LinuxGameCast Weekly EP177 – Sunshaft

AMD releases a fan! Nekro goes on life support, NVIDIA sorts a spite crash, and apps for my Link? Then McDROID faces the CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail.

Support the showzen Patreon.com/linuxgamecast

Subscribe:

Links

Steam

News

Review

http://store.steampowered.com/app/252970/

Hate Mail

Special thanks to our patreons:

Stoney Fish
Nehemiah D
Chris D upped.
Alexander R 3.50 Mo paypal

Steam News:

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Apps?
http://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/0/487876568226628160/

Slap some Plex on that critter and I might be interested.
With the revelation that this boy runs a real linux, it opens up many possibilities for the link to be used as a set top box
I’m curious if these are just going to be wrapped android apps or if valve is going to roll an entirely new API/SDK
As it stands all the Link does is run a hardware accelerated VNC client that mirrors your PC’s display
It doesn’t run an arm steam client on its own, nor does it really do much of anything else.
Now, with that in mind: WHAT THE HELL IS A LINK APP?
Out of sheer morbid curiosity, I asked Empty to get shell access on his link and provide the hardware rundown
- Only a single core < 1GHZ CPU with 256MB Ram and what appears to be a custom ~~Galois GPU~~ Vivante GC1000.
- Looks like it’s about on par with a 1st gen RPI. Ironic considering all the RPi based limelight setups we were seeing a while ago
Still, there’s some headroom to run a few types of apps

Sales
https://medium.com/steam-spy/steam-sales-in-2015-2e81a6bb0f5a#.zdp7lgoeb

It’s a wee sad that the lists of best selling games have a dearth of linux compatible releases
Stuff like the Witcher 3 and Rocket league would certainly help out with the cause
Still, most big publishers are still vehemently anti-linux, so we’re not likely to see this change any time soon
So, even GTA V and Fallout 4 haven’t been able to out sell CS:GO on Steam?
- Sure, if you take non-Steam sales into the mix they probably did.

Tron Mode
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/htc-vive-pre-first-look,30894.html

Looks like Empty was wrong about the finger tracking
The breakthrough seems to be a camera that allows some of the things around you to bleed into the VR environment so you can move around and not stumble into things like a moron

A little Descent
http://steamcommunity.com/app/360950/discussions/0/451850020334129808/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/360950/

People a bit miffed that it was on sale for $2.00? *feigns shock*
- Hey man, that new Oculus is expensive. You gotta pinch pennies where you can!
Just locks when trying to play a bot match.
- My bad! It’s a known bug from Oct that was never fixed.
This is a shell of a game (albeit a pretty one) zero single player aside from bot matches.
Speaking of bot matches, more often than not they will just sit in one place.
Four tiny Venn maps

Another big ass–update, fo’ free
http://steamcommunity.com/app/345180/discussions/0/617328415072540337/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/345180

Lots of UI and Controller usability improvements.
You can also Czech your Turkish privilege at the door.
Still haven’t fixed the issue that causes the game to reenable screen blanking after 600 seconds once the game’s closed.
- You don’t fuck with my monitor settings without me noticing it, Haemimont!

NekGone?
http://steamcommunity.com/app/246400/discussions/0/494631967652007551/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/246400

TIL this game could be killed by a bus.
TILx2 We are the featured curator.
- We’ve finally made it boys
The moral of the story is you gotta raptor-bus-proof your projects. Always have a backup programmer/artist/musician/podcast co-host
Unfortunately this is the standard “I’m done working on this game” post.
Still a better Early Access game than most.
But I’m not touching it again until it’s out of EA and I can judge it for its released qualities.
- He might change the version # to 1.0.

#nope
http://store.steampowered.com/app/407340/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

They use the word “Yuri” in the description. Someone getting fucked fo sho
From the creator of other faux-anime, weeaboo, porcelain doll shit, comes a game about a 9 year old girl who becomes the bitch of an ageless demon who wants her to keep feeding it.
- But it’s fine, the demon also looks like a 9 year old girl.

Pony!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/405640/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

An abstract game about an abstract game designed by Satan.
Ah, yes! It begins; the Meta-Bullshit, spawned from your Undertales and your Beginner Quests…

It’s a trap app
http://store.steampowered.com/app/368750/

Attempting to have simultaneous play between literally all major desktop and mobile OSes is quite the ambitious project
I wonder if as part of the game balance strategy, the controls are gimped on all platforms

News:

Aaron brings some new sauce
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/908423/unix-graphics-announcements-and-news/linux-solaris-and-freebsd-driver-361-16-beta-/

No mention of a fix for the steam crash.
- It fixed the reproducible crashes I was getting on the desktop, so I’ll take it.
- As we discovered during this week’s trine again, it seems to have fixed it for me as well
VDPAU is being split out of the main driver install
More libraries are being moved around and renamed, to the joy of package maintainers everywhere
- Just the ones that aren’t a part of the Linux GL 1.0 ABI.
Ran some benchmarks, got around 1+ FerPS on both Unigine Heaven and Valley
- It’s still within the 2 FerPS variance so nothing to mention there.
Fixed the Steam spite crashes.

New AMD heatsink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soc5x_4IACQ

They tested at idle speed.
What does this sound like on 11?
Awesome work, that little aluminum block that came stock with previous processors needed to die.
If they also sell it separately, I might get one for the Steam Box.
If you want quiet and tiny, I can’t do anything but recommend this boy:
- http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608030
- Also quiet and tiny
- They make one for intel too

The PS4 Linux spin has Mesa
https://twitter.com/fail0verflow/status/684079550943354880

Again, not a huge surprise all things considered
A co-worker of mine brought up an interesting point. Jailbroken PS4s would make pretty decent budget computers for most people.
- And assuming Vulkan will help with the performance, an 8 core APU Steam Box for $300 is actually pretty damn awesome.
Sony has apparently released a patch for the bootloader that nukes the exploit used to get this project going
I just want someone to benchmark the FKR.

If there was any doubt
https://linuxgamecast.com/shatpocalypse/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7124

It’s interesting since Feral has been silent on the topic.
I’ve actually sent Nick an email about that and he said he didn’t really know the specifics of the porting tech, but that he’d get back to me with any info he might garner.
- Suffice it to say, he still hasn’t come back to me.

Spin me right round
http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3746.0.html

Apparently there’s a point early on where you need to do infinite bomb jumps. Macro keyboard FTW

Fuck yo couch!
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unity-on-linux-release-notes-and-known-issues.350256/#post-2453359

Ya know, if I were betting money on whether or not Unity was still supporting their linux build in 2016, I would be poorer
5.3.1 on the other OS was hella crashy at launch.
Does it still shite itself /w AABB errors when dealing /w active-but-empty particle systems?

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: McDROID
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/252970/
Devel: Elefantopia
Engine: Unity
Price: 19.99 / CDN 21.99 (75% off until the 19th)

Wazzat: A super frantic Arcade Tower Defense, McDROID starts gently then progressively challenges your trigger finger and your wits (and your sanity) as you multitask like a robotic-spider-doggy-thing: running, shooting, building base, herding, healing, harvesting, repairing, planting, upgrading, researching, frying giant snail-hammer-thing with a giant-tesla-on-your-back (it actually happens).

Makes with the working

V-

Performance is not that great even at 1080P.
It struggles to hit 60ferps regulary.
At 2160P it will often drop to 20+
I’m dinging it a chair for not working /w a contolla plugged in.

J-

Network multiplayer is a wee buggy

P-

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

How far we’ve come.
When this game was first in alpha 2013’ish it looked amazeballs for a Linux title.
Fast forward to 2016… yeah, not so much.
That’s not to say it’s fugly by any measure.
In fact, the cartoon cell-shaded aesthetic looks a bit of alright. Hell, it even holds up.
The bright colours and detailed environments are a nice change from the bog standard hipster-pixel tower defense games of late.
However, the AA is so horrid I want to call it rubbish but that would be an insult to rubbish.
The retro-rock soundtrack works for what it is and the limited voice work is borderline entertaining.
Menu text is a bit jacked when running at 2160P.

J-

There is voice acting. Its limited and pretty annoying though
Nothing wrong about the graphics. The visuals are consistent, being a game about a cute robot
It’s not entirely cell shaded, which can be a little jarring
Overall, nothing wrong with it, but nothing to write home about either

P-

There’s a slight bug with the sprites, in that the alpha channel is on the same layer as the post processing and it causes some weird squares to show up on screen.
Outside of that, the graphics are good enough and the cell shading will ensure it’ll hold up for a few more years.
Not complaining about the sounds.
We get our share of non-voice-acted games, when they clearly benefited from it and, while this game didn’t exactly need it, it’s a nice touch.

Total-

Control

V-

Now, it clearly states “QWERTY only and Gamepad not supported” in the sys requirements so I’m not dinging it a chair for that… BUT
Having to hunt down +disable_gamepad on to make the damn thing work is not a good start.
More importantly this will cause the average user to insta-refund.
This is the second game that breaks controls if a gamepad is plugged in.
That said the keyboard/gerbil layout is logical and works fine.

J-

P-

That full controller support is a lie!
Can’t rebind controls.

Total-

FUN

V-

It’s TD with nothing new.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing if you consider TD the second coming of baby jesus but at 19.99 it’s a tough sell.
Once the novelty of collecting strawberries and upgrading your tachikoma wears off things get repetitive with a quickness.
That’s not to say it isn’t challenging since it becomes FK you hard later on.
One interesting feature is being able to invite your mates to help you sort some levels but as we found out the other night that can be a little hit-or-miss.
Speaking of multiplayer… yeah, it’s a ghost town.
Our online adventure made up 3/4ths of the playerbase.
When I say 3/4 I mean there were four people online and we were three of them.

J-

They’ve certainly upped the difficulty since the last time
I still think tower defense games are boring, and this one probably won’t change your mind
I think they imply that Michael Jackson is jewish in this

P-

There’s been a lot of work put into this game.
It’s very clearly a work of love… just not mine
It takes a special kind of sauce to get me interested in a tower defense game, nowadays.
And, unfortunately, it’s not the case with this game.
It’s mediocre.
It has a few issues, it has a few things it does well, but neither are worthy bothering your parents with actual physical mail.
Remember last week when I said Bound by Flame was the kind of mediocre I enjoyed?
McDroid is the other kind.

Total-

Final –

Hate Mail:

Saints
http://slexy.org/view/s2zVNcgEXd

Sale
http://slexy.org/view/s26CFgILn3
http://store.steampowered.com/app/252970/

Sneak
http://slexy.org/view/s20iHhJeGJ