hackcraft.de
Reviewed listing of Free & Open Turn Based Strategy and Tactics Games

Mars, land of no mercy

It is a turn based mech stategy game featuring really nice graphics where you as a company fight on square-bases for marsian claims and resources. At this moment the future development of this game is undetermined and the author speaks of scratching the source and starting all over - ie. project death. If you want this game to become true you may want to persuade the author to go ahead with the current code base - there is always the option to refactor.

ASC - Advanced Strategic Command

Advanced Strategic Command is a somewhat futuristic Air-, Ground- and Sea battle game rooted around the "Battle Isle" series. The game is hex-based at an army scale with weapon factories and bases to be conquered.

Crimson Fields

Crimson Field is another well made clone of "Battle Isle" with somewhat cute graphics but lacking battle animations. The game is likewise played on a hex-grid. Units get rank-ups when fighting enemies and you need to conquer depots and factories using paratroopers. Besides network- and solo-play it supports hot-seat and eMail-play. There are tools for custom map editing and campain creation. Sadly I was even defeated in the tutorial mission ;( which tought me to take care and repair my units more.

8 Kingdoms

8 Kingdoms (8K) is a hex-based medieval / fantasy game where you can construct buildings, recruit un-/mounted units and war machines. Recruited units can gain experience and level up. The only big drawback is that 8K has the tendency to hang after a while - which is a known bug. The developers have announced a code workover - hope they don't plan to begin from scratch. I was not able to play this game beyond some turns because of said bug but so far it seemed like a fair turn-based conversion of the rts'ish buildings-resources-units scheme. They have some nice weather effects with rain and thunder which adds good to the mood. The units are simply colored which is not a too bad thing but maybe having a bit less saturation and intensity would fit in better. A nice also quite slow feature of this game is the animation of an attack where you can see individual soldiers run arround, fire shots and fall. As for the user interface: The giant horizontal menu-bar blocks a lot of the available screen real-estate in a less strategic manner - a vertical bar or at least a smaller bar would fit better into the screen. Some of the icons but not all do have tool tips which help the novice to make their first moves. I look forward to give 8K another try! Keep it up! Tested version 1.1.0

GearHead

GearHead is a mech rpg set in grid-based rouge like universe with graphical interface.

MegaMek

MegaMek is a "An unofficial, online version of the Battletech board game" which means that you control a set number of huge battle robots against another group. The game takes place on a hex-based map with elevations and movement difficulties. Firing of weapons accumulates heat which may even lead to your mech explode. The game itself is rather complex and nothing for a short leasure but the pro will definitively enjoy this game, or should I say simulation? The game runs out of the box - just better don't use spaces in folder name.

Screenshot by MegaMek Project, displayed here under fair use.

LGeneral

The WWII setting is debateable but this list wouldn't be complete without LGeneral. LGeneral is a tank warfare game heavily inspired by "Panzer General". It delivers senarios and campains on a hex-based board.

The Battle for Wesnoth

Known as one of the best polished open source game we can't leave it out. In this game you control a hero who can recruit units and needs to survive the battle. This medieval fantasy game takes place on hex-based maps. You have to earn income by to capturing and controling villages. Wesnoth features many many long campains and several add-ons.

UFO: Alien Invasion

"UFO: AI" is an interesting example what else can be done with a first person shooter engine. UFO features round based group operations without any grid - as they put it: "Our game combines military realism with hard science-fiction and the weirdness of an alien invasion. The carefully constructed turn-based system gives you pin-point control of your squad while maintaining a sense of pace and danger."

LuZhanQi - Chinese Army Chess

LuZhanQi is a chinese variant of chess, similiar to Stratego and L'attack. You may have a look into it, hackcraft.de supplies you with printable board and pieces. Our Rules are available in english (new!) and german.

Linwarrior

Shameless plug: This is not a turn based strategy game but you may allow us to make you aware of our own game under development: Linwarrior - a mech simulation game by hackcraft.de