THE Linux Killer Ap : Crossfire the Game

29 June 2025, 21:52:10

Crossfire is a free software game that was started in the mid-1990s and is still under development and played around the world. It was loosely base on the video game (remember those - a quarter a play) called Gauntlet.

https://archive.org/details/arcade_gauntlet

Rewritten in C by Mark Wedel, Crossfire was on my first SuSE disc, S.u.S.E. Linux 4.2. It was amazing if not complete. It has a server/client architecture although we only had 2400 Buad modems and not much home internet access. In time, Rick Tanner adopted the game and put it on his real-time servers and ran a 24/7 server for remote clients to connect. Eventually a GTK2 cleint was produces which is still available, along with Java Clients, and DockWIndwos and an experimental web based version using Rust. https://crossfire.real-time.com/clients/index.html. We downloaded directly from CVS and Subversion and occasional FTP assess on susesite and SuSE.

A small international community developed around it, all of them being so young back then and now men in their 40s who still hack the game and play. It has a client script API to make robots et al and they hangout on IRC #crossfire (now on freenode)

2006
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/purim_2006/crossfire/dsc00162.jpg

Multiple Generations of my family have played Crossfire and so have the grandchildren as the have moved across the world Crossfire (and Linux) keeps them together

2024
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/images/crossfire_new.jpg

Crossfire is native to Linux and the great thing about the game is that it has a vast number of puzzles and maps to keep you busy. It has alchemy, 4 forms of magic, weapon and arrows that can be improved and constructed and numerous dieties that have special powers and play-ability. You can play for decades and still learn new things and new maps are constantly being added.

https://crossfire.real-time.com/
https://forum.cross-fire.org/phpBB3/
https://wiki.cross-fire.org/