Martial arts

Overgrowth

Overgrowth is one of those rare pieces of software that has already lived an independent life as a commercial and proprietary product before getting a new lease on life as an open source project. It's a game that has been available on Steam and GOG for the best part of a decade (and still is) and one with a keen user base who love its rabbit-themed wild martial arts physics brawling. Wolfire Games, its developer, really needs to be commended for this approach, as well as always providing a native Linux version. It even has a history of doing the same thing: Its earlier rabbit-themed title, Lugaru, is also open source.

Although both titles feature rabbits, neither focus on the traditionally cute side of their in-game anthropomorphic avatars. Instead, they're more sinister, and more like something from Donnie Darko than Donald Duck. Your mission is to save your fellow rabbits by fighting various other animals littered (pun intended) across various landscapes and levels. You do this with twitchy Matrix-style kung-fu which you learn by jamming the game controller in any direction it still functions. In this way, your rabbit can hop across hectares of landscape, dealing bloodthirsty blows to your adversaries in true fully bunnysploitation style. It's a lot of fun and doesn't require too much thought or strategy, although the gore might be too much for younger players. The graphics were dated even when the game was released, but this adds to its charm. This is perhaps something that can now be addressed because, most importantly, the game is now open source. This is thanks to the developer moving on to a new project and not wanting their old one to slowly decompose. If only some other developers could do the same.

Project Website

https://github.com/WolfireGames/overgrowth/

Overgrowth is by the same developer behind the similarly styled Lugaru, which can also be replayed here as a second campaign.