Modern era PD games
 

I'm working with the guys who make MegaAGS (AmigaVision) for the MiSTer and its been requested i put together a top 20 list of PD/Shareware games. Now i've come up with this list, excluding most 2+ player games so you won't see Tanx, Gravity Power, Rocketz etc. The list was much longer but i trimmed it down to this top 30... Its influenced a little by some of my favourites but i hope you'll agree these are mostly much loved PD games.

What do you think? What have i missed that is a widely regarded classic PD game? Now, this first list is intending to be classic era, so anything up to around the year 2000.


Deluxe Galaga
Deluxe Pacman
Amoeba Invaders
Cybernetix
Microbes
Super Obliteration
R3 - The Art Of Rocketry
Plat-Man
Super Foul Egg
Megaball (v4.1)
Breed 96
Nibby Nibble
Poing 7.14
Transplant
Alien Bash 2
Kastle Kumquat
Jelly Othelly
Diamond Caves II
Tetren
Llamatron
Motorola Invaders 2
Quest For Galaxia Drip
Boulderdash C64
Act Of War
Space Taxi 3
Aerial Racers Alien Fish Finger
Minerunner
Missiles Over Xerion
Poweroids Star Trek The Game (T.Richter)
Morton Strikes Back AGA

Following on from this, i think a modern era PD games list, another top 30, would be neat to have. What free/pd style games do you think should be included in a modern PD game style list? 2000 era onwards i guess, things that are maybe free from ItchIO or stuff by some of you guys on this forum. I know a lot of free ports have been done even just in the last couple of years. So what do you think? Cheers.

I also like these single-player PD games:

• Drip
• MF Tanks
• Mister And Missis
• Ork Attack: The Return
• Premier Picks
• Tetris Pro
• Thinkamania
• Zombie Apocalypse
• Zombie Apocalypse II AGA

Alien Fish Finger https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/alien-fish-finger
Robouldix https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=4430 the best Boulder Dash clone on Amiga
TechnoVenture http://aminet.net/package/game/jump/TV125R
Turtleminator https://oldhol.abime.net/6186 better than Cannon Fodder

I assume you're counting Shareware but not Licenseware or Coverdisk-exclusive licenses?

Great list, I need to check out the ones I haven't tried. Off the top of my head for more, the Bally series are great little Qix clones, and Vision's version of Defender was pretty much arcade perfect. Tobias Richter's Star Trek game?

For pre 2000 I would also add the AGA version of Morton Strikes Back, Dr Cube's Magic Lands, Pod, Q-Bic, T-Racer and Harold Hardtand.

Post 2000 I think the best are:
Boxx 4
Giana Sisters Special Edition
Inca Man
Maria Renard's Revenge
Ms Pacman 500
Pacman 500
SkillGrid
Solid Gold
Tinyus
Trap Runner
Trap Runner: Black Strawberry Cake

All good recommendations... Thanks.
I've tried not to double up game types too much so rather than...
Defender i have Cybernetix. Although Datastorm is still my fave but that was commercial.
Instead of Tetris Pro i have Tetren. I thought it was more fun (told you it has a little of my influence in the list).
Poing and Megaball are covering the breakout style.
Diamond Caves II and Boulderdash C64 cover that genre so don't want to add a 3rd version, as good as it is :)
I think match 2 games are kinda boring.

So i've picked up
Drip (replaced Quest For Galaxia)
Alien Fish Finger (Replaced Aerial Racers)
and Star Trek The Game (Replaced Poweroids)

I think the top 30 old classic PD list is okay now.
How about the more modern PD games, ItchIO stuff and other great free releases.

Cheers.

Cheers lionagony. With a few more suggestions i'll start to compile a list. Thanks.

@lionagony

Thanks for mentioning SkillGrid.


@hitm4n

If anyone gets any money from MegaAGS (e.g. donations, USB pen flashing service, etc.), please do not include SkillGrid, nor any of my games. Thanks in advance.

Hi Saimo. No-ones making a dime/penny to my knowledge. If you have concerns you can reach out to the guys who create it, Limi and Optiroc. I'm really just a sideline helper. I've been doing demo screenshots for an upcoming version and putting these lists together and testing... https://amiga.vision/ They both reside over at the MiSTer forums too where they announce the releases. https://misterfpga.org/

Its done out of love, and i guess is very similar to DamienD's package.

@hitm4n

No problem, then :)
(My request was due to the fact that recently a friend informed me that my games had been included in AGS, but that project is open to donations and also contemplates the sales of USB keys with pre-installed AGS on them. Before that, I wasn't even aware of AGS and I have no idea of how many similar projects there are and if/how they are linked.)

I don't know if "PD" is really what it's called these days. The term sort of came out of a misunderstanding about what the public domain was -- in many countries it's more or less impossible to make something public domain (the copyright always exists, the most you can do is give it an extremely permissive license), with only things created by the government (in some countries) or where copyright has expired actually being public domain.

Stuff is generally called freeware (in the case of free-but-closed-source), or open source (and labeled by license), "free software" being the term for something with a copyleft-style license.

The distinction between Public Domain and Freeware, as I understand it, is that Freeware software can be modified, or redistributed in part (eg without any readme files) whereas Public Domain software can't - which would make most 'Public Domain' games a distinct entity from 'open source'. Either way, nobody should be making a profit from it, unlike shareware and licenseware. Can 'homebrew' as an umbrella term be applied, making PD / freeware / shareware (and maybe licenseware, though that was exclusively licensed to a few specific PD companies, which perhaps makes it distinct?) potentially all subsets of homebrew?

Lets not worry too much about what we're calling these releases. I just want a list (or suggestions for one please) of games from the last 10 years that are widely regarded as "great" and have been released for free. We can call them PD, Freeware, ItchIO releases, Freemium, Homebrew etc. If its free it can go on the list.

Games like "Worthy" wouldn't be included of course, nor APC releases, we are well aware of the rules and don't want to rip anyone off if they are selling their games still. We're just curating some lists so people who are new to Amiga have a springboard of top 20's or 30's to get them into stuff/eras/demos/genres.

I was only actually asked for a PD list of classics (done) and thought a more modern list of games would be nice to have too.

I suppose i can trawl the usual sites and do yearly searches, working my way backwards, but i haven't played every game released in the last 10 years, far from it, so suggestions would be awesome...

"So what are your favourite free game releases of the last 10 years?"
Shall i start a new thread with this title?
Thnx.

Freeware (as opposed to "free software") generally means all rights are reserved but a license to copy freely has been granted. Public Domain means just that -- nobody owns it, it belongs to everyone. Stuff like cultural heritage from over a century ago, or in some countries anything that the government makes (since it was made by/for "the people"). You can do absolutely anything with it.

In many countries nowadays copyright is automatic and cannot be extinguished (except by time -- close to a century in the US), so you cannot actually place anything in the public domain, merely give a perpetual, completely permissive license to the public. For instance you could hand out your software with a blanket license but if nobody actually copied it you could turn around and enforce your copyright again on any future copies you made (but not any copies already in the wild with the permissive license). The reason I think people started calling these software libraries "public domain" is because public domain movie/music libraries of early-mid 20th century works were very popular, as stuff from not terribly long ago had entered public domain due to things like registration requirements (something modern copyright treaties eliminated). Computer software was so new it wasn't really eligible for that.

Gotcha. Shareware versions count I guess then (though I'd argue that Licenseware shouldn't since that was essentially just commercial software that was sold by so-called PD companies)