This is my first post about a Linux game, but I figured it was worth the time to write about because this game proves that Linux can do anything. If you’ve not heard about Battle for Wesnoth, it’s an excellent turn-based role playing game that’s developed natively for Linux and released open source. It’s a cross between WarCraft and Civilization in the gameplay. It doesn’t have the graphics of either (the open source community is rather poor so far at communicating with graphic artists) but it has excellent playability.

The main character of the game is a young prince who’s just inherited a kingdom but is being hunted by his kingdoms enemies. The first few levels are spent escaping/fighting with enemy armies and learning the basics of economic upkeep and fighting with various classes of characters. Gameplay is from an overhead perspective on a hexagonal-sectioned map. You have to keep track of various different stats for different characters (as any rpg) and there is a focus on fewer, well-managed characters over large armies.

It’s still in pre-beta but it’s very playable. I recommend getting it through one of the following means:
# emerge wesnoth (on a Gentoo system)
# apt-get install wesnoth (on a Debian/Ubuntu/DSL system)
# firefox http://www.wesnoth.org