List of free closed source games

Post by **MrFlibble** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 9:34 am

This is a list of legally free games that do not have their source code available to the public. Liberated (formerly commercial or shareware) games are marked with an asterisk. For non-Windows games, their platform is indicated in bold next to the title (except for those games that are bundled with an emulator like DOSBox).

This list does not include: multiplayer-only games; browser-based games; games with any kind of DRM (Steam etc.); limited time promotional giveaways; abandonware of any kind; and any unauthorised free "remakes" of commercial games that essentially allow to play any substantial portion of such games for free.

For a list of free open source games, please check this thread. A very comprehensive, frequently updated list of all sorts of free games can be found here.

Arcade
Alien Breed: Obliteration
AstroFire* DOS
Carax '95
Cash Invaders DOS
Cybersphere* DOS
Cybersphere Plus* DOS
Disasteroids 3D
The Dungeons of Grimlor I & II* DOS
God of Thunder* DOS
Joe Snow
Kosmonaut* DOS
Legend of the Silver Talisman DOS
Lode Runner Online
Mine Bombers* DOS
Mr. Boom DOS
Obliterator DOS
SkiFree
SkyRoads* DOS
Super ACiD Block Attack DOS
Tower of the Sorcerer
TurboLode
Vyrox

Adventure
The Adventures of Maddog Williams* DOS
Bronze Dragon: Conquest of Infinity* Apple II
Cosmos Quest series
Dragon Side II: The Twisted Speare* Apple II
Eye of the Kraken
Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok
King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown
King's Quest II: Romancing the Stones
King's Quest III Redux
Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
Robomaze III* DOS [download]

Beat 'Em Up
Battle of the Eras* DOS
The Black Heart
One Must Fall 2097* DOS
Sango Fighter* DOS
Sango Fighter 2* DOS

Educational
BabyType DOS

First-Person Shooter
8bit Killer
Alien Cabal* DOS [Windows upgrade]
Avert Fate
Barista 1
Beyond Life
Bitsturbed
Derelict
The Esc4pe
Gore - Ultimate Soldier Special Edition* [download]
Gun Godz
Hades 2* [download]
Industrial Killers DOS
Invention RPG
The Journey
LineWars II* DOS
Outpost 41
Paranoia 2: Savior
Pencil Whipped
Prism: Guard Shield
Purple Complex
Red Alert: A Path Beyond
Renegade X
Sublevel Zero Prototype [download]
Tiberian Sun Reborn
Tribes series*
Wolfram

Management Strategy
City of Rauma
Valmeria - Villages and Cities

Platform
1213
Alien Carnage* DOS
Bio Menace* DOS
Blackthorne*
Captain Binary
Cyber-Marine DOS [download]
Electro Man* DOS
Eternal Daughter
Giana's Return
The Great Giant Sisters DOS
Giant Worlds [download] [installer]
Happyland Adventures
Heroes of Yggdrasil
Heros I: The Sanguine Seven* DOS
Iji
Inner Worlds* DOS
Maldita Castilla
Robomaze II: The Lobby* DOS [download]
Special Agent
Sint Nicolaas
T2002
Tailchaser*
TSB
Xargon* DOS

Puzzle
Gate
Get Lost!* DOS
The Lost Vikings*
Quadrax*

Racing
Death Rally*
RunOut
Street Rod series

Real-Time Strategy
Command & Conquer Gold
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun*
Enemy Nations*
Ground Control*
Priority: Survive
Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War*
StarCraft*
Subpar Commander
S.W.I.N.E.*

Role-Playing
A Blurred Line
Ahriman's Prophecy
Berserker Quest VI
The Elder Scrolls: Arena* DOS
The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall* DOS
Eschalon: Book I*
Exile: Escape from the Pit* Win3.x
Exile II: Crystal Souls* Win3.x
Exile III: Ruined World* Win3.x
Fire & Dragons
Gates of Destiny
Helherron*
Joyous Rebel* DOS
Perihelion* Amiga
The Provinces of Midland - Argskin
Pyrrhic Tales: Prelude to Darkness
RuneSword*
ShadowFlare: Episode One [discontinued]
Thor's Hammer* DOS
Warrior Dragon

Roguelike
CaRPG
Castle of the Winds* Win3.x
Lords of Doom* DOS
Lost Labyrinth
MageGuild
Ragnarok* DOS
Rogue's Quest
o additional scenarios
UnReal World*

Shooter
CS2D
Dark Rage* DOS
Evasive Maneuvers* DOS
Hell Fighter
Hydorah
Janitor Dan the Spaceman
Katakis* Amiga
Major Stryker* DOS
Mission Cobra 98 DOS [download]
Molez* DOS
Operation Carnage* DOS
Operation Spacehog
PixelShips
ProtoType
R-Type* Amiga
Rocketz* DOS
SideLine* DOS
sk0r Spaceshooter
StarFight series
Stargunner* DOS
Tapan Kaikki DOS [download]
Tapan Kaikki Bloodshed
TerraFire* DOS
Theseus - Return of the Hero
Tiger's Bane* Win3.x
Transcendence
The Ultimate Tapan Kaikki DOS [download]
Xenon 2000*

Simulation
Elite: The New Kind
Orbiter
RiftSpace* [download]
Star Wraith 2* [download]
Star Wraith 3: Shadows of Orion* [download]
Starion 2010
Universal Combat Free Full Singleplayer*

Third-Person Shooter/Action
G-Sector
Hidden & Dangerous Deluxe*
Noxious
Path of Shadows
The Times Exclusive Tomb Raider Level

Turn-Based Strategy
Battles of Destiny* DOS
Conquest of Elysium II* [download]
Great Nations
Palm Kingdoms 2*
Wargame Project

Turn-Based Tactics
1821: The Struggle for Freedom
1848
Battlelords DOS
Rapid Response* DOS [download]
The War Engine*
winSPMBT*
winSPWW2*
Steel Panthers: World at War
X-Force: Fight for Destiny

Post by **MrFlibble** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 10:35 am

Just found this really huge blog dedicated to liberated games:
http://juegosliberados.blogspot.com/

It's in either Spanish or Portuguese (can't tell because I'm not very familiar with both languages), but everything is pretty self-explanatory. The blog seems to feature quite a few really obscure games too.

Post by **MrFlibble** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:11 am

I figured the blog is in Spanish (since it has links to Spanish Wikipedia). Here's some of the interesting games from the database that caught my attention:

Tecno - The Base - a futuristic FPS made in the early 2000s style, although apparently it was released much later than that.
PaybackTime 2 - an obvious X-COM clone, which was distributed as shareware in the nineties (here's their home page from back then), released for free in 2011.
Cosmos Quest series, obviously inspired by Sierra's Space Quest games.
StarFight series shmups.
A huge number of games produced by the German developer Motelsoft, ranging from Amiga and DOS adventure and RPG games to Windows FPS titles.

Post by **dosraider** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:32 am

MrFlibble wrote:
Tecno - The Base - a futuristic FPS made in the early 2000s style, although apparently it was released much later than that.

Hmmm, know that one, not bad at all, made me think of an improved (and more complicated) System Shock 2.

Also remember I got frustrated playing that game, but don't remember why exactly ......

Post by **MrFlibble** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:50 am

Here's another recently liberated game, and a quite obscure one:

Fighting

Battle of the Eras

Post by **MrFlibble** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 7:41 am

Fighting

Sango Fighter 2

Role-Playing Game

Lords of Doom

Post by **MrFlibble** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:41 am

Added SideLine to the list.

Post by **MrFlibble** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 3:57 pm

German game developer Markus Mück has uploaded the full version of Tailchaser at his website:
http://markus.muck.free.fr/tailchas.html

He also has a couple of early 90s shareware titles he wrote (both shareware and registered versions) on the main page of his sit (just scroll down a bit).

Post by **MrFlibble** » Wed Dec 24, 2014 3:02 pm

Robert W. Morgan III, co-founder of Mind Shear Software (formerly Channel 7 Software), has released the source code and the full version of In Pursuit of Greed:
http://www.redshadowsoftware.com/projects/greed

The game and its code are free to download and use for non-commercial purposes.

Rwolf · Post by **Rwolf** » Wed Dec 24, 2014 8:27 pm

Interesting read about IPoG, and I noticed it has some audio tracks in common with Origins Crusader series. (I added some stuff to Mobygames from that site, thankyou for the link.)

Post by **MrFlibble** » Thu Dec 25, 2014 9:48 am

Rwolf wrote:I added some stuff to Mobygames from that site, thankyou for the link.

The entry for In Pursuit of Greed at MG needs a lot of improvements. The credits are obviously incomplete/wrong (with the lead programmer being credited as "unknown" among other things), the screenshots are all from the early demo v2.0 and thus not representative of the final game. Also we need a new Raven Engine game group for IPoG and ShadowCaster.

I was planning to do something about those issues but so far I've been too busy for that.

Rwolf · Post by **Rwolf** » Thu Dec 25, 2014 11:46 am

Yes, there is a number of game credits queued up since yesterday for change now, as per his CV. I did a bunch of corrections for the individual games/devs; got it back with a suggestion to collect them all in a single correction; pulled all & did it again, only for the R.W.M:3 developer and awaiting a response now.

The engine thing perhaps need looking into, though...

(Takes a while for credit and developer details to change, I've noticed.)

Post by **MrFlibble** » Thu Dec 25, 2014 12:08 pm

There's one thing that floated in relation to the IPoG freeware release: a company called Memorex Software re-released the game under the title Assassinators. When I mentioned that to Blzut3 at DUke4.net forums, he told that to Robert Morgan, who apparently had never known of that re-release before. (So maybe it's some kind of illegal bootleg release.)

A site called 3D Shooter Legends you probably know about has a link to a "Shareware Episode 1" of Assassinators, which one of their users had uploaded at 4shared:
http://www.4shared.com/archive/zfFkau_I ... r_CCD.html

However I am unable to get it to download from there.

Post by **MrFlibble** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 2:03 pm

Some of W.R. Hutsell's strategy games are available as freeware here:
http://www.hutsellgames.com/

Post by **MrFlibble** » Thu Jul 02, 2015 3:41 pm

Sanctuary Software Studio
o Backlash: bl130fr.zip

Dodekaedron Software Creations
o Triplane Turmoil: freetrip.zip

Post by **MrFlibble** » Wed Jul 08, 2015 1:37 pm

Just learned about a team of English developers called Dod-G Pos-E. Initially they distributed their titles as shareware but then liberated them. The files are available here and here.

Post by **MrFlibble** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 6:13 am

In 2006, Robert Wayne Atkins, P.E. released several of his text adventure games (originally published in 1988-1992) for free:
http://grandpappy.info/indexgam.htm

Post by **MrFlibble** » Sun Dec 13, 2015 11:08 am

Just learned about a new game on the Chocolate Doom engine called CyberShade. It's an FPS which focusses on fighting lots of enemies at once. The game can have up to 99 single-player and 99 multiplayer levels, with continuous looped gameplay (once the last level is reached, it goes back to level 1). Currently, there are 4+1 single-player and 3 multiplayer levels. Other feature enhancements compared to Doom include random teleporters and an updated automap that shows enemy positions.

A distinctive feature of CyberShade is that it uses a palette of only 16 colours. Here's a sample screenshot:

And a gameplay video: YouTube link.

CyberShade is still in development. The current version can be downloaded from the official Doomworld thread of the project.

Quadko · Post by **Quadko** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 10:27 am

Cool idea, glad people are still working on stuff like this.

But I'm not sure the 16 color limitation is a good thing.

Most stuff looks ok good, but that green booth - ouch.

Post by **MrFlibble** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 10:45 am

I just learned that the author of Dark Rage, a fairly obscure DOS side-scrolling shmup that came out somewhere in mid-90s, released the full version to the public last year.

Here's a gameplay video: YouTube link.