Developer: PopCap Games
Release Date: May 5, 2009

Plants vs. Zombies is an example of casual game perfection, from developer PopCap Games at their peak, pre-acquisition. Effectively a tower defense game without being a tower defense game, it has a difficulty curve so incredibly well done that at some point you're pulling off elaborate strategies without ever feeling like you're not ready for it. With an addicting amount of depth, additional mini-games once you finish the campaign, and no microtransactions or mismatched mechanics, it's a game that absolutely holds up.

It's also a game where I had no idea there was a modding community, let alone a nearly perfect reverse engineered source port nearly five years in the making. I honestly thought for a minute it was some sort of trick but no, PvZ Portable is a true reverse engineered port.

NOTE: While PvZ-Portable definitely works with Plants vs. Zombies: Game of the Year Edition, I'm not clar if it works with the regular (non-GOTY) edition. As of this writing the GOTY edition is the only version on Steam. As far as I can tell it does not work with the recent Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted edition.

Developer: Jonas Echterhoff
Release Date: 2000

In another example of the charm of early 2000's Macintosh shareware, Reckless Drivin' is a fun top down driving game where you attempt to balance damaging other cars, avoiding the police, and making it to the end of the level in one piece. It was released in 2000 by Jonas Echterhoff who put out the source code and released the game as freeware in 2019 it was recently ported to modern systems by Darren Cohen.

Developer: Wildfire Games
Release Date: April 1, 2010
Source Code Release Date: July 10, 2009

0 A.D. is a game like Age of Empires, which is appropriate given that it started out its life a quarter century ago as an Age of Empires II mod. After close to a decade of work the team decided the AOE2 engine was too limiting and decided to expand to their own engine which they've been plugging away at ever since. As of this writing they left Alpha status a little under a month ago, and they recently got Apple Silicon support nailed down.

Note that we are linking to their download page instead of direct files as there are multiple download options including BitTorrent to save the developers some bandwidth.

Developer: Epic Games
Release Date: March 30, 2004

For a brief window it seemed as if the twitch arena shooter was going to go the way of the annual sports franchise, for better or worse. In that vein, Epic released the sequel to Unreal Tournament in 2003 as... Unreal Tournament 2003. This was then followed up in 2004 by Unreal Tournament 2004.

While content-wise, Unreal Tournament 2004 is a superset of Unreal Tournament 2003, the initial plans to make it cross-play with the matching maps from the previous entry did not survive technical changes. Neverheless, it was a popular entry with tons of content, maps, modes, and the DVD-ROM version contained a disc full of map editing and modding tutorials that may have produced innumerable game developers, cementing Unreal as a game engine licensing force. It was truly a golden era of gaming.

Unfortunately things didn't last - Epic's planned break from the yearly cadence eventually meant that what would have been Unreal Tournament 2007 became Unreal Tournament III, eschewing the annual concept, and a planned 2014 reboot got consumed by an unclear business plan and their decision to shift everything to Fortnite.

Still, the OldUnreal guys have done it again - and by that I mean they convinced Epic to let them work their magic on yet another Unreal-the-franchise title. This is a preview release, so I'm labeling it Early Access, but fire it up and experience what at least one gamer called "I had to check to make sure there wasn't an Xbox under my desk."

Developer: Ken Silverman
Release Date: January 1, 1993
Source Code Release Date: July 1, 2001

I'm going to be honest - for a long time I didn't know Ken's Labyrinth was a real game. Written by Ken Silverman as a teenager, the game is most known for being effectively the progenitor of the Build engine, which he later wrote. For some reason I always thought it was the name of a tech demo he used to get the 3D Realms gig, and not an actual commercial title.

But no, it's real, and it's fascinating. Sometimes when you have an early example of a game in a genre you get to see what they tried to do before they knew what worked. Like how Wolfenstein 3-D had points you could score, something later id Software titles never had. Ken's Labyrinth, though, has everything. Score? Check. Utterly random enemies? Check. No real plot or need for one? Of course. Graphics and sounds made by a passionate one-person team with no previous experience? Done. An in-game economy with vending and slot machines? Sure why the heck not. Toss in some photos of the developer and an audio clip of him welcoming you and you have the video game equivalent of a cult classic. The game was originally shareware and later published by Epic.

Silverman released the game as freeware in 1999 and the source in 2001. LAB3D/SDL is a source port started by Ryan “icculus” Gordon and like the Build engine that came after it, it's been through a chain of maintainers, including Katie Stafford, the latest of which is from Cameron Armstrong who brought it into modern Mac platforms.

Developer: Capstone Software
Release Date: September 1995
Source Code Release Date: August 2006

Witchaven, based on a pen-and-paper RPG supplement, was the first game to use the Build engine. Although not nearly as successful or technically advanced as its successors, it nevertheless attempted to pull off a combination of first person action and role playing elements.

The source was released by a former Capstone programmer in 2006 and the JFWitchaven project arose from that.

This game is definitely not nearly as polished or advanced as later Build games but it's still an intersting artifact of the mid-90's FPS gold rush.

  Buy Witchaven on GOG.com

  Buy Witchaven on the Humble Store

Developer: Chris Sawyer
Release Date: September 2004

Another game from Chris Sawyer, Locomotion served as his spiritual successor to Transport Tycoon and like that game and Rollercoaster Tycoon the game has his signature isometric pixel art style and a hardcore group of followers willing to reimplement and reiterate on it in the form of open source projects. The OpenLoco team recently hammered out the issues necessary for their project to work on 64-bit operating systems so I've made a build of it available here.

  Buy Chris Sawyer's Locomotion on GOG.com

  Buy Chris Sawyer's Locomotion on the Humble Store

Developer: Troika Games
Release Date: August 21, 2001

Troika Games was one of those legendary developers, not only because of the pedigree of the founders but also because they didn't last very long and their games got the majority of their appreciation long after the fact. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is sort of like Fallout and sort of like Baldur's Gate, but rather than be in a post-apocalyptic or fantasy setting, it takes place in a steampunk world which is a surprisingly uncommon theme in gaming.

Alexander Batalov, who did the outstanding reverse engineered source ports for Fallout and Fallout 2 is in the process of working his Community Edition magic on Arcanum. He's not finished with it, thus the Early Access label, but the game reportedly is playable from start to finish so I decided to offer a build of it here.

NOTE: at this time the port is not playing the intro video so you may want to watch it here to get the gist of what it's dropping you into.

  Buy Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura on GOG.com

Developer: Simtex Software
Release Date: September 1993

Described by some as "Civilization in space", Master of Orion is a 4X strategy game where you lead one of ten alien races to conquer the galaxy via dominaton or diplomacy. You start small, with a single homeworld and few resources and build out from there. There are different types of planets, the various races have different specialities, and there is a variety of technologies available to persue. The ultimate world to conquer is the titular Orion, which is also the hardest to conquer.

Although simplistic by today's standards, the game has developed a cult following, multiple sequels, spiritual successors, and even a reboot.

NOTE: the 1oom source port is compatible with the original, DOS-based version of the game from 1993, not the reboot from 2016 named Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars, which is sometimes just called Master of Orion. Most retailers sell the 1993 game in a 2-pack along with its first sequel under the titme Master of Orion 1+2.

  Buy Master of Orion on GOG.com

  Buy Master of Orion on the Humble Store

Developer: Delphine Software
Release Date: November 1991

Another game whose primary platform was the Amiga, Another World (released in North America as Out of This World) is one of those games notable for trying new things. Playing as a scientist transported into an alien world when an experiment goes wrong, it used vector graphics and rotoscoping animation to produce effects not often seen in 1991.

The rawgl project is a cross-platform engine that can use the assets from a number of different versions, including the Anniversary Edition on GOG.

  Buy Another World on GOG.com

  Buy Another World on the Humble Store