Free or cheap/beta-discounted laptop/low footprint/playable-from-USB-stick games?

[Space Indaver]

Basically for those of us bumming around when we should be working, or wanting something to play on our laps while our girlfriends force us to watch Harry bastarding Potter for the 15th time, and Football Manager has become a bit boring.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I guess this would also be the place to link to (actual decent) Facebook/browser games too?

I just grabbed Gnomoria, personally. There's a free demo and it's $7.99 (20% off) for early purchasers, with alpha access.



The opening music is sweet.

[pakoito]

Towns, I guess.

[alms]

Does anyone have any suggestions?

You can't go wrong with roguelikes.

[BobbyFizz]

Battle for Wesnoth? Also maybe Uplink / Defcon

[Hypernetic]

World of Warcraft?

[vinraith]

AI War will run from a thumbstick. It can be set to be very low spec, as well, and is absolutely brilliant.

[Moraven]

Had Linux on a usb stick to get around a windows locked down from doing anything.

Good fun loading lots of emulators on there and playing some classic PC and console games that did not require fast movement.

[Mantracker]

Desktop Dungeons should be able to run without an install. I don't know if the full version is out yet or how much it costs but the alpha (which was perfectly playable) was free to download when I played it.

[Space Indaver]

I might give Stronghold 1 a bash, actually. Not too taxing on the system and it's something I could keep coming back to occasionally. Not sure about download size though.

Keep the suggestions coming, chaps and chapettes. This could turn into a nice little thread full of cheap/free things we can quickly install and play on a whim.

[Wheelz]

Defenders quest is probably a good candidate for this. can be found here: http://www.defendersquest.com/
There's a demo, or you can buy the full thing for like $8 USD I think.

[Voon]

When in doubt, Dwarf Fortress. If you're not a fan of ASCII graphics, there's always Stonesense to fix that.

[Vexing Vision]

Defenders quest is probably a good candidate for this. can be found here: http://www.defendersquest.com/
There's a demo, or you can buy the full thing for like $8 USD I think.

I was going to suggest Defender's Quest, too. Glorious, but you'll only get around 10 hours from it before you'll be bored, I suppose.

Battle for Wesnoth has been suggested already, the Desert Sun campaign is unbelievably well written.

Spiderweb Software's Avernum series works nicely and probably gives the most bang for the buck and will sit you through 15 times watching all of the Potter movies in a row.

[NathanH]

If you like Magic, then Magarena is a fun and free and easy-to-use version. Spectromancer is also good for that sort of game and is not expensive. If you like match-three type games then Puzzle Quest and Tidalis are really fun.

[roryok]

Basically for those of us bumming around when we should be working, or wanting something to play on our laps while our girlfriends force us to watch Harry bastarding Potter for the 15th time

A pain we all know too well I'm sure.

I'm going to guess you want something that doesn't require headphones and can allow you to maintain the illusion that you're at least half watching?

[frightlever]

Can I ask the obvious question, what is Gnomoria like? Looks a bit more like Dwarf Fortress than Towns does. I like Towns but it's no DF.

[apricotsoup]

That gnomonia looks quite interesting, I've been waiting for a more accessible DF for a while now.

On topic; torchlight and desktop dungeons should be fairly suitable.

[Space Indaver]

I've played very little of it, but the GUI is but clunky, especially with the number of times you need to use a right-click. Not the best on a touchpad.

[djbriandamage]

ScummVM, Dosbox, Ur Quan Masters, Ben There Dan That, and many games from GOG should run just fine off a USB stick.

If you have internet access Guild Wars and Realm of the Mad God run very nicely even on low powered netbooks and both work off USB as well.

[roryok]

+1 for ScummVM, enjoying a resurgence in my house at the moment. Also Mechwarrior 2 / Ghost Bear Legacy are only 25-30MB when you take out the soundtracks. I own them both (2 or three times!) so I don't feel bad getting the compact pirated versions. Daggerfall. Civ2. Xcom. Snes / Megadrive Emulators.

[Voon]

Aw, man. Two more things. Frontier Elite II if you have DosBox on your netbook and Rollercoaster Tycoon if could manage to get one. Rollercoaster Tycoon is pretty much playable from a USB stick. Just be sure to check the files in case of bugs.