LinuxGameCast Weekly EP131 – Shadow Of Mordor On My Linux?

Shadow of Mordor on my Linux? Nvidia faces their first GTX 970 lawsuit, Epic throws $5,000,000 at UE4 developers, and Steam playdates made simple. Then Hands of Fate faces our CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail.

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Buskivuski

Colour Key: Venn Jordan Pedro Sandy

Steam News:

Need imaginary internet friends? Wake up Pedro.
http://find-playdate.com/#/

Not a bad idea. I’m surprised I’m not seeing more obscure games on there. You would think that might be a selling point for a service like this
- Sorry, I don’t want to be friends with midgets
I’m not that big a multiplayer fan.
- I’ll enjoy a good multiplayer game as much the next man, but I don’t think you need it.
  - kind of like a double dutch rutter?
- My top three all time favorite games are all single-player.
- #4, Neverwinter Nights, was the one I actually enjoyed for the Multiplayer more than the single.

Oh, look at all the fixes
http://steamcommunity.com/games/239140/announcements/detail/114050436329586315

Fixed motion blur switching via main menu
Fixed messaging when playing cross-platform session
Fixed running at 30FERPS @1080 on a 980 ….Pffft! Just FKN /w ya!
Yeah… Still not getting my monies!
- They got mine, but in all fairness I bought it before a proper video card.

Chainsaw Solitaire
http://store.steampowered.com/app/307600/

From the fine folks who realized that people who play Warhammer don’t usually have too many friends comes the adaptation of the single player board game
- Unless this game has touch capabilities for Multi-touch tables, Why the hell would I even get this.
- For realzies people if you make a game like this have some touch capabilities so then I can install SteamOS into a multi-touch table and play it like an actual board game.
  - Man, I’m practically tripping over all the multi-touch tables laying around LGC actual.
    - That’s because you started breathing alcohol rather than air
- I mean, it’s good Games Workshop is releasing their Tie in games on linux. I just wish they wouldn’t suck so hard.
Zombie Monkeys, though!

Slideshow Daughter
http://store.steampowered.com/app/342450/

Yeah, this is an adaptation of a choose your own adventure novel
- Last time I checked a “Caravanner” is a Nomad. Look at the last screenshot. “He catches you up quickly.” say whaaaat?
I’m sorry, but in game format I can’t possibly have an entire handful of finger bookmarks.
Nor the dread of imminent papercuts.
- you gotta want it Pedro, wake up.

Kung-FU 2.0
http://steamcommunity.com/games/316930/announcements/detail/239026043964998644

Fixed the sensitive directional control issue. Stoic directional control issue remains.
“Slowed the game speed down a bit” …good
- Yup, now I can actually fight against the computer instead of plain just having my butt handed to me
“Edited control responsiveness moves less delayed” So now I have a 1/7 chance of throwing someone.
- I still have this game on my wish list and have been meaning to pick it up. Nothing like putting a tall Krillen through the meat grinder.
- Still have no clue how you expect to pull of a fighting game when you don’t use the D-pad on any controller by default

Super Meat Boy Clone
http://store.steampowered.com/app/340390/

How many fonts are they stealing for the title? Two? Three maybe?
Also, not even super meat boy. Procedurally generated super meat boy. Good stuff
Ah, randomly generated levels. Yeah, no.
My Plagemarizo sense is tingling!

2D Max Payne Bullet Hell
https://plus.google.com/102593483001615978126/posts/YexHpeL8xzR
http://store.steampowered.com/app/239800/

The elusive “OS: glibc 2.15+, 32/64-bit. S3TC support is NOT required.” returns!
Guess I know who to blame about glibc OS.
- It goes to show how pro Flibit is. Doesn’t need no stinkin’ kernel

News:

BWAHAHAHA
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidia-slammed-with-class-action-lawsuit-over-geforce-gtx-970-specifications/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2887234/nvidia-hit-with-false-advertising-suit-over-gtx-970-performance.html#tk.rss_all

Newegg and Amazon have been offering 20% refunds.

Guess
http://feralinteractive.tumblr.com/post/111188824398/calling-all-mac-and-linux-gamers-here-is-a-clue

The pub that Tolkien frequented, “Scorched Earth”, The Thing That Should Not Be and it’s a game that is only out for Windows atm.
- If that’s not spelling Shadow of Mordor, I’mma be very angry!
  - Better be Shadows of Mordor at the very least a Masters of the Universe MMO. Those are the same thing right?\
    - Hello Kitty island adventure or GTFO
Quit doing this. There is no such thing as an NDA that prevents you talking about the game you’re working on.
YOLOSWAG marketing can DIAF.

EPIC Grants
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/epic-launches-unreal-dev-grants

Free money!
If you have a “working prototype” you can submit the project.
Grants range from $5,000 to $50,000
No strings attached.
- That is a good starting amount as well as the free version of UE4 for students.
Good on Epic!
Still waiting on a finished game to showcase the UE4 engine under Linux, but good on them!
- How about that official editor brah

Wat?
http://shanefagan.com/?q=node/32

This Ubuntu dev is basically a nobody, just saying.
His grammar is terrible as well. This was a painful read
- How is it any different than my articles at Rootgamer?
  - Case in point
Also, his premise is flawed. Why would two companies whose primary stake is in ENTERPRISE linux pay for games to be ported, especially when they stand to lose money for minimal gains.
- Tobey here is correct, You can’t expect dogs to breed with cats just because you stick them in a cage together and hope to get some sort “fe-nine” hybrid, wait what were we talking about?
What we really need are:
Hey, man. Gaming On Linux Thought it was important.
- So you’re saying its been officially confirmed? CONFIRMED!!!
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RedHat-Canonical-Game-Ports
- Now you know its for realzies now.
Everyone wants Blizzard games on Linux.
Hell, I might actually give them money for some Hearthstone booster packs.
Yes, we’re at the tipping point. It’s all riding on the Steam Machines.

Update 71
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stainlessgames/carmageddon-reincarnation/posts/1135729?ref=backer_project_update

When questioned about the Linux port
First comment “Yay! 2 years after supposed release date a beta comes out!”
- How does it make you feel that they sold early access passes for steam users and they got a copy before KS backers?
They promised to start the Linux port after release. So, 2017’ish?
- wow they really fucked off the Linux and Mac gamers with this campaign, and used their money to make tee-shirts for their webstore. That is going to leave a bitter taste.
Linux was the FIRST stretch goal.

“We’ll be committing to supporting Mac and Linux, and you’ll be able to select a version to download at the same $15 and above price. And, like the DRM free version, the shipping date for these versions will be further out, towards the end of 2013”
- This is why kids we all have learned from douchebags like this not to trust KS’s that don’t have a Linux Demo.
The real question is how does this affect my over-under with Skullgirls. I got 50 bucks riding on that.

OpenMW 0.35.0
https://openmw.org/2015/openmw-0-35-0-released/

A big one here is a Morrowind Save importer, so you can derp around tamriel as your favourite MW character and not have to go through the game again.
- Not only that but they fixed a lot of the player mod crashes and compatibility issues as well, thats huge for me.
You can also now drown NPCs in an inch of water, just like infants
- I remember those days.

No more Onions
https://openmw.org/2015/announcing-switch-openscenegraph/

Short version: Current Version of ogre sucks, need to replace the rendering backend with something better. Next version of ogre drops support for GL2.1, which they don’t want, so they’re switching to openscenegraph.
Consequently, they’re also ditching directX
“Valve has shown that a proper OpenGL renderer can be every bit as fast as Direct3D, or even faster.”
- This bit here made me smile
GOOD! Ogre is a proper PITA to get running unless you just happen to have the exact version pre-installed …you won’t.
- I prefer hard taco shells over PITA’s but i guess this will have to do.
It would be nice to have OpenMW run on the same kind of hardware that the original Morrowind did, but I can understand if it doesn’t.

Hale Santa
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hale/

Sick Wesnoth clone , bra.
Look at all the nope Java.
I had to stop myself from loading Eclipse and fixing their shit when the tutorial quest crashed and refused to trigger the thing I had to kill, in order for me to able to finish it.
Crashy is a word you can use to describe this game

D20
http://www.pathguy.com/ddnext.htm

WOTC typically does blanket takedowns when they’re about to launch some new tool. Mind you, the last one didn’t materialize, so who knows.
- They have their own now. One you $$$ for.
By the way, who wants to play some Labyrinth Lord?
- The Pathfinder series has done great work with trying to reach out to first and second edition players. Labyrinth Lord is a great re-tooling of the classic campaign. *Rolls D20* Yes.
  - Pathfinder doesn’t address the core issues with 3.5. 13th Age/Numenera FTW
    - Damnit! so true. WOTC should have offered him $$$ to buy the rights to the generators to thank him for his massive contribution to the market.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Hands of Fate

Webzone: http://defiantdev.com/handoffate.php
Devel: Defiant Development
Engine: Unity
Price: $24.99 / €22.99

Wazzat: Deckbuilding comes to life in Hand of Fate! An infinitely replayable series of quests – earn new cards, build your deck, then try to defeat it! In a cabin at the end of the world, the game of life and death is played. Draw your cards, play your hand, and discover your fate.

Makes with the working

V-

Runs at a steady 30/35 @ 3840 × 2160 /w everything on YOLO
60+ @ 1080

J-

P-

~~58-60FPS with everything on 11 at 1080p on the 970!~~
- ~~Someone figured out optimization on the Unity engine!~~
  - I spoke too soon, the later levels really bring the ferps count down to 40

S-

I ran well enough but I really took a framerate hit on loading between the card table scene and fight scenes. It dropped down to a whole 10-15 FPS but once textures and everything load stabilized at 38/39 Ferps for combat while the card game scene shot me up to 60fps.

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

See, this game looked horrid for the first few days because it was showing 3840 × 2160 but running at 1080p.
Only today did I tinker /w the res and went “oh, brilliant”
Kids, don’t do faux mo-cap. It looks like cheapsauce /w a side of me too!
The brawler areas look okay and the models are reasonably well done
Same /w the dealer/cards
Had to nope the dealers audio

J-

It’s certainly a unity game
The graphics seem a bit dated and the faces are a bit….eugh
The Narrator dude does a pretty good job, I’ll give him that

P-

Damn good audio-visual presentation.
Graphics have all the markings of a Unity game, including the random shadow flickering.
But the way everything is presented and how the game mechanics and lore are introduced are very well done.
Awesome job on the narrator/evil wizard guy, at least audio-wise. Good job covering his mouth so you couldn’t possibly screw up the lip-sync’ing.

S-

It’s Unity so I didn’t expect anything amazing here.
- I really enjoyed the HoF’s soundtrack as it did get me into the games setting, so huge props for that.
- voice acting was solid.
- I like how the devs set up boss battle as good boss battles.

Total-

Control

V-

If you have the ball-organs to show me “A to continue” that’s what I’m using.
How will we control movement? Will it be the D-pad or left stick? Who knows!
Oh, and just because fk you that’s why there is a 1.5/2 sec lag (after you play card) that makes you think your controller-organ noped.
Fighting works although a bit sloppy.
The enemies are pants on head retarded sooo not a deal breaker.

J-

Standard action game fare

P-

It claims full controller support.
- But it takes a special kind of dev to achieve that with a Unity game.
Using XBoxDrv allows the DualShock 2 to actually control the game with reasonable success.
- Still couldn’t be arsed to sit down for an hour to figure the right input mapping for the NVidia Shield controller.

S-

Zero issues with my Logitech F710 on both Xinput and Direct input when it came to having it work.
- I am please that this game was catered to controllers.

Total-

FUN

V-

Procedurally generated non-card game card game choose your own adventure brawler …the game.
Card games can DIAF but hey, this this has a 3’rd person action thingy!
Well other Venn, that might break up the mind numbing card bits!
Combat was FK all boring. There was almost no threat at all. Attack, roll, special REPEAT.
“But Venn once you get into deck build…” Nope!
I’ll try to put a bow on it for you type like myself who never really got into the whole card games bit.
You get cards that will give you weapons, magic, chance encounters etc.
When you finish a card dungeon you can pick and choose what cards to equip for the next.
You don’t actually keep the items but you have the chance to get them again?

J-

The combat is pretty monotonous. Strike strike dodge, strike strike dodge
Honestly, that’s the biggest weakness of the game.
The map element reminds me a bit of FTL
I like the deckbuilding element and I’d like to see it explored more in procedurally generated games
You can go through one of the games in about 15 minutes, so it’s nice and digestible, but I get really bored after that amount of time. I come back the next day, have 15 minutes of fun and then I’m bored again.

P-

Saying combat takes inspiration from the latest Batman games is a pretty damn big understatement.
Unfortunately, while the aforementioned Batman games have a metric fuckton of money to throw at Motion Capturing animations, Defiant Development does not.
In order to maintain some fluidity in the animations, they made a compromise by limiting your characters ability to turn on the spot.
- And by limiting I mean he doesn’t fuckin’ do it.
- Which in turn makes combat an exercise in guessing where, in the middle of the clusterfuck, is your character going to swing or dodge when you push the key.
  - It manages to be slightly worse than the Witcher 2’s dodge mechanic.
That aside and, as Jordan mentioned, the Deck mechanic is the strongest of its points.
It makes it only semi-procedurally generated, since it is always going to be generated based on the cards which you choose when you make your deck.
- In my opinion, a damn genius twist on the Rogue-Lite elements!
Combat is definitely the weakest part of the game, thankfully it ends quickly. Unlike my previous rant.

S-

Like Jake and the fat man have already established, Combat is weak overall. When compared to the new Batman games, there is not much fluidity in movement controls.
The concept of the game is overall wonderful and I would love to see a sequel to this with much more refined combat and maybe a new engine other than Unity maybe UE4.
- I want more loot, heathens.
Music, voice acting was a treat in this game adding more theatrics to each choice you had to make.
The card mechanics was “ok” at best. If you pick certain event cards that will force that prick mage to bet tokens and learn the proper choices to win the tokens thus getting you a higher chance for better cards.

Total-

Final –

Hate Mail:

Opinion
http://slexy.org/view/s21zzd3byy

There is a distinct bias towards open-sauce games on that list.
- And I’m alright with that!
  - I love Dark Mod and Tux Kart and of course Wesnoth. But I feel Comercial games and open sauce should never be together on a list.

IsBarah
http://slexy.org/view/s2dARH7dIW
http://store.steampowered.com/app/333510/?snr=1_5_1100__1100