Naev: Space Trading and Combat Game Similar to Escape Velocity with RPG Elements

Naev is a 2D space trading and combat game similar to Escape Velocity, many of you may have played before. Escape Velocity which have a huge fan following, inspired many games and NAEV is one of them. A note about the game from official page:

NAEV is played from a top-down perspective, featuring fast-paced combat, many ships, a large variety of equipment and a large galaxy to explore. The game is highly open-ended, letting you proceed at your own pace.

The game have lots of RPG elements. You can earn money by completing missions, buy new ships and equipments, upgrade your systems, talk to scientists, land on planets and can do much more as the game is highly open ended. It does not have best graphics but what makes it unique is its addictive gameplay. The sound effects and music is really good that matches well with the theme of the game. 

The controls to navigate the ship may seem awkward to some of the users who have not played Escape Velocity earlier. But once you get a hang of it, its quite easy to move your ship around the space. It is highly recommended to go through the tutorial once. 

Check out the gameplay video:

Naev is completely free to play. Ubuntu users can install it from from PlayDeb Repositories but looks like the site is down at the moment. Follow the instructions to manually install it on your system:

1. Get the two files: naev-0.4.2-linux-x86-32/naev-0.4.2-linux-x86-64 and ndata-0.4.2 from here
2. Both the files should be in same folder
3. Install the dependencies by running the following command (Ubuntu 10.10): sudo apt-get install libmikmod2 libsdl-mixer1.2 libsmpeg0 
4. Run the file naev-0.4.2-linux-x86-32/naev-0.4.2-linux-x86-64  to launch the game

Gentoo users have Naev in their official packages

Arch Linux users have Naev in official repositories

Fedora users click here to download

More Screenshots

P.S. Not everyone will like the game but hardcore gamers.