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The 7DFPS Challenge 2013: A Linux Perspective! (part two)

By - | Views: 21,679
Last week, hundreds of game developers of all skill levels, from professional published developers through to people who've always dreamed of trying their hand at game development, dedicated 7 days to make first person games.

In this second part of our 7DFPS recap (head back to part one for thoughts on why 7DFPS is important and some words from Linux game developers), we've compiled a list of the games which had standalone Linux builds and had their "finished" checkbox ticked and also mentioned some of our favourites below. There may be titles which offer Linux builds, but are in an unfinished state, or others which use browser based technologies (Flash, Javascript, Twine, etc.). which can also be run under Linux, so please do have a hunt around the 7DFPS site and if there's something you like or appreciate, don't forget to leave some feedback for the developer!

Keep in mind that these were all made in very short timeframes and many are still works in progress. As time goes on, more developers may provide Linux builds and any bugs mentioned here may be resolved, so if there's something that looks interesting, keep an eye on it.

Note also that some Unity titles will need executable permissions set on their binaries before they can be run (usually in the properties dialogue in most file managers, or "chmod + x filename" on a terminal).


The Games:

2091: Jim's Odyssey - Single player story oriented experience about an astronaut who appears to be the sole survivor of an accident and must perform EVA to conduct repairs. EVA controls are vaguely realistic (and appropriately unforgiving).

4 (pronounced "sardinelauncher") - Four dimensional multiplayer FPS. This game gives you three extra views to illustrate the extra dimension and you can move along the fourth dimension with the mousewheel or right mouse button. A super interesting concept and fun to navigate. Linux version provided as source (depends on libenet and required some makefile fiddling on Fedora).

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A Cosmic Forest - A colourful abstract ambient exploration game in which you fly your way through a "space forest", and complete some optional, cryptic objectives. Sound design is nicely atmospheric. Mouse cursor escapes the window on Linux, making it hard to control.

Alignment - A fantastic puzzle game in which you can extrude particular blocks to match your current position. This game is simple, yet polished, well paced, has a nice soundtrack and exudes charm from the hand drawn scribbles that scatter the otherwise uniform and angular environment.

Anomaly Escape - A short single player story in in which a pilot is awoken from stasis to discover what has gone wrong with his ship. The minimalist style and low lighting make for an interesting atmosphere.

Antikythera - Navigate a maze and bypass obstacles by creating and moving through dimensional tears. Update: Linux download URL has been corrected.

Arshavir - An open world medieval fantasy RPG with 2 square km of environment. Update: Linux build now available.

Assault - A combat game where you must navigate a building full of enemies to reach the exit. Enemies shine a green lens flare when idle and a red one when agressive, making them difficult to target. You have limited amunition and the screen gets more blurred as you take damage.

Atmospheric Fall - You awake with amnesia on a spaceship that is falling to earth and is swarming with enemy robots. Linux version is missing Linux Mono libs and appears to have bugs preventing weapons from being picked up.

Beer There Drove That - Walk or drive through a cartoonish desert in this mob rush game where groups of bikers, ninjas and some kind of giant tyre armadillo enemies charge you at once.

Beyond Perception - A highly polished puzzle game set in a museum where each artpiece is an unshaded duotone level where the play of coloured vs uncoloured surfaces makes forms difficult to identify and easy to misinterpret.

blackheart - Escape and rescue other prisoners whilst avoiding or fighting guards in this super old school FPS that pays homage to the oldest of FPS games. Blackheart's cute pixel art style, animations and pastel colour palette hide a challenging and enjoyable game beneath.

Boarding Party - A retro styled fast paced sci-fi FPS with great lighting, music, pacing and balance, in which you must fight your way through boarding aliens to reach an escape pod. Ship layout is randomly generated, adding replay value.

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Caribbean Stick - The Dark Project (MMO) - A multiplayer retro styled "MMOFPS" where you play as a spy.

Challenger 34502 - A short puzzle oriented game where you play as a test subject performing challenges for an AI.

Cold Curve - A challenging, fast paced minimalist game in which you must smash yellow cubes by "force jumping" through them whilst falling.

COLDTRAIN - A first person survival game in which you must ride a destructible train that is being swarmed by large black laser firing spheres.

Crucible - A retro styled survival game in which you must kill zombies and the shards that spawn them before destroying the Crucible. Seems to have some mouse input problems.

Crystal Panic - A survival game featuring upgradeable weapons in which you must defend a crystal from attacking enemies. Executable has a .deb extension, but just runs as a normal x86 elf binary.

Dance - A first person puzzle game in which you must switch places in a progressive dance to control your movement and end up with a particular partner.

Deep Void Station - A low gravity Fight your way through robots who have invaded Deep Void Station and escape in your ship. Don't forget to check your oxygen.

Depth Perception - Is missing data files and crashes at startup with the Mac data files.

Discoverie - A fantasy first person voxel roguelike focusing on exploration and secrets. Offers Rift support on Linux, but doesn't seem to pick up head tracking properly, possibly due to upstream Unity bugs.

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Dreamgate - Overcome your fears in an effort to find a person in a surreal dream. Unfinished, but is nicely presented.

Drenched - A first person multiplayer watergun game in which you can earn upgrades by winning matches. Uses Facebook for authentication.

Ed Had a Weird Day - 2D sidescrolling platformer with a first person viewport in the top corner that can be used to solve puzzles and combat 3D enemies.

Elemental Gravity - A physics based survival game in which you must avoid and destroy spikey balls armed with a bomb launcher and a freeze gun. You can also control the direction of gravity.

Escape The Daleks! - A stealth based game in which you must carry a battery through a maze, charge it and return whilst avoiding enemies which will exterminate you on sight. Your only defence is the ability to throw balls as a distraction.

Facility Escape - A nicely challenging first person puzzle game where you can invert gravity for yourself or for objects in the world.

Femur Fervor - A part melee, part puzzle fighting game in which you must escape a prison overrun by robots by strategically removing their limbs with punches or exceptionally long kicks.

FlipFlop - A highly polished first person puzzle game based on flipping gravity and walking on walls.

FPS FPS - A very very odd game with no instructions, fire once and your gun disappears, you can climb up the bean stalks to have a look around and it has a few bird flying around, other than that I can't figure it out. I also fell through the floor and found what looked like a rocket, this game was an odd experience. 64 bit build only. - liamdawe

Galaxy Smash - A navigational puzzle/shooter where weapons have negative recoil and can "pull" you towards your target.

Glyph Core: Abstract - A simple, but challenging first person puzzle game where you rearrange segments of an image within a time limit.

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Grapple Truck - A driving sim where you have the ability to attach grappling hooks to "totems" to pull yourself into the air and onto hard to reach places.

Gravity Well - A first person navigational puzzle game in which you must use a weapon that shoots attractors and repulsors to reach the exit. Linux version is not up to date with the web version.

GRIP - A stylised first person action freerunning game in which you have to traverse high rise buildings at night to reach a glowing orange ball.

Hide And Seek - A polished and atmospheric first person horror game in which you must hide from a crazed murderer whilst collecting items of personal significance to banish him with.

HINT: Shoot - A simple single axis first person game where you must shoot blocks to survive as long as you can. Only a 64 bit build is provided, but 32 bit players can open the Mac download (source .blend) in Blender.

HUDWALKER - A low visibility first person game where you play a space marine whose suit is damaged and has a fogged up visor.

Ideasthesia - A first person maze game in which the player is presented with an audio visual representation of alternative senses which indicate wall proximity to the front left, front right and rear.

Killer Death Cubes - A multiplayer deathmatch arena game in which you play cubes that can be textured by 1024 x 1024px images from the internet (upload your own to imgur)

Killing Moon FPS Remake - A retro styled first person interpretation of a point and click horror adventure game.

Linear Dream - A surreal first person rail shooter where you control your speed. Go faster for a higher score multiplyer.

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Linguattack - A first person typing game in which you must shoot incoming letters to destroy them and type words that attacking formations of letters make up.

Muzzle Flash - A first person game in which visibility is low and muzzle flashes illuminate the environment and your enemies.

Ncrystal - A first person multiplayer deathmatch arena game with swords, shotguns and rocket launchers.

non - A first person game with all-keyboard controls, an upbeat soundtrack set in a low poly world containing 14 people.

Orbital Asset Recovery - A retro styled atmospheric single/multiplayer first person survival game where players must restore power on to their ship which has been overrun by energy consuming aliens. Features zero G mechanics and vacuum appropriate sounds.

Outdoor Camping for Deboned Poultry - Find and lick sugar cubes in this "mildly psychedelic" first person multidimensional kaleidoscope platformer.

Probably Archery - A single and multiplayer archery simulator where players use the mouse to control and orient the wrists, elbows and shoulders independently of each of their character's arms.

Quantum Annihilation - A first person puzzle game where the player can create and hide coloured blocks to solve puzzles.

Reflections - A first person shooter where enemies are invisible, but their reflections can be seen in mirrors and other reflective surfaces.

Root Arena - A fast paced arena shooter with 11 varied weapons and player stats.

Sandbox Mayhem - A hectic deathmatch arena game with three environments, and three weapons.

Sector 7 - A fixed speed obstacle dodging game in which you must strafe left and right to avoid crashing whilst shooting targets to unlock the next sector.

Serial Sniper - A fixed point sniping game where you pick your assigned target out of a crowded park without shooting the wrong person. Mouse escapes the window, making it difficult to play.

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SLEPO - An atmospheric ultra low visibility maze game where you must let the faint sound of singing guide you.

Spaceblock - A sci-fi voxel building game.

Space Monkey Madness: Escape from Space Captivity - Fight against your own kind to escape your alien captors in a last-man-standing multiplayer arena game in which you play jetpack wearing monkeys with laser guns.

Stop looking at me! - A first perso survival game with 2D character sprites where you must fight your way through attacking garden gnomes.

StrangeLight - An experimental exploration oriented game in which you must fire and retrieve a ball of light in order to discover the world's mysteries.

Submerged - An underwater six degrees of freedom survival game in which you must fight off underwater entities whilst illuminating the depths with your lasers and flares.

SUPER ROCKET ROBOT MONKEY - A game in which you play a robot monkey that can jump large distances who must defeat invading robots. Appears to have some input bugs.

Svetovid - A turn based first person dungeon crawler in which you can see left, right, up, down, forwards and backwards laid out on the net of a cube.

Symbiosis - A two player puzzle game in which players can only see from the perspective of their partner, requiring constant cooperation.

Tetrahedrome - A game made for the Oculus Rift, but doesn't seem to pick up head tracking properly, possibly due to upstream Unity bugs.

The Gardener - h my god, this makes me dizzy, extremely fast camera. The animation is pretty cool though, you are as the name suggests the gardener and you walk around with a hose keeping the ground moist for plants to grow, other than that there isn't anything else to it. Only 64 bit Linux builds provided. - liamdawe

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The Hunted Thief - A first person action stealth puzzle platformer in which you must retrieve a briefcase and return to your ship without falling out of the level or being killed by assorted enemies. Mouse escapes the window, but sensitivity is high enough that the game is playable. May also require lower graphics settings for good performance.

The Others - An experimental exploration platformer in which you must collect items in surreal environements.

To Shooter, With Guilt - Download link currently returns a 404.

Total Recoil - Download link currently returns a 404.

Tractor Beam - A first person physics based puzzle platformer in which you must use attraction and repulsion beams to pull yourself through and push away from obstacles.

Transparencies - A sci-fi first person survival game in which you must defeat ranged and melee enemies with non-reloadable weapons found flying around the arena. Walls are transparent and allow you to observe enemy movement.

TreeScape - An ambient aural exploration game in which you activate trees to hear and explore the soundscapes they create.

Turret Crisis - A fast paced deathmatch game in which you play a mobile turret. The arena is a planetary cluster and turrets can leap off onto nearby planets.

Vorago - A delve deep, fight monsters and carve your way to treasure in this first person voxel based dungeon/pit crawler.

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Editors' Picks:

Cheese: So far, my favourites are looking to be Alignment, Beyond Perception, blackheart, Boarding Party, FlipFlop and Glyph Core: Abstract. GRIP is absolutely fantastic. Transparencies, TreeScapeOutdoor Camping for Deboned Poultry and Orbital Asset Recovery are all awesome too. I also found Brendon Chung's games Guru and Photog  to be really interesting!

liamdawe: 2091: Jim's Odyssey, absolutely love it, the whole find a keycard bit to open a door reminded me of really oldschool games, then the space walk with classical music I couldn't help myself going "dododod" while floating around, actually sad it's not a full game.
Anomaly Escape, another one I'm sad isn't a full game, if developed more it could be really awesome, love the atmosphere, the graphics are appealing as well for the type of game it is. Throw in a bigger ship and more enemies and it could rock.

muntdefems: Having tried roughly half of them, I will be repeating many games as my favourites. They are 2091: Jim's Odyssey (epic music when going EV), Alignment, Anomaly Escape, Beyond Perception (very challenging and mind-bending), Boarding Party (great fast-paced action), Discoverie (love the style, although I couldn't completely get the goal of the game), Ed Had a Weird Day (very ingenious mix of genres), Facility Escape, Femur Fervor (tough enemies but interesting concept and mechanics), and FlipFlop.






Which games have you tried out, and what did you think? Tell us in the comments!
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial, FPS, Review
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About the author -
author picture
Game developer, Linux helper person, and independent writer/interviewer.

Currently working on Winter's Wake, a first person text adventure thing and its engine Icicle. Also making a little bee themed base builder called Hive Time :)

I do more stuff than could ever fit into a bio.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
5 comments

Orkultus Aug 24, 2013
Def keeping an eye of Arshavir
Cheeseness Aug 25, 2013
Quoting: OrkultusDef keeping an eye of Arshavir
Well spotted! I hadn't seen that they were planning to do a Linux build as well :D
Speedster Aug 25, 2013
These games could go in a new category of the wiki, with people contributing screenshots and their impressions

Yes in theory I could start such page, but really too busy at the moment so hoping for another volunteer
Cheeseness Aug 26, 2013
Quoting: SpeedsterThese games could go in a new category of the wiki, with people contributing screenshots and their impressions

Yes in theory I could start such page, but really too busy at the moment so hoping for another volunteer

I'm in two minds about such a thing. Almost all of the games' profiles include screenshots and videos as well as relevant development posts, and the 7DFPS site provides some filtering based on platform. On one hand it'd be great to further highlight Linux compatible titles, but on the other, it'd be awesome to see more Linux user activity on the 7DFPS site.

I've updated the article with Antikythera (which now has a correct download URL for the Linux build) and Arshavir, which now has Linux and Mac OS versions available!
Orkultus Sep 1, 2013
I am Mintylinux on their webpage
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