FLARE is a really beautiful free and open-source 2D role-playing game which allows you to choose from various classes, each with their own strengths, buy new weapons and fight hordes of enemies in a fantasy world.

FLARE stands for Free/Libre Action Roleplaying Engine and takes place in a fantasy universe. The game features a single-player 2D role-playing experience with a big number of levels, items and character properties. Let’s have a look at the main features that FLARE provides.

When starting a new game, you will be able to choose one of five available classes. Each class will strengthen your character will a specific attribute, like physical, mental or defense. The following classes are available:

• Brutes, which rely on physical strength and melee weapons (primary attribute: physical)
• Adepts, which have natural abilities in casting spells (primary attribute: mental)
• Scouts, which specialize in ranged weaponry (primary attribute: offense)
• Keepers, which focus on defensive powers (primary attribute: defense)
• Wanderers, with a custom chosen attribute

If you pick the “Wanderer” class, you will be able to choose your attribute in-game.

Various items and weapons like new swords, shields, boots or gloves can be bought from blacksmiths or traders across the map. Depending on the item, the cost will require a certain attribute level and a certain amount of gold. Items can be equipped in the inventory in certain tiles, on legs, hands, chest, legs and feet. Killing enemies will get you gold and sometimes items as well, which can be equipped in the inventory.

You can interact with blacksmiths and buy additional items which will appear in your inventory once purchased:

The interface has three bars in the top-left: the first one shows health, the next one available mana and the third one experience points. If you mouse-over any of these bars the current value/total value will be displayed. There is also a minimap, and at the bottom are buttons to access the character view, inventory, powers or log.

Clicking the “Character” button will display information about your character, like name, level, attributes, maximum HP, HP regen, accuracy, melee, ranged and mental damage, experience values and several other properties. If you mouse-over each of these properties, a pop-up with detailed info will appear.

If injured, your character will regenerate HP (hitpoints) over time, at a rate specific to his level.

Regarding background music, there are several beautiful tracks, with a calm and warm mood.

The configuration settings allow you to change the graphics options (like fullscreen or windowed mode, resolution, gamma, texture quality), music and audio volumes, keybindings and modes.

Install FLARE 0.19 in Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10 and Mint 17

Ubuntu 14.04 currently has FLARE 0.18 in the repositories and a PPA with the latest version doesn’t seem to be available. However, compiling from source should be quick and easy.

1. Install dependencies

Install the needed dependencies:

sudo apt-get build-dep flare

2. Download the source tarball

Get the source code from here (direct link here), then uncompress it:

tar -xf flare.0.19.tar.gz

3. Compile and install FLARE

Change the current directory to flare.0.19 and type the following commands:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

The game will be installed as /usr/local/games/flare.

You can also install the latest version of FLARE using UbuTricks for Ubuntu.