The votes are in!
(and by the, I mean my)
... and the winner is AndrewC! Please post your preferred GOG (or sub-$10 alternative) and I'll set purchasing in motion.
Warsow takes the cake as the best and most accessible FPS mentioned in this thread. I would have included FEAR Combat on the stick, but you need a CD Key to even complete the installer, and 1.8GB puts some serious limitations on how many other games can be included.
Honorable mentions to just about everyone who posted here. I pilfered lots of different suggestions for my final build, but if I had to stick to any single entry, there's one clear winner.
The Solution I've successfully loaded a $7 imation 4GB USB stick with installers for the following software.
Multiplayer Games:
*
Armagetron Advanced (Racing)
*
C&C: Tiberian Sun (RTS)
*
Hedge Wars (Strategy)
*
Savage XR (RTS/FPS)
*
Soldat (Side-scrolling Shooter)
*
Teeworlds (Side-scrolling Shooter)
*
Trackmania Nations Forever (Racing)
*
Urban Terror (FPS)
*
Warsow (FPS)
Single Player Games:
*
crazygame.exe (Survival)
*
Icy Tower (Platformer)
*
Neverball (Puzzle)
Tools:
*
7-zip (32- and 64-bit)
*
System Information for Windows I've also created
a html file in the root directory of the disk, containing basic information about each game, along with screenshots (
full html archive).
Total disk space used: 3,849,633,666 bytes
Total disk space free: 148,504,576 bytes
Testing on a second PC indicated that, in around 20 minutes, I could install every game and launch one of them.
Other thoughts Tools like audio or video drivers can just be kept on the host's hard drive, and copied to USB stick if anyone needs them, as all of these games should run on any WHQL drivers that are installed by default.
The linux live distribution (as proposed by Stelis and xyem) was a neat idea, but I suspect that there'll always be a few gamers who aren't prepared to give up Windows File Sharing in order to play games. I did, however, download the Zeroshell VMWare distribution, which I can use to easily start a DHCP server from my PC, giving up 256MB of RAM.
I decided on installers rather than portable apps because a) it gives me more room for games, and b) because it adapts easily to having more players than USB sticks
To keep things consistent, I ended up compiling Urban Terror, Warsow, TSun and Teeworlds as NSIS installers. On the plus side, this allowed me to bundle the LAN patch into the TSun installer, and means nobody has to worry about learning how to use decompressors. The downside of this is that the large installers kick some antivirus programs into overdrive, and that take longer to decompress via the installer.
There's easily enough room left on there for another game (like Scorched3D or FreeCiv), or for another single player game, but this build feels complete... and nobody likes it when 3-4 players drop out of a lan to start some all-night TBS epic.
I think the most awkward part of getting this up and running for everyone will be the Windows firewall, which has a nasty habit of hiding behind the application and blocking traffic until you hit "allow."
