What are some "open source" or "free-to-print" games?
December 9, 2013 3:15 PM   Subscribe

Card Against Humanity is famously available as a PDF to download and print your own copy of the game for free. What are some other games that do this as well? I love the idea of a library of games that we can build ourselves, customize as we wish, etc, etc.
posted by o2b to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (13 answers total) 50 users marked this as a favorite
 
The print and play category on BoardGameGeek.
posted by eruonna at 3:19 PM on December 9, 2013 [2 favorites]


Kevan Davis put together this Freeze-Dried Games Pack, which may be of interest.
posted by aparrish at 3:30 PM on December 9, 2013 [2 favorites]


A recent, relavent metafilter post:metafilter.com/134529/Games-people-can-play-by-themselves
posted by meta87 at 3:37 PM on December 9, 2013


The free section from Cheapass Games.
posted by cobaltnine at 3:58 PM on December 9, 2013 [5 favorites]


I came in here to suggest the Cheapass Games line. I'm particularly a fan of "Deadwood" and "Spree".
posted by Johnny Assay at 4:05 PM on December 9, 2013


Check out Invisible City Productions. They have many free games with custom boards, etc. that you can download and print and also instructions for games that repurpose other games' pieces and/or boards.
posted by sevenless at 9:47 PM on December 9, 2013


Professor Liar.
posted by klausman at 10:04 PM on December 9, 2013


I recommend the nano-games from Parenthesis Press.
posted by Merinda at 11:30 PM on December 9, 2013


1000 Blank White Cards has brought endless hours of fun to my circle of friends.
posted by Eumachia L F at 1:12 AM on December 10, 2013


If you are interested in role-playing and group storytelling, there are many free small story games to be found online. I don't know of a master list, but here are a couple links to free games by Bully pulpit games, and little games by Joe Mcdaldno,
posted by wrabbit at 2:10 AM on December 10, 2013


The Duke, from Catalyst Games, is like chess. No, it’s nothing like chess.

You can get a print and play version at the bottom of the page here.
posted by permafrost at 5:28 AM on December 10, 2013


If roleplaying games count, there's quite a bit out there (especially the currently popular Pathfinder) redistributable under the Open Game License.
posted by roystgnr at 9:10 PM on December 10, 2013


On particularly interesting take on open source games is the set of Loony Pyramid games. Loony publishes a book, Playing with Pyramids, which catalogs a few games using sets ("stashes") of pyramids of varying colors and sizes. But there's many more community published rule sets on the web. Obviously, you can't download and print injection molded plastic pyramids, but you can print paper versions, or 3D print them if you think you can control quality sufficiently.

Of the Pyramid games, I think my favorite is the rather simple Zendo, an interesting and clever game of logic and deduction. Think Mastermind with way less structure. And in true open source fashion, Zendo is based on an older game, Eleusis, which uses a standard deck of cards. Which I guess demonstrates the heritage of open source gaming: the 52 card deck.
posted by pwnguin at 12:57 AM on December 11, 2013


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