Ballerburg
Two castles, two kings, one mountain between them.
▶ Play Ballerburg free, in your browser, nothing to install
Eckhard Kruse wrote Ballerburg for the Atari ST in 1987 and gave it away with its source code. Two kings face each other across a mountain, each in a castle with cannons.
Aim by angle and amount of powder, mind the wind, and shoot down the other castle's walls, cannons, shaft towers and king. You also run a kingdom: set the taxes, mind your people, and buy powder, cannonballs, cannons, shaft towers and bricks at the market. Play against a friend on one computer, online, or against seven computer players, each with its own strategy.
This port follows the SDL version 1.2.3 by Thomas Huth, which runs Kruse's original code: the same game, the same dialogs, the same sound chip music.
Screenshots



Controls
| Mouse: a cannon | Aim it (angle, powder) and fire, or cancel |
| Mouse: treasury, powder or cannonball store | The market: taxes, powder, cannonballs, cannons, shaft towers, the weather vane, laying bricks |
| Mouse: the king | An audience with the king |
| Mouse: Done | End the turn without a shot |
| Right mouse button | Stop laying bricks |
| Esc | Settings: human or computer players, strategies, names, rounds, rules, new game (online: leave the game) |
| T | The table of the computer players' games |
| F | Full screen |
| Q | Quit |
| Play online (beside the picture) | The lobby: a room for two, one castle each |
The original
Ballerburg (1987) by Eckhard Kruse; Atari ST; SDL port (Linux and others). This port follows 1.2.3 (SDL port by Thomas Huth), the same rules, levels, graphics and sounds, running natively in the browser. License: Public domain (original), GPL-3.0-or-later (SDL port) (Licenses & source). Players: 2 (on one computer, online, or against the computer).
More free games
- 2048: Slide the tiles together until one of them is 2048.
- A Dark Room: Wake up in the dark, build a fire, and walk out into a world that wants you dead.
- Abuse: Run, jump and shoot through an underground prison overrun by mutants.
- Biniax: Take the right pair before the field scrolls over you.
- Colossal Cave Adventure: The first text adventure: explore a cave by typing.
- Core War: Write programs that fight for a computer's memory.
- FreeCol: Found colonies in the New World, trade with Europe and the natives, and win independence.
- Frozen Bubble: Penguins shoot coloured bubbles: three of a kind fall, and the ceiling comes down.
- GLtron: Four lightcycles, one grid, and a trail that kills you as surely as the wall.
- GNU Chess: The GNU Project's chess program, at its own prompt.
- Hunt the Wumpus: Hunt a monster through a cave of twenty rooms.
- Maelstrom: Asteroids, alien fighters, and one very small ship.
- Moria: Go down into the mines of Moria and face the Balrog.
- NetHack: Descend into the Mazes of Menace and bring back the Amulet of Yendor.
- Netrek: Four empires, sixteen ships, one galaxy: team space combat and planet conquest.
- Passage: A whole life in five minutes.
- Pinball Construction Set: Build your own pinball table, then play it.
- Sopwith: A biplane, a row of targets, and a sky full of trouble.
- Teeworlds: Small round tees with grappling hooks and big guns: fast online deathmatch and capture the flag.
- Tux Racer: Race Tux down the mountain, collect herring and beat the clock.
- Tux, of Math Command: Zap the falling comets by solving their math problems.
- Worms?: Teach your worm, then watch what it makes of it.
- XPilot: Thrust, turn and shoot it out with other pilots in a space arena.