friends together and start constructing!

Look at these amazingly intricate designs!

TripleA

TripleA is a strategy game designed to play as a digital version of the classic Axis & Allies boardgames. It can be played both online, over LAN or single player against AI. There are several maps included, focusing on everything from World War 2 to the Napoleonic Wars, even including several futuristic and fantasy scenarios. It's possible to create new maps and share them with other players as well. TripleA will probably require a bit of patience but there is certainly a lot to like for those who want to invest time in it. I also must mention that many of the maps looks really good.

The beautiful Napoleonic Empires map from TripleA.

ReTux

Todays title is ReTux. You might recognize the art assets from another Free platformer: SuperTux. However, ReTux has been written entirely from scratch and has a different take on platformer gameplay. Collecting coins yields hearts which represent health. Taking damage removes hearts, so you'll have to keep grabbing those coins. Cleverly utilizing this levels can be kept balanced but still challenging. There are of course powerups to help and lives and checkpoints are infinite, meaning you can always try a hard portion of a level again. The game containts 41 levels with both action and some lighter puzzle elements. Another cool feature is that the game is described as "fully accessible to colorblind and color deficient people". Nice to see developers be including like that.

A castle-themed level in ReTux.

C-Dogs SDL - 0.6.5

Frequent visitors know I like the game C-Dogs SDL. Besides being very fun, development is very quick with many new features to play around with in each release. This is of course also true with 0.6.5, which contains a new campaign, a new character editor as well as some additional weapons, using a new more advanced collision code. Look at the video below for a small example:

Example of the new hitscan weapons from C-Dogs SDL.

OpenRA - 20170421

Classic RTS engine OpenRA, that lets you play Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Dune 2000 as well as several mods, has got a new major release. As always there are balancing fixes and new maps, and new in this release is also HiDPI font rendering and many improvements to the various supported games such as graphical polish in the Dune 2000 mod. The majority of changes in this release however are behind the scenes, preparing for even better modding capabilities as well as support for the newer game Tiberian Sun.

New shroud generating behaviour is another addition in this release.

OpenTTD - 1.7.0

Transportation business simulation game OpenTTD has reached a new milestone in 1.7.0. Besides bug fixes and smaller improvements the majority of the work seems to be based around the New Graphics Resource File that should make modifying the game easier and more flexible. (If I have understood this right. :) There are also some UI improvements, realistic acceleration for trains and road vehicles, performance improvements and more. Be sure to check it out if you fancy this rather advanced strategy game.

This screenshot from OpenTTD is old, but I'm having trouble finding new ones. :)

Intricacy - 0.7.0.1

I am not certain how many releases ago I mentioned the cool lock-picking game Intricacy. But this unique puzzler is now on version 0.7.0.1 and among the news is various UI improvements along with some smaller fixes.

A screen from Intricacy looking complicated.

Terasology - 1.4.0

The terribly advanced organic and evolving voxel-world of Terasology has reached alpha 7, also known as version 1.4.0. The changelog is as always impressive, and both the core game and many modules have received changes and improvements. Download it now and see this virtual world come alive even more than before!

A beautiful scene from Terasology.

Tank Arena

Tank Arena is an arcade game from 1997 that just got it's source code released, qualifying it for a mention here. :) It's playable against another player on the same computer in either a deathmatch, race, capture the flag or co-op play. There also seems to be a bunch of single-player levels to tackle alone. You can drive tanks, chopper and planes and there are several different ones to use, as well as four different worlds, a complete map editor and joystick support!

A few screens from Tank Arena, showing classic pixel art and splitscreen play!

Red Eclipse - 1.5.8

The great, fast-paced parcour-FPS Red Eclipse got a new release! 1.5.8 is not a big version number change, but nevertheless contains a lot of new things. Among them can be mentioned new maps, map models and vanity items (that you can dress up your character with!), grenades now transitions from green to red based on the fuse timer so you can know when to throw them, team balancing has been improved, there are improvements for HUD and text rendering, and more. There are also several improvements for mappers, such as the ability to make bots perform certain actions, like dancing. And if you happen to have a pair of 3D glasses connected to your computer, this game can use them and this release have a few fixes for stereoscopic view modes.

An epic firefight in Red Eclipse!