Nerdy Endavours #2: (Retro) Gaming as an Adult (On Ubuntu)
...or am I?
I think I used to be...
I definitely was never much of a multiplayer gamer. My generation's take on multiplayer gaming was to lug a huge, cumbersome tower and CRT monitor along to your friend's house where you would congregate with other youngsters for a LAN party, where half of the evening was usually spent on trying to get the networking setup to work anyway. As much as it feels tempting to make a 'the dad from Calvin and Hobbes'-type of comment about how it built character and young people today have it too easy, it was a pretty tedious undertaking, especially if you like me grew up in the countryside. This, combined with the fact that I would not get a PC on my own that was even remotely contemporary (e.g. could play any cool networking games) until pretty late in my teens, I did only find myself participating in LAN parties 1-3 times a year and most times only as a spectator. The spectator role was also one I quickly fell into when visiting friends with modern gaming rigs, where I would mostly sit around and chat while watching them play. When online gaming finally hit it big with World of Warcraft during my time in high school, I did for whatever reason not feel tempted to jump on that band wagon and continued the role as spectator and occasional single player gamer.
Because I did play games by myself too. I have spent countless hours on simulation games such as the various versions of Simcity, real-time strategy games like Command & Conquer and RPG's like Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate, but it would almost always be by myself in my room at night clicking away in the deep of night only occasionally tapping out to see if anybody had messaged me on MSN. Ah, the memories!
I am some sort of gamer freak! - picture from Rick and Morty Wiki
My credentials as a gamer (or lack thereof) aside, obligations and hobbies that provides a greater sense of fulfillment, such as painting, drawing or writing, tend to take precedence over gaming when you are an adult (at least for me), but it would be a lie to say that I do not sometimes get the itch to get back into some gaming. While I did throw a lot of money after a decent gaming rig in my early twenties and did enjoy a few years of being on the bleeding edge of gaming, that system today is to modern gaming what a Soviet-built 1980 Lada Riva with a flat tire is to the latest supercar from Ferrari, and even if I did sell an organ or two in order to afford a decent gaming setup, I am not sure I would want to play the latest games, which are mostly online FPS'es anyway. Given my long-time role as a spectator, it was very easy for me to get into let's plays(LP's) when such content started to gain popularity on Youtube around 2009-2010 and usually looking up a longplay of a nostalgic game or tuning into my favourite LP'er is enough to cure the itch, but sometimes I get the urge to play the games I have watched my favourite LP'ers play on Youtube and/or the games I watched my friends play way back when. It is these games that holds the biggest appeal to me and drives my gaming desires; the desire to finally experience the games I have seen others play for myself.
Such an approach to gaming has the obvious advantage of being very cheap both in terms of hardware and software: My laptop is more than sufficient for games from my childhood and young adulthood and these games can be acquired for a dime a dusin at GOG. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, my laptop runs Xubuntu, which could seem like a hindrance, but for games as old as these, much can be achieved through emulators such as DosBox which are available on the platform and the most popular titles from back then are the subjects of open-source remake projects that are likewise being ported to Ubuntu.
But enough talk, what do I play and how do I play it? Here are a few examples:
OpenXcom
X-COM: UFO Defence is one of the games I would watch one of my friends play way into the night circa 1995 and that I was absolutely in awe of, both then and now. The game offers a lot of variety with elements such as base building and management, UFO dog fights and intense turn-based combat.
The so-called Geoscape is a global representation of Earth and is the default game play screen of X-COM: Ufo Defence. The aliens are being jerks by terrorizing Nairobi the day after I lost two X-COM operatives on a UFO crash site recovery mission
Like many strategy games from that era, X-COM: UFO Defence will feel overwhelming in the beginning, even when you pick it up as an adult 20+ years later, and the combat against the aliens with their plasma weaponry and tough-to-kill terror units can be truly brutal, but when you get the knack of base management and figure out the optimal load out for the missions and finally manage to clear a UFO crash site without losing an X-COM operative, the feeling of accomplishment is huge. The constant feeling of being the constantly besieged underdog along with a truly excellent soundtrack also creates a very special feeling of tension and dread I have not felt in many other games
As the name implies, OpenXcom is one of those remake projects I mentioned above. It is freely available for download for most platforms, but requires files from the original game, that can luckily be purchased on GOG for a few meager dollars.
Exile 2: Crystal Souls
The Exile series is a series of adventure games released by independent game developer Spiderweb Software that builds and expands upon the underground universe of company president Jeff Vogel's D&D Campaign. This is actually one of the few games on this list I played by myself as a young teenager after discovering the demo of the first game: Exile: Escape From The Pit on a software CD and later finding Exile II online and downloading it.
Combat is a not too uncommon occurrence in Exile 2. Tank(try and guess his role in the party) and friends take on a horde of monsters in the muggy, dimly lit tunnels of Exile
In terms of graphics and game mechanics, the Exile games were nothing special even for their time, but the underground world of Exile and the intriguing story line overwhelmed and absolutely captivated me as a kid. Like X-COM, this game can be brutal to the point of being imbalanced, but the pendulum swings both ways, and once you get the hang of building your party, you become neigh unstoppable in all but the most difficult encounters and dungeons.
The Exile games have received a modern overhaul in the form of the Avernum games which can be purchased on Steam and runs on modern systems. Because of this, Spiderweb Software has made all the original Exile games freely available for download on their website. The Exile games were designed for Windows 3.1x, so you will need a Dosbox with a working Windows installation in order to run them.
Caesar 3
Another game I watched other people play in my youth is the 1998 Roman city simulator Caesar 3. City builders have always fascinated me, and this one took you out of the normal modern urban simulations of Simcity and back to antiquity with new and exciting mechanics related to trade, food and even combat against invading barbarians.
Governor Sextus Pompaius Ahenobarbus surveys the (not very impressive) furniture making district of the capitol in his Germanic province
This game offers a lot of freedom in terms of your approach to building a city (at least in the peaceful provinces) and the unique mechanic that regulates housing growth means that a lot of thought has to be put into the infrastructure of your city and the combat happens often enough to be both a point of excitement and one of worry.
Getting Caesar 3, a Windows 98 era game, to run on a Linux machine requires the emulator Wine, which is not always trivial to work with. Luckily, the ./play.it project has made the installation of Caesar 3 on a Ubuntu machine much easier by providing scripts that converts the GOG installer file into .deb packages that can easily be installed on your system.
Thank you for reading! If you like my content, please leave an upvote and a comment about your thoughts on gaming and gaming nostalgia and please check out my other posts as well!