FreeCol – Colonization of America

If you’re like me, then you probably played the old game “Colonization” by Sid Meier. In my eyes Colonization was the better one compared to Civilization, though I am quite aware that I am most likely putting gasoline on fire by stating that. Now, I continued to play Colonization until a few years ago, since then it started to get harder and harder to work on new computers, and finally I just gave up. It was with great joy that I stumbled over “FreeCol” the other day, a open-source contribution and appreaciation of Colonization.

The first thing that caught my eye is that this version is coded in Java, and I instantly started to drool – so I actually went forth downloading the source before I actually downloaded the game and started to test it out. I must say that I am quite impressed with what they have achieved so far; sure – there are still a few bugs here and there present, but overall, quite a great effort.

Links

• FreeCol.org – the open-source game
• Sid Meier on Wikipedia
• Firaxis Games