Sort-of gaming related question

[dogknob]

I grabbed my landlady's 1-year old computer, which had been gathering cobwebs after she caught some sort of bug that slowed it down to an unusable pace.

I wiped everything off of it. I mean I nuked it. I booted from an external Linux disk and wrote zeros over the entire computer. Took about 5 hours.

Then I installed Ubuntu Linux and gave the computer to my 66-year-old history-buff roommate, who has never used a computer in his entire life. We're talking starting-from-the-absolute-beginning, intimidated-by-mice newbie.

I figure he'll get good enough on the thing to be able to supplement his reading (mostly historical fiction and non-fiction) with online info; it would be great if he got into that instead of watching Bill O'Reilly every day at 5. I can only hope.

I remembered that I pretty much learned how to use a computer by playing games, but solitaire and pinball isn't going to interest this guy.

Can anyone suggest some easy-to-learn, engaging games for Linux? I've looked at Freeciv and Battle for Wesnoth and I am installing both...

Any other suggestions?

[Ohio Joe]

1. Hard to say but...

You could take a look here:

http://gamesonlinux.com/index.html

To get an idea of what games are available... I think if you can find specific game titles he might be interested in, people here would better be able to let you know if they liked the game or not... if anyone here has even played it

[eShirl]

2. I tried that a few times, but always ended up back with running Windows games with WINE or Crossover

I always seem to pine for something like Wizard101 or WOW after a few months of searching high and low for a LINUX game to capture my interest.


WINE is free
http://appdb.winehq.org/

Crossover's based on WINE, but way less of a hassle to get something working (especially if there is already a "crosstie" for the program you wish to install). It automates a lot of steps you have to do by hand with WINE.
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxgames/

[dogknob]

5. Played Neverwinter Nights on Wine back in the day... cool.

We'll see if my "test subject" actually starts using the damn thing before getting into that.

The computer is an Acer Aspire z5700 with 4GB RAM, an i3, and shared video. Skyrim would crash this box before you could say "Boethiah."

[Evoman]

3. Make sure to get Steam.

You can actually purchase a lot of Linux games from Steam these days.

http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/

[dogknob]

4. Yeah, that's pretty exciting.

I am a big Skyrim fan, but the place Bethseda is taking the game (MMO+) is lazy, weak, and totally aimed at the console (get PCs away from the people so they stop electing black presidents) market.

I haven't messed around with Linux for a few years, but it's nice to be back. It just keeps getting better.

[PennyK]

6. The Cave

New, funny game from Double Fine. I believe it is available for Linux.

http://thecavegame.com/

[dogknob]

7. The Caaave!

I'm done. I won't say it again...

The Caaave


OK, now I'm really done



That game looks like I will probably get hooked on it and forget why I OP'd...

The Caaave