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---
layout: post
title: Computer games I (used to) play
lang: en
categories: game
date: 2025-03-18 10:17 +0100
---
I'm not big on computer games. Usually "I don't have the time" to deal with
them. Or rather, spending so much time on the computer at work, I'm quickly fed
up with sitting on the computer. Also, I get frustrated quickly at times, when
I can't make progress or repeatedly fail. So I usually only play computer games
on vacation.
So, as for games I played (recently-ish)? Roughly sorted by time last played
ascending:
- Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in my childhood (in no specific order):
- [Civilization](https://archive.org/details/msdos_sid_meier_civilization)
[^civ1], [^civ2]. Yes, the original one! If I remember correctly, I always
got destroyed sooner or later… - [FreeCiv](https://www.freeciv.org/) is an
open source game inspired by it.
- [3D Pinball Space Cadet](https://alula.github.io/SpaceCadetPinball/). I
spent hours on that one. Never quite succeeding on hitting the targets…
- Anno 1602. I think the first game I searched for cheats to improve my
chances… - [Unknown Horizons](https://unknown-horizons.org) is a similar
game in open source. [^unkhor]
- SimCity 2000 [^simcit] -
[LinCity-NG](https://github.com/lincity-ng/lincity-ng) is a similar open
source game.
- Need For Speed III
- Empire Earth (quite like Age Of Empires, as I found out later) - As far as
open source goes, [0 A.D.](https://play0ad.com/) is probably the closest?
- "Die Völker" (apparently, "Alien Nations" in English, "The Nations" was
actually the sequel. Yeah, what?). I sunk quite some time into that one as
well.
- "Funk-Flitzer", which was on a "Mickey Maus" comic magazine. Go search for
"3-D Ultra Radio Control Racers".
- Worms 2 - [Hedgewars](http://www.hedgewars.org/) seems to be the open source
alternative.
- Moorhuhn, Winter Edition
- Sometime later deep in the past: Minecraft (I stopped way before Microsoft
acquired it), recently followed by [Minetest, or rather,
Luanti](https://www.luanti.org/) (Though, "it's just not the same anymore".
I'm not sure what exactly it is, maybe my changed mindset, maybe I liked the
original soundtrack and game elements more…).
- [Starbound](https://playstarbound.com/), very shortly
- [OpenTTD](https://www.openttd.org/): Trains and buses! Though, admittedly, I
never quite "got it" (why do you have to manually "park" passengers on train
stations, instead of unloading them completely, so they continue taking the
train?)
- [Dwarf Fortress](https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/). Go with
[LNP](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Utility:Lazy_Newb_Pack) if you
wanna give it a try, or the Steam version.
- [Stardew Valley](https://www.stardewvalley.net/) (on Android tablet)
- [Factorio](https://www.factorio.com/) - Shaking my head over the people
arguing over how to perfectly optimize everything ;). I disabled biters in
recent play-throughs, it got to annoying for me.
- [Terraria](https://terraria.org/). Another one where I had to resort to the
Wiki for the bosses.
- [Cattails: Wildwood Story](https://cattailsgame.com/). Got through the main
story, had to resort to YouTube for looking up how to beat the final boss.
- [Turing Complete](https://turingcomplete.game/)
- And, the most recent one,
[dotAge](https://www.michelepirovano.com/dotage.html)
The latter [^dotnote1] one is a "turn-based village builder", with challenges. I
*guess* I can *kinda* compare it to Dwarf Fortress, as in, it can be incredibly
hard, and you have to build a civilization [^dotdwarf] and take care of it, as
in terms of food and drink, for example. Only you don't have to deal with goblin
or forgotten beast invasion, but, basically, nature. And DF doesn't have tech
research… Okay, maybe they're not comparable after all.
The first play-throughs are rather rough, since you will only unlock additional
content, such as farming, with play time. So your first villages will cease to
exist quite quickly, I think. That's expected. Probably to show you the failure
modes?
From personal experience: Don't build some new buildings too quickly. The game
allows you to build them even though they're "useless" at that specific point in
the game, and you need additional tech research to make them usable.
{% linked_image
img="https://pics.uvokchee.de/_data/i/upload/2025/03/17/20250317185230-40c102c2-me.jpg"
url="https://pics.uvokchee.de/upload/2025/03/17/20250317185230-40c102c2.jpg"
alt="Screenshot of the game dotAge, of fairly early game play."
%}
[^dotnote1]:
Yes, kinda unfair I only go into detail into one. I wanted to start
"reviewing" only this one, but then thought, "well, might as well list all
games I played so far". Maybe that's a chance for future blog posts.
[^simcit]:
I didn't like SimCity 3000 as much. And *don't get me started with Cities:
Skylines*.
[^dotdwarf]:
General advice seems to be not to go over 50 in dotAge. In Dwarf Fortress,
you have to deal with the pesky Nobles instead. Something similar seems to
exist in dotAge as well?
[^civ1]: Go drop archive.org a small donation, won't you?
[^civ2]: You can actually still play it thanks to [DOSBox](https://www.dosbox.com/)
[^unkhor]:
Not sure about the current state. The port to the Godot
engine seems still to be a WIP. Last blog post is quite some time ago, but
the [GitHub repo](https://github.com/unknown-horizons/godot-port) is active.
|
