Free games, any good ones out there?

How about Privateer Gemini Gold, an excellent remake of that Origin oldie.
http://privateer.sourceforge.net/

*bump* If anyone is interested, I'm still trying to maintain the list here

The original Deadly Rooms of Death is probably my favorite free game out there. Once you get past the initial apparent simplicity, it gets WAY good. This put my brain in a pretzel in short order.

http://forum.caravelgames.com/downloads.php

Drod: Architects Edition is the free one on this page.

Also there's a 'breakout' style game called DX Ball that's free. That's a pretty good freebie, IMO.

Also I think Spiderweb's Exile games are freeware now, but I'm not 100 percent certain.

Some more

The Spirit Engine 1&2
http://thespiritengine.com/news.html

Exit Fate and Last Scenario
http://site.scfworks.com/

Arkoss
https://www.digipen.edu/fileadmin/website_data/gallery/game_websites/arkoss/main.html

Megabane 2
http://www.instantkingdom.com/magebane/

One of the best - Dungeon Master: Return To Chaos
http://ragingmole.com/RTC/

Alright, added the games to the list. All apart from Exit fate & last scenario. What genre(s) do they belong to?

What about the Space Quest 2 remake by the same people who did the KQ3 remake.

Ah, I did not know that that one had been released. Added it to the list.

@ Fnord

Iji. Think about it as being to plataformers as Deus Ex is to first person shooters.

Demonophobia. Adventure game with guro elements. NSFW, your character will die a thousand gory and brutal deaths before the end. Download link for the final version is in the second page of the thread.

Yume Nikki. Adventure game, mostly explore around and solve some puzzles. Creepy and moody.

Re:Alistair++. Freeware otome game. Simple, but kind of cute.

Finally, a question. Most doujin games released only in japan are kind of a grey area as no one cares about them being free in the west until a publisher decides to translate them, and when that happens they become illegal to share. Can I, thus, give you some of those to link here or not? It's your choice.

The two japanese games I gave in this post, Demonophobia and Yume Nikki, are freeware, though, with no gray area involved, so don't worry about those.

Edit:

Au Sable and All of our friends are dead, two creepy and atmospheric indie plataformers. It's the same link for both: One's above and the other's, like, below, in the same post.

Moar Edit:

Holdover. Puzzle plataformer with some blood and very mild nudity. Japan gonna japan, etc. Good puzzle plataformer, though.

I added most of the games to the list. Judging by the games that you recommended, you would probably enjoy The white chamber. It is a manga-style horror adventure game with some slightly unsettling scenes.

I'm a tad bit confused about what exactly an otome game actually is. My very limited knowledge of Japanese (most of which I acquired from a friend who in his younger days spent his days reading way too much manga), otome should roughly translate to "maid".

I'm trying to keep my list as legal as possible. Doujin games are in a similar grey zone as abandonware, technically speaking not legal but noone cares. Well usually that is, the site which I found the first 3 PC-releases of touhou on got closed down because a game author did not like to see his/her game on it. Some could argue that doujin games have gained far more than they lost from oversea piracy (just look at Touhou, you can get Touhou plush dolls & pins in my local sci-fi/fantasy bookstore these days), but I want to make sure that the site which I post these things on don't get into any legal trouble.

@ Fnord

Otome games are games aimed at young girls and on which romance with incredibly hot guys is an important element of both the plot and the gameplay. They take a lot of their tropes and elements from works with the Shoujo descriptor, as both share the same target market.

While some are entirely focused on the romance that doesn't need to be so, and it can be argued those whose plot is nothing but "You just got transfered to a new school, go score some hotties!" or "You just got a new job, go score some hotties!" are the less appreciated of the bunch. Most otome games try to have the romance elements happen inside another story. Those stories are usually in the urban fantasy and modern fantasy genres, though that's not a hard and fast rule and as long as the genre allows for emotional and personal involvement with total hotties it is fair play. There is even a series of spy genre spoofs about a secret fashion agency with the mission of turning total losers into hot guys while fighting against an evil secret organization with the mission of turning hot guys into total losers.

While most otome games are visual novels (i.e: Choose your own romance adventure! ) any game targeted at preteen, teen, and young adult girls that has romance as an important element of both the story and the gameplay can be considered an otome game along it's main descriptor. So there are strategy otome games, adventure otome games, role playing otome games, etc. I.E: Crimson Empire includes pretty hardcore JRPG combat, Little Anchor and Sangoku Rensenki have tactical combat, Queen of Darkness has both tactical combat and some city building (and a torture minigame!), etc.

Until recently they weren't popular in the west. Now a couple "for little girls" ones have been released into english, several groups of fans are working on translation patches for a couple of old ones, and some western indie studios are developing their own, though those still don't come even slightly close to the quality and production values of those released in the land of sushi loving tentacles.

Finally, while many are focused solely on the romance there are many who also include sexual elements going all the way from softcore to hardcore fetishes no girl would talk about in polite society. This is kind of controlled by what kind of young girl is the target market, though: Those aimed at the preteen market never have sexual elements; those aimed at the teen market rarely have sexual elements, and those who do very rarely go beyond softcore; those aimed at young adults can go all the way into "… le fuck is dat?!" territory and then beyond, but not always do. That's the theory, at least. In practice there are several "aimed at teen girls" ones that get pretty hardcore with the weird fetishes.

And yes, your japanese is fair enough. Otome games are usually translated as maiden games, as it follows from them being romantic games for young girls. Though it is kind of a misnomer when we get to games for young adults and the like, some of which can go quite quickly deep into fetish territory.

Some of those western indie games I mentioned would be, uhm, Magical Diary, Cafe 0, X-Note, etc. They have a long way to go before being on the same level japanese otome games are, but at least they are trying. Faito!

If you can into moonrunes you should give, like, Bloody Call, Clepsydra, The exorcism of Maria, Princess Nightmare, and Zettai Meikyu Grimm a try. Those are all easy to get and have pretty high production values, and are some of my favorites.

The ones that have been translated by fans so far are Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 1st Love Plus and Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 2nd Season. There are other being worked, I believe, including Queen of Darkness' side story, the second reproduction. Considering the kind of game Queen of Darkness was the name alone is really, really scary.

And then you have Princess Debut for the nintendo DS, which was not only translated but officially published in the west. It's actually pretty fun, and totally cute. I believe there may be others for the DS but I can't remember right now which were published in the west and which weren't.

Anyway, that was my, uhm, completely off topic post introducing otome games, the original rated M for MANLY genre.



And I thank you for recommending the White Chamber to me, even if I had already played it. You are pretty much right on me enjoying it. It's a shame they never finished their next one, "for the game" or something like that it was called.

Note: Those links are all part of the introduction to otome games, they aren't free games! Most of them, at least.

A couple of great free sports sims:

Out of the Park Baseball 8
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/ootp8/

Total Extreme Wrestling 5
http://www.greydogsoftware.com/tew/index.php?page=screens
http://www.greydogsoftware.com/tew/index.php?page=freeware

Only thing I can think off is The nameless, its not technically a game but a deus ex mod though.
http://thenamelessmod.com/real/

Many links to good free games & mods are in this thread in the General RPG section.

Isn't Zork 1 to 3 public domain now? (I guess you would call that an adventure game.)

Zloth said:

Isn't Zork 1 to 3 public domain now? (I guess you would call that an adventure game.)

Click to expand...

Nope. The Zork Anthology is sold on GOG.

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_zork_anthology

Thanks for the lengthy introduction to Otome games. I guess I fall a bit outside of the target audience though, as I am a hetrosexual male In a way your description of otome games make me think of Harvest Moon, but with a more adventure game-like approach to gameplay (and I don't really want to admit how much I enjoyed Harvest Moon...).

Liberated games is handy, and I have tried to pick out the gems from that list.

Here's some other free adventure games:
Space Quest 2: VGA remake
Vohaul Strikes Back
Space Quest: Incinerations
Lure of the Temptress
Teen Agent <-free on gog.com