Only a select few games where made available for Linux. Loki helped a lot, but it was no where near the options we have today.
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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Agreed there were native linux games written for linux, but remind me because I forgot - I believe Doom had been ported or something. Because I remember running it both at home in linux and I remember people running it in the computer labs off the Unix mainframe.
Ya there is prboom which is installable on Linux. Also dosbox was a thing for playing dos games on Linux
Doom was officially ported to Linux in 1994, and a modified version of Linux Doom was made source-available in 1997, then open-source (GPLv2) in 1999. It was one of the first high-quality open-source games. Those versions do not work on current Linux distros, but they have enabled modern source ports such as PrBoom+ and Chocolate Doom to be developed, and those are available in nearly every distro's repository.
90's Linux gaming was a lot of Freeciv, Doom, Quake 3, and Tux Racer.
Wine really didn't work for shit for AT LEAST another decade, and even then, didn't really really work for a further decade after that. It took a very very long time for Wine to get to where it is now with Proton and playing basically everything that doesn't need a rootkit to run.
As for finding Linux games, I could just go to Microcenter. They had a whole shelf full of Linux software ranging from distros, to games, to commercial office suites, to just random shit that looked like it was boxed up in some guy's garage and contained just... stuff. I miss being able to buy software in big shiny boxes, though :(
Windows and DOS games started working well later, as WINE and DOS emulator were evolving.
But Linux had a thriving gaming scene of its own:
- You've already mentioned Loki who made native ports.
- Another type of "ports" were game engines made from scratch that used the level files of the original, games like Doom, Transport Tycoon, Caesar III, Panzer General, Stunts, ReVolt etc. You had to own the game files but the executable was FOSS.
- There were lots of cool native games, many shooters (Warsow , Nexuiz, Cube, Tremulous), strategy games, cool arcade games (Tux Racer, Atomic Worm, H-Craft, Droid Assault), the rogue genre which debuted on UNIX and had tons of variants and so on.
I'm only a casual gamer so this is just stuff I ran across occasionally, there was probably more.
Another type of “ports” were game engines made from scratch that used the level files of the original
ScummVM is one of these which plays (some) LucasArts point'n'click adventure games, like Day of the Tentacle. But it's a bit newer than 1990s, quick search says that it was released around 2001/2002.