What Are The Best Free Games Online?

almostdead writes "CNET has just put up a story about what it thinks are the best online flash games of all time. These include titles like Line Rider, Bejeweled, Desktop Tower Defense and Portal, all of which I enjoy playing a lot. But my thirst for free games is peaking at the moment, probably due to an incredibly boring job and lack of imagination. Can you suggest any more good free games online?" Two words: Puzzle Pirates.

This is your boss speaking

[psychicsword (1036852)]

I also enjoy the portal game...
I mean get back to work

Re:This is your boss speaking

[ShieldW0lf (601553)]

I've been playing a fair bit of OpenArena:

http://openarena.ws/?about [openarena.ws]

Open sourced Quake III code with new models and textures and whatnot.

Battle for Wesnoth is a good networked turn-based strategy game, my girlfriend likes it too.

http://www.wesnoth.org/ [wesnoth.org]

Zombies is a fun single player game that's open source (Windows and Mac only):

http://www.codenautics.com/zombies/ [codenautics.com]

For anyone who liked Tron, there's a maddeningly difficult game called Armagetron Advanced that lets you race the bikes:

http://www.armagetronad.net/ [armagetronad.net]

There's a good list of open source games for windows here:

http://osswin.sourceforge.net/games.html [sourceforge.net]

And a big list of general open source games over on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games [wikipedia.org]

They're not Flash games, but they're Free.

Re:

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

The purpose of the article is Flash Games in specific. So your examples are neither here nor there. Personally, I'm amazed that no one has mentioned Newgrounds Rumble [newgrounds.com], one of the best brawlers of all time! It was one of the highest rated games over on Newgrounds, and hung around for AGES. More recently, it was ported to WiiCade [wiicade.com] so that you could play against your friends on the WiiMote controller. (Which is a lot more fun than trying to share a keyboard, let me tell you.)

Actually, I should probably expand o

Planarity

[Cap'n.Brownbeard (1092507)]

http://www.planarity.net/ [planarity.net]

So simple, and yet so addicting...

Nethack

[Hatta (162192)]

Try Nethack. You can play online at nethack.alt.org. All you need is telnet.

Re:Nethack

[cromar (1103585)]

Or Angband [rephial.org].

Re:mangband?

[nschubach (922175)]

That's perfectly understandable. Take Hellgate:London. It's pretty much a 3D Diablo, but it's just not the same as that isometric classic. I think it's harder to play, control, pick up items, etc. Maybe if they patched a locked camera mouse activated control scheme into HG:L it might actually be fun to play.

Portal

[Mondoz (672060)]

Portal looks like fun, but does it let you save your game in progress?

Re:Portal

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

The flash game can be completed in a single sitting quite easily. If you quit it and come back later then it allows you to skip to the last level you were on, which is as much saving as I cared about (I don't remember if it keeps any kind of score for you). Definitely a fun game, but not much replay value.

First post---doh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to get first post on Slashdot is one of my favorite online games. As you can see I kind of suck at it.

slashdot: the game

[mcmonkey (96054)]

"The only winning move is not to play"

IIRC Hitchiker's is online along with Adventure...

[filesiteguy (695431)]

Of course, my current favorite is Theseus and the Minotaur: http://www.logicmazes.com/theseus.html

Oh, back to work....

Puzzle Pirates is Not Flash

[eldavojohn (898314)]

Two words: Puzzle Pirates.

Well, believe it or not, Puzzle Pirates uses Java 1.4, not Flash (like the title of the article states). From the installation requirements [puzzlepirates.com]:

Puzzle Pirates runs in Java 1.4 and is presently supported on Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP, on Mac OS X 10.3 'Panther' on Linux and other Unix platforms.

If this article were not restricted to flash only games, I think the quality of the games would be a bit better.

Re:

[toleraen (831634)]

Article Title: What Are The Best Free Games Online?

Question at end of summary: Can you suggest any more good free games online?

I'm not seeing where the restriction to flash only games comes into this Ask /..

Why Does Puzzle Pirates require unlimited access?!

[arete (170676)]

Why Does Puzzle Pirates require unlimited access to my computer?

Kitten Cannon

[hodagacz (948570)]

http://www.addictinggames.com/kittencannon.html [addictinggames.com]

Missing Options?

[ScuttleMonkey (55)]

Dwarf Fortress [bay12games.com] has been a decent time waster for offline play (great for airplane rides as it turns out).

For an online flash game I can't believe they left out Gold Miner [123games.dk], one of my favorite turn-brain-off-and-play flash games of all time. Great for those long corporate meetings...shhhhh. :)

My choice

[firstojune (1085843)]

http://www.orisinal.com/ [orisinal.com]

Cutest amongst the cute.

9 Billion Miles from Earth

[ultravibe (1124587)]

http://www.adultswim.com/games/ninebillion/index.html [adultswim.com]

How about offline flash games?

[EricR86 (1144023)]

One letter:

N

Free, flash, but you play offline on your own computer.
Of course for the online competitive people you can still submit scores online.

500 levels of amazing platforming goodness :).

gratuitous links

[BadMrMojo (767184)]

I'll second N [harveycartel.org]. Edges out Cave Story [gameflaws.com] as my favorite platformer of all time.

Best of all, the two are pretty drastically different, so it's worth trying both.

Hapland,

[Cedric Tsui (890887)]

Hapland is one of my favorites. Not abundantly popular, but it makes for a really good think.
http://www.foon.co.uk/farcade/hapland/ [foon.co.uk]

Also... If you're on slashdot, you've probably already heard of Notpron [deathball.net]
If you haven't, you'll be unproductive for the next 16 hours, at which point you'll be stumped on level 21.

Me no RTFA

[Riddler Sensei (979333)]

For the love of all that is unholy, don't RTFA. It's literally about 1.5 sentences per page along with the name of the game.

I've been playing Bejeweled for years. Not online mind you, but actually on my cell phone. It's an amazing five minute distraction during that short break in a two hour lecture.

I tried the demo of Peggle this week, and...well...while "entertaining" I doubt I would be willing to spend more than a few dollars on it. Now if it were ENTIRELY free, I could probably see myself playing it for

Back In My Day

[phobos13013 (813040)]

We didnt have all these sophisticated environments to waste our time in... We played SOLITAIRE in visual basic and WE LIKED IT!!!

N?

[davek (18465)]

The greatest free cycle eater in the universe doesn't make the list? I can't believe it.

http://www.harveycartel.org/metanet/n.html [harveycartel.org]

Average play time ranges from 30 seconds to 10 hours. Perfect for those long software builds when you've already checked your email 30 times in the last 5 minutes. No scrolling, just perfect stick-figure ninja goodness.

fl0w

[Jaysyn (203771)]

I love me some fl0w.

http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/ [usc.edu]

phosphor

[brunascle (994197)]

Phosphor [rasterwerks.com]. a shockwave based FPS. yes, that's right, an FPS. pretty good graphics too.

I've struck

[Seakip18 (1106315)]

the Motherload! [xgenstudios.com] Great game. You dig with a miner unit, get money, upgrade and then dig deeper and deeper for the big scores. I wasted hours playing that game.

The ten most addictive??

[More_Cowbell (957742)]

TFA is titled "The ten most addictive online flash games ever made"
Why then are three of the ten rated 2 out of 5 on their own addictiveness scale? A fourth is rated only 3/5...
Maybe they should have called it "the first ten flash games we found links to"?

shamless plug

[Jarik C-Bol (894741)]

for good old fassioned runescape (.com) cant beat a free MMO that plays in the browser with half decent graphics.

Kingdom of Loathing

[evanbd (210358)]

Doesn't use flash, just standard HTML. And chok full of lovely absurdist humor. And undead elbow macaroni.

Kingdom of Loathing [kingdomofloathing.com]

Completely free, no ads, donation supported. Fair warning: a few of the items are easiest to get by donating, but those are nice-to-haves, and it's certainly no big deal if you don't have them.

There's always Game!

[Mad Merlin (837387)]

You could always play Game! - The Witty Online RPG [dyndns.org].

BattleMaster

[Joe the Lesser (533425)]

Check out BattleMaster [battlemaster.org]

It's kind of a mmorpg web-based feudalism simulator.

2D Portal?

[roystgnr (4015)]

I never finished it. Partly that's because I was playing in Linux, where the performance of this 2D game was awful on a system where Valve's 3D Portal ran smoothly at moderate-to-high quality settings. It's kind of sad that the Wine programmers can use Linux APIs to implement Windows APIs so much more efficiently than the Adobe programmers can use Linux APIs to implement their own Flash player.

Anyone want to spoil the ending for me? Was there 2D cake, and was it delicious and moist?

Muds, yo!

[Mongoose Disciple (722373)]

Some of the best free games online are still MUDs. Like microbrews in an era of WoWeiser the King of MMORPBeers, they're capable of catering to specialized tastes in ways a game meant for the masses (for its strengths) just can't.

Granted, not Flash games. There's something of a disconnect between the title of TFA and the title of the Slashdot story, here.

A few gems (and the november Nethack tournament)

[pthisis (27352)]

Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game; raise armies and fight battles. Play solo campaigns where you can advance your troops' skills, or play short battles against other players online. http://www.wesnoth.org/ [wesnoth.org]

Freeciv is a Civilization clone, also single player or multiplayer online. http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page [wikia.com]

And if you're willing to go really old-school, nethack is always available; the annual tournament is ongoing in the month of November. Current standings at http://nethack.devnull.net/tournament/scoreboard.shtml [devnull.net] or enter for free at http://nethack.devnull.net/tournament/howitworks.shtml [devnull.net] ; you can always telnet to nethack.alt.org to play or download from http://www.nethack.org/ [nethack.org]

There are all kinds of trophies for smaller achievements, so first-time players can hope to get something but it's still competitive for experienced players--I pulled off 6 ascensions in a row at the June tournament and didn't make the top 3 for most consecutive, so the level of play is quite high.

Grow.

[meringuoid (568297)]

Grow [eyezmaze.com].

That is all.

Peasant's Quest!

[Dahamma (304068)]

Not just the best Flash game, but possibly the best use of flash in the history of time!

http://www.homestarrunner.com/disk4of12.html [homestarrunner.com]

Free simple opengl shooter

[tjstork (137384)]

I wrote a 3d shooter called Independent. You can download it from http://www.mightyware.com/independent.htm [mightyware.com]. It's shareware, but, since all of you folks put up with my loony rants, the registration code is 1138. Enjoy!

www.Orisinal.com

[GillBates0 (664202)]

I find Ferry Halim's creations [orisinal.com] simple, creative, beautiful, artistic and addictive. For example, notice the simple, yet elegant 3D effects in this game [ferryhalim.com].

Great for a lonely/drunk Friday evening, when complex games are too mentally exhausting.

Planeshift

[spikedvodka (188722)]

Personally, I love Planeshift http://www.planeshift.it/ [planeshift.it] It's Free, fun, constantly growing, and it has a great community

I'll be the first to admit, it doesn't have quite the polish of a full-blown MMORPG, but we're working on it, (Yes, Disclaimer: I am a dev), but it is highly playable

If you like MMORPGs, and want to get your hands dirty working on one, please look and see if you want to help out, we're always looking for artists (2D and 3D), and coders

Great - 10 more sites blocked

[The Fun Guy (21791)]

Thanks for giving our IT guys the URLs, Slashdot. As if they hadn't already firewalled all the good stuff already.

Dwarf Fortress!

[MWoody (222806)]

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ [bay12games.com]

It might look like it at first, but while it does share many similarities with the genre, it's not a roguelike game. It's a sandbox-style kingdom-building game of absolutely incredible complexity. They just released a huge update about a month ago that gave your digging a z-axis and, combined with a fluid dynamics engine, you can do some pretty hilarious things to defend your fortress.

And to get you started, check out the "my first fortress" and other starting guides in the game wiki:
http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page [lendemaindeveille.com]

PseudoQuest!

[Xaroth (67516)]

Oh, sure, it's a bit of shameless self-promotion, but I encourage anyone who enjoys turn-based pseudo-RPGs like LORD or KoL to check it out. It's a free casual RPG I'm writing in my spare time, at least in part as an exercise in stretching what's possible to do with PHP and AJAX. So... maybe not a "flash game" per se, but fits the general theme of casual games one can play over their lunch. ;)

Now go kill some slimes! http://www.pseudoquest.com/ [pseudoquest.com]

Gridlock

[curunir (98273)]

http://www.corwin.ca/gridlock/ [corwin.ca]...

Would be addictive if there were more than 40 levels.

Conquer Club

[Micah (278)]

If you like Risk, go to . Highly addictive, lots of play variation possibilities. Not Flash, but DHTML/AJAX (even better). Good playability. [conquerclub.com]

Check out Dofus

[code shady (637051)]

Funny name notwithstanding, it's a pretty cool little MMORPG that's done entirely in flash.

It has free to play and pay to play modes.

Re:

[Anxarcule (884937)]

The flash version doesn't do justice at all to the real Orange Box version. Plus it's only $19.99 for Portal standalone.

Re:

[radarjd (931774)]

Ditto on Kingdom of Loathing [kingdomofloathing.com]. It's not flash, but it's tons of fun.

Re:gaiaonline.org and habbo hotel!

[meringuoid (568297)]

Habbo was fun back in the day, but it's not been the same since they closed the pool.