In recent months LinuxLinks Towers has been consumed with playing games. In fact, some might contend that game playing has become so excessive that real life has been neglected to a degree. We have seen team challenges, leaderboards, and even the odd wager. Healthy competition to say the least!

Many of the LinuxLinks crew grew up playing games on the ZX Spectrum, an 8-bit personal home computer. By today’s standards, the games were simple with basic graphics plagued by attribute clash and primitive sound generation. However, this did not stop the best games being incredibly addictive. The famous Crash magazine (a monthly publication devoted to the ZX Spectrum) used to rate games by their addictive qualities. This was often the rating that interested us the most.

The purpose of this article is to identify some of our favourite free Linux games which have these addictive qualities. They may not offer breathtaking graphics, innovative ideas, or the highest presentation. However, what they do provide is great gameplay coupled with the urge of always having just one more play.

To be eligible for inclusion in this list each game needed to meet the following requirements:

Free to play (no download charge, no monthly charge)

Does not require Wine to run. Wine is a compatibility layer for running Windows software.

Not in the early stages of development

This article is the first in a three part series.

Now, let’s scrutinize the 8 games at hand. For each game we have compiled its own portal page, providing screenshots of the game in action, a full description of the game, with an in-depth analysis of the features of the game, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.

Return to our complete collection of recommended free and open source software including our latest additions.

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