Games

Open source games and their status on NixOS

Name	Category	nixpkg status	Short Description
The Dark Mod	Stealth, FPS	pending pull request	Stealth game inspired by the Thief series.
Endless Sky	Space simulation, RPG	In nixpkgs	Explore a universe with different factions and ships.
Veloren	RPG, Sandbox	In progress	Multiplayer voxel RPG set in a procedurally generated world.
Armagetron Advanced	Arcade, Racing	In nixpkgs	A multiplayer Tron-like lightcycle racing game.
0 A.D.	Strategy, Historical	In nixpkgs	Historical real-time strategy game.
SuperTuxKart	Arcade, Racing	In nixpkgs	Kart racing game (like Super Mario Kart) featuring Tux and friends.
OpenRA	Strategy, RTS	In nixpkgs	Open-source implementation of Command & Conquer.
FreeCiv	Strategy, Turn-based	In Nixpkgs	Civilization-building strategy game.
OpenTTD	Simulation, Management	In nixpkgs	Business simulation game based on Transport Tycoon Deluxe.
Battle for Wesnoth	Strategy, Turn-based	In nixpkgs	Turn-based strategy game with fantasy themes.
FreeDoom	FPS	Not in nixpkgs	Free alternative to the Doom series.
Xonotic	FPS, Arena shooter	In nixpkgs	Fast-paced multiplayer shooter.
Mindustry	Strategy, Sandbox	In nixpkgs	Sandbox tower defense game.
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead	Survival, Rogue-like	In nixpkgs	Post-apocalyptic survival game.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon	Rogue-like, RPG	In nixpkgs	Rogue-like dungeon crawler with pixel graphics.

Other resources

• List of existing games in nixpkgs
• open-source-games list on Github by bobeff
• 50 highest rated (by stars on Github) playable open source games
• List of open-source video games (en.wikipedia)
• Topic "open-source-game" on github

Games starter

Games can be run by different applications. Some are able to include libraries from different plattforms.

Application	Platform	Remarks
Steam	Steam	Windows games work fine. Linux games are often incompatible due to how NixOS works.
Lutris	GOG, Humble Bundle, Epic, EA App, Ubisoft Connect, Steam, Flatpak, Wine
Heroic	Epic, GOG, Prime Gaming, Wine
Wine	Windows applications/games	often easier to use Lutris install scripts for wine applications/games
nixpgs	Linux games	There are several games in nixpgs. You can install them directly, e.g. vintagestory, flightgear, lots of racing games.
Dosbox	DOS applications/games

List of games

Renowned Explorers: International Society

Tested with version renowned_explorers_international_society_522_26056.sh from gog.com. It can be played with steam-run, but it needs some libraries that are not normally included in Steam's FHS environment. One way to solve this is to add an overlay:

  nixpkgs.overlays = [
    (self: super: {
      steam-run = (super.steam.override {
        extraLibraries = pkgs: with pkgs;
          [
            libxkbcommon
            mesa
            wayland
            (sndio.overrideAttrs (old: {
              postFixup = old.postFixup + ''
                ln -s $out/lib/libsndio.so $out/lib/libsndio.so.6.1
              '';
            }))
          ];
      }).run;
    })
  ];

Adding libxkbcommon, mesa, and wayland is straightforward. The game expects the shared library sdnio.so.6.1 to exist, so we need to create a symbolic link after the installation of sndio.