Regardless of what operating system you run on your computer, it doesn't have to be all work and no play. Heck, that could turn you into some kind of axe-wielding homicidal maniac bent on destroying your own family while watching over a remote resort hotel in the dead of winter.

I'd certainly never want that to happen to any of our DownloadSquad readers, so here's a list of games that you can install on Windows, Mac, and Linux (and some even on BeOS and BSD). Enjoy!

...And, as usual, if there's a particularly killer cross-platform game that I didn't include, feel free to post it in the comments -- and tell us why you love it!


Battle for Wesnoth - One of the best known open source games around, Wesnoth is an excellent fantasy-themed turn-based strategy game. There's plenty here to keep you busy - multiple campaigns and large maps, and online multiplayer for when you grow weary of playing on your own.

Battle Tanks - It's got colorful, cartoonish graphics, massive explosions, tanks....And best of all, it's got multiplayer. What could be more fun than blowing up your friends while causing immeasurable damage to an unsuspecting city?

Cube2: Sauerbraten - Another excellent open source FPS. One of the coolest things about it is that you can build and edit levels while you're in the game. There's also Quadropolis, a massive repository of goodies for the Cube engine including maps, scripts, and mods.

Eat the Whistle - If you're into uber-realist sports games, go ahead and scroll right past this one. If, however, you enjoy a little bit of humor and some old-school visuals, Eat the Whistle is a must-have download. Features sim, career, and arcade (complete with power-ups) modes.

FreeCiv - Another cornerstone of open source gaming. Inspired by Sid Meier's classic series, FreeCiv challenges you to develop your civilization from primitive roots into a thriving, modern society. Multiplayer mode support up to 30 (yes, 30) players. With more than 100 playable nations and 29 translations, FreeCiv is a truly international Time Waster.

FreeDroid - A modern take on the C64 classic Paradroid. It's a rich, futuristic RPG with plenty of robot butt kicking. In addition to dozens of different weapons, there's also a wide range of magic attacks, and you can even take control of your enemies and use them against each other.

Frets on Fire - If you've been looking for an excuse to rock out with your keyboard, go download Frets on Fire now. Tell your office mates your learning to play like Vadim Pruzhanov. Sure, he plays a different kind of keyboard, but it's still badass.

Glest - This fantasy themed RTS pits the opposing factions of magic and technology against each other. Do battle with mages, dragons, archers, horsemen, ornithopters, and more. If you grow weary of Glest itself, there are plenty of mods you can download to breath new life into the game.

Globulation 2 - A slick RTS that lets you focus on the "S" by intelligently handling part of the nettlesome micro-management this type of game usually requires. The game's built-in tutorial will help you learn how to build a powerful creature civilization that will be the envy of...er...other creatures.

Grid Wars 2 - There are times when playing this game makes you feel like you're trying to take on Asteroids, Tempest, and Gyruss all at once. If you like space shooters, bright, stunning visual,s and frantic gameplay, Grid Wars 2 will keep you riveted.

Hedgewars / Wormux - Two different takes on the turn-based goodness inspired by Worms. Both games feature awesome, cartoony graphics and fun gameplay, though I'm partial to Wormux (it may have something to do with the Gnu cannon).

LinCity - This popular open source city simulation hit version 2.0 this year, and it's looking better than ever. Manage your resources, keep people happy, and watch your creation grow into a booming metropolis - or cram everyone into spaceships and get the heck out of dodge - either way, you win!

Neverball - If Marble Madness was cool, Neverball is absolute zero. Use your mouse to tilt the playing surface and manouver the ball to collect coins and reach the goal marker. The download also includes Neverputt, which is exactly what you think it is - a tilt-and-roll miniature golf game.

Phun - Two-dimensional physics sandbox tomfoolery! Create all kinds of crazy arrangements then turn Phun loose and see what happens. Objects can be made out of different materials, and they react in different ways. See how gravity, friction, and wind affect things. If only grade 12 physics had been this much fun...

Scourge - Scourge bills their project as a "graphical Rogue-like game." If that's true, think of Rogue as the plate and Scourge as a multi-layer, fancily decorated cake piled atop it. It's packed with open source Dungeons and Dragons style action. The project has some ambitious goals and is looking for contributors - if you enjoy playing it and can offer your skills, find the team on the #scourge IRC channel on Freenode.

Smokin' Guns - Take a Quake3-powered FPS, slather on some Briscoe County, Jr., and you've got Smokin' Guns. You can almost smell the black powder and road apples. It's good, old-fashioned, Wild West fun.

Vacuum Magic - If Luigi's Mansion left you thinking all vacuum-based games sucked, give this 2d side-scroller a try. It's just you and your mystical 'vacuum field' against all manner of nefarious critters. Suck in certain beasts and food items and you can spit 'em back out to inflict damage.

VDrift - Ever wished you could be just like Vin Diesel? I wouldn't go sharing that with too many people. On a related note, VDrift is an awesome 3D drift racing sim. The latest version boasts a smarter AI, better physics, new sounds, and improved overall performance.

Vega Strike - VS provides the backbone for a number of remix projects (like Pi Armada, Privateer Gemini Gold, and Parallel Universe). Explore space, build a trading empire, and blast your opponents to space dust. Plus, they just got their 'Super Ultra Cool Sound Systems' (SUCSS?) working last month.

Warsow - Warsow's developer credit Quakeworld, Quake CPMA, Jet Set Radio, and Speedball for inspiring aspects of their game, and it's a combination that really works. The game's fast pace and cell-shaded graphics work well together. Other cool features: dual firing modes (weak and strong) for weapons, wall jump, ramp slides, dashing, and dodging.

Widelands - If you enjoyed playing the Settlers games and haven't tried Widelands yet, now's the time. Lead your tribe to glory in single-player mode, or go multiplayer on your LAN or over the Internet. You and your friends can unite to form glorious new empires - or just try to kick the snot out of each other.

Wolfenstien: Enemy Territory - Mein Leben! Ok, so that was from the old, old Wolfenstein. The idea is the same: shoot all the bad guys or they'll shoot you (or blow you up). The links will take you to Planet Wolfenstein where you'll find downloads for all three OSes, map editors, source code, and more.

Yo Frankie! - Built on the Blender Game Engine, Yo Frankie is as good a 3d platformer as you'll find for free. There's lots of lighthearted action to enjoy, and new levels are constantly being developed by an enthusiastic community.

There's a certain style of time waster that I find incredibly addicting - those in the "see how far it can fly" genre. Two previous favorites include Shopping Cart Hero, and Air Voltare. If you like those games, you're going to love today's Time Waster, Learn to Fly.

In Learn to Fly, you play the part of a penguin who is not happy to be a flightless bird. Your job is to research the best way to achieve flight, which in this case involves sliding down a ramp and flying through the air with a glider strapped to your back and rockets strapped to your sides.

There are 4 increasingly harder levels to master in Learn to Fly, but as you go you can purchase power-ups for your equipment and your abilities. To beat each level, you must exceed set goals for height, distance traveled, length of flight, and top speed. To win the game you must travel at least 6000 feet, and you then receive a rating based on how many "days" (test flights) it takes you to get there. It took me 25 days to achieve flight.

I have to say, this sort of time waster often does not have an end goal, but rather continues on ad infinitum. It's nice to know that once you hit the 6000 foot mark, you've won the game. How many days will it take you to achieve flight?

I absolutely love the iPhone version of Galcon, and the couple of weeks when I played it obsessively on the subway were worth the cost of the app. The object of the game is to defeat your opponent by sending ships from your planets to enemy planets and overwhelming them with your number, while your opponent tries to do the same to you. Galcon's fast pace and multiplayer mode add to the fun.

Now, in addition to the iPhone and desktop versions, there's a Flash version of Galcon in beta. It's hard to find opponents for multiplayer right now, but it otherwise looks just like the Galcon we know and love. Flash Galcon has a competitor, though, and it's called Nanowar. Nanowar is the same basic game as Galcon, but it only has one mode in single-player, containing 14 preset maps, versus Galcon's infinite randomly-generated boards.

Nanowar has a couple of things going for it, though. First, there's a level editor, which gives you the opportunity to create and save your own boards. Second, the multiplayer games on Nanowar are currently very popular, drawing players from around the world. When they work, that is. Both the level editor and the multiplayer support in Nanowars have been a bit buggy. With Nanowar not yet at 1.0 and Flash Galcon still in beta, it remains to be seen which will attract the larger horde of space-battle-enthused gamers.

Twitter has a lot of untapped potential in the world of play. A fast, nimble social network could spawn all kinds of cool games, but I don't think it's there yet. Spymaster, a new game that quickly flew up the ranks of Twitter's trending topics this week, lets you play spy and assassinate your Twitter friends, but for those of us who aren't playing, the notifications for it are pretty annoying.

You may have already received DMs from your friends asking you to join their spy rings, or seen level up announcements and assassination attempts posted under the #spymaster hashtag. There's a way to turn the announcements off, but most people apparently haven't found it yet. As for the game itself, you score points and gain power based on the number of people in your Twitter network who are also on Spymaster, and by completing missions or attacking other players.

Spymaster is in private beta right now, but if my Twitter list is any indication, it's not that hard to get in.

It's easy to add videos, music and images from around the Internet to your website, but what about games? Heyzap is a way to place any of over 12,000 casual Flash games on your website. It's as simple as copying and pasting a widget code .

Heyzap bills itself as a way to engage with your audience and get them to spend more time on your site. This has an effect on advertising revenue for big players, but I'm not sure it's the most appealing thing about Heyzap when you're just a little guy. I think this could turn into something like the YouTube of games -- instead of sending friends a link to the games you like, just post them right on your blog.

This weekend I finished setting up a fresh triple-boot install on my MSI laptop. With my operating systems ready to go, the time had come to start reinstalling applications. While it wasn't a conscious decision, I noticed that the majority of my apps were Open Source - so I decided to keep the ball rolling.

Even if you haven't just gone through a reformat, these are great applications and well worth installing. If you have, then hopefully this list will provide you with a solid base of programs to get you started with your fresh, new Windows install!

Web Browsers: Chromium, Firefox
They excel at different things, so I install both browsers by default. Chromium is great for all-purpose surfing, while I use Firefox and my favorite extensions to tackle my daily web-based work.

Office: OpenOffice.Org, Sumatra, PDFCreator
For lightweight PDF reading and creation from any Windows app, Sumatra and PDFCreator are solid options. OpenOffice.Org, well, it's the name to beat in open source suites.

If you fondly remember the days before video games when kids went outside to play with whatever was around, you might enjoy Card Toss. It's a well designed, easy to use virtual version of tossing cards into a hat.

You have to adjust for things like wind speed and direction and the distance of the hat from you is constantly changing. It's not extremely difficult, but it does take a few rounds to really master the technique. Once I had the flick or my virtual wrist down pat I enjoyed several rounds of the game.

It's quick and easy to play and good for when you need a break but you don't have time to get really involved in a game.

Thanks to TheLinx!

When I was growing up, Myst was the most fantastic game imaginable. There seemed to be no object at first, but a story eventually revealed itself to patient gamers who figured out how to solve its puzzles. For the time, its graphics were amazing, and the sounds and cutscenes blew us away. Now you can recapture that experience in portable form, because Myst is available on the iPhone.

Although I haven't played through the whole thing, word is it's a complete copy of the original game we love. The point-and-click play style of Myst is perfect for the iPhone, and it's sure to give you hours of fun, even if you've beaten it before. I don't know about you, but I don't remember the answers to every puzzle. The price and the disk space are both formidable, at $5.99 and over 700 megs. Still, 6 bucks is far less than we paid for it when it first came out, and our computers couldn't run it as well as an iPhone can. Worth a look.

Puzzle Quest is a successful series of games that takes the classic color-matching gameplay of Bejeweled and uses it as the combat system in an adventure. The latest installation is called Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, and it features space battle on a hexagonal game board. Connecting 3 or more pieces of the same color adds bonuses to your attack or defense, or gives you special bonuses like extra turns and shield increases.

Galactrix is a PC, Nintendo DS and Xbox Live game, but you can play the engrossing flash version of the game online right now. It's just one level, but I killed a couple of hours playing it over the weekend, and it makes me want to buy the full game. I'm sure it's even more fun with a plot and with the ability to improve your character as you go. If you like Bejeweled, and you like intense space combat with a high replay value, go grab Galactrix.

Following people on Twitter that are at interesting conferences that I'm not at can often be frustrating, but sometimes it leads to a wonderful find. Recently Gina Trapani retweeted a somewhat cryptic tweet that made reference to javascript games, and offered deepleap.org as an example. Since the tweet in question also contained the phrase "getting mind blown", I couldn't resist heading over to deepleap.org to see what was there.

As it turns out, Deepleap turns out to be an incredibly fast-paced and addicting Scrabble-influenced word game. Knowing that it was created entirely using javascript makes it all the more amazing from a geeky perspective, but really, it's just a fun game to play.

The concept of Deepleap is simple; you are given letters on tiles at rapid regular intervals, and as your screen fills with them you must make words out of the letters you have available. Each word scores you points if it is a real word, but entering wrong words results in points being docked from your score.

The rapid-fire nature of the game is engrossing, but fortunately also makes playing in short bursts possible. This works perfectly if you're looking for a little coffee break pick-me-up that will get your brain juices flowing.