LinuxGameCast Weekly EP185 – Dwarf Wipe

Steam on Linux is DEAD! Overgrowth receives an update, OpenGL 4.0 is coming to Intel, and Feral drops a tiny hint. Then We Are The Dwarves faces the CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail!

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Steam News:

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam on Linux is dead
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3040719/linux/linux-usage-on-steam-continues-to-fall.html

Welp we had a good run.
“Despite Valve’s push”
- VALVe has not “pushed” jack and or shite, son.
- We’re still waiting on Rocket League and SFV because VALVe Time™
“Valve gave away a free “Tux” promotional item to everyone who signed in to Team Fortress 2 from Linux, a move that encouraged a lot of Windows gamers to try Linux”
- No Brad, it encouraged Windows users to install Wubi (or Virtualbox), play for 5min, and collect the Tux.
“It’s possible that the new open-standard graphics API Vulkan, which was recently added to SteamOS, could help close the performance gap”
- Hey, you got something right.
  - Monkeys and typewriters, right?

Increased Waiting Times for Safety
http://store.steampowered.com/news/20631/

They’re really pushing their shitty android app as a 2-factor authenticator.
Tell you what VALVe, give me a lighter, authenticator-only app and you’ve got yourself a deal.
- It really isn’t that horrible. It’s about as big a pain in the ass as any 2FA token generator/retriever
- It would be nice if you could tie it into google auth though
Ah, the advantages of giving zero FKS about CS:GO trading imaganary bullshite on the interwebz.
- And DOTA2 and TF2 and all of the others… I envy you!
And remember folks, if you’re not using 2FA in this day and age, you deserve whatever happens to you.

…soon
http://steamcommunity.com/games/250820/announcements/detail/666902171294700021

A BUNCH of VR games will be launched at GDC but I didn’t see anything from VALVe on the list.
List? What list?

#morty
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=634791036

Some of the quotes are taken from the Dota 2 voice pack. Not sure how legit that is re fair use.
- VALVe was behind the DOTA2 pack.
- Calling this fair-use is a bit of a stretch.
  - Ze point. Ye have found it
Whar Xcom 2 Portal gun!

Axiom Verge is HERE!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/279900

A rehash of the broken/hackable digital world type game, like that one with Doctor Venture, or Hack/Slash, or that really pretentious one whose name I can’t remember
The graphics look a wee OG-Starfoxy, but that might be the point.

Apparently it’s out
http://store.steampowered.com/app/342480/

AKA BYOQ – Build your own Quake
Soooo a shite version of Blockstorm with microtransaction.
Remember Guncraft? Yeah, me neither.
But apparently some people does and they felt like it didn’t do enough to look like Quake and Minecraft had a bastardized free2play child.

News:

OpenGL 4.0 is coming to Intel chips
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92760#c59
https://mesamatrix.net/#Version_OpenGL4.0-GLSL4.00

About goddamn time.
Really, all that means is that you can play Metro Redux on Intel GPUs. The support is nice
- But then they’re only 3 extensions away from full OpenGL 4.3 compliance.
- Which runs everything on Steam for Linux, so far.
  - Most games these days require still require 3.3
  - I’d like the other drivers to catch up in terms of features. Plus they don’t have Vulkan drivers IIRC
    - Yeah, it would be nice to have Vulkan support for (at the very least) the AMD open sauce drivers.
      - It’s totally coming you guys. Watch this video that says so

WINE 1.9.5
https://www.winehq.org/announce/1.9.5

Beginnings of the WineD3D command stream.
- Translation: CSMT for vanilla WINE
Support for effect states in Direct3DX.
- More ground work for D3D11
New version of the Mono engine, with 64-bit support.
- Aaaand Microsoft bought Xamarin.

GDevelop
http://compilgames.net/main.html

Drag and drop programming is the future maaaaaaaaaaaaaan
I guess I’m more of a purist when it comes to teaching programming, but I do get the appeal of using visual methods IE MIT Scratch as a gateway drug
I played with it for a few minutes but could not get my head-organ around it.

Feral dick moves
https://twitter.com/feralgames/status/704311599633453058

People are speculating it to be Tomb Raider and considering the eON alternative, I’m ok with this.
- My money’s on Guitar Hero: Spinal Tap
The biggest henge that I have ever seen.

RVGL
http://rv12.revoltzone.net/rvgl.php

Requires too many i386 libs and one fky one that conflicts /w ffmpeg.
On my end it works without messing with OBS, so I’m happy.
I reverted back to 13 year old me playing this game on Sunday night.
- Finished the whole damn game in 2 days.
They also have a multiplayer client that people can use to connect to one another now that the original servers are dead.
Muscle memory kicked in and I unlocked all the cars, got all the stars and won all the championships.

DN4E Alpha 218
http://blog.wolfire.com/2016/02/Overgrowth-a218-video-changelog

Pretty much sums up my reaction. If it released in 2013, maybe I’d have given a shit, but at this point it’s probably overcooked

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: We Are The Dwarves
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/395570/
Devel: Whale Rock Games
Engine: Unity
Price: 14.99 / CDN 19.99

Wazzat: We Are The Dwarves is a real-time tactical adventure where you take control of three Dwarven astronauts exploring and lead them through the hordes of enemies in the depths of their Universe.

Mandatory US Disclosure: They sent us keys

Makes with the working

V-

Everything works but Unity screen of nope in 2016 is a no no.
Solid 60 @ 1080 / 45ish @ 2160 (everything on the beautiful)

J-

Gotta ding it a chair for the unity screen of nope. Especially considering all that shit can be configured in game
Dinging it another chair because functionality doesn’t work in UHD. The game working should not be resolution dependent
And multiple spite crashes when it loads. Minus another chair

P-

It didn’t originally have the Unity Screen of Nope, they added it in with a patch!
That’s the kind of brilliant decision that can only be taught at the Natural Selection 2 school of development.
- “Developers, you fucked up!” – “Alright then, motherfuckers! Here’s the source code, you fucking figure it out!”
They also apparently took a correspondence course from the AMD university and have just decided to phone it in.
- As in, they’re not giving you the source code, just the lazy pop-up because they can’t be assed!

Total –

Shiny / Sounds

V-

You know what? It’s not fugly by any stretch of the imagination.
The levels are well done and the the dwarfs definitely look the part.
Unfortunately the pallet is based on the colour dark.
This can make it extremely easy to bump into baddies.
Voice acting ‘exists’ but only one of them actually sounds like a dwarf.
But do yourself a favour and listen. Reading the Google translated text could very well break your brain-organ.
If it has background music, I never noticed.

J-

The aesthetic is unique. I like space dwarves. It sort of reminds me of 40K
The models are certainly on point
The voice acting sort of reminds me of the narration from the first Wizard album, which is a plus in my book.

P-

Dwarves in power armor will always look anachronistic no matter what setting your game takes place on.
Yes, it is the natural progression of the Tolkienesque dwarves. They’re the stone masons and the blacksmiths, so it makes sense that in the future they’d be the ones lubbing around in big-ass power armor.
- Mostly because it also makes them slightly taller in case they feel like the humans and elves are looking down on them.
The voice acting was a nice touch, but every dwarf outside of the first you play as in the tutorial, all sound like they’re out to make me look proficient in English in comparison.
The graphics look pretty damn good, it’s unfortunate you can only see 6 feet worth of them around you at any point. But more on that later!

Total –

Control

V-

I can only spin the camera in a circle, fascinating.
At least I can zoom in and ou… wait. Oh FFS!
Next thing you’re going to tell me is that I can’t change the perspective.
Wait, WHAT!? Holy fksnacks!
If you are going to lock my FOV like that WTH didn’t you make it first-person?
Now let’s talk about movement.
Not all of the clicks register; more often than not you will need to click on a gem/baddy more than once.
Really it’s more of a suggestion vs. actual control.
Mix that together with the lack of a keyboard shortcut to lock on enemies and you get a click fest of nope.

J-

Dear god the camera control is horrendous
- It really needs some keyboard mappings for rotating the camera, considering how crucial it is for gameplay
For me, this game fails to function in numerous ways. The journal causes the game to go nonresponsive, and the melee guy’s defensive ability just plain doesn’t work
- Aha. The game just doesn’t work in UHD
- Additionally, the defensive move does work, but there is an entire animation cycle you need to go through, and it don’t tell you that at 4k
The big crime here is that if you use a move and move during the animation, it cancels the entire. Lock my controls when I’m executing a move
- Torchlight got that right, satellite reign got that right. You have no excuse

P-

Why can’t I tilt the camera up and down?
Why can’t I zoom in and out?
Why do indie developers feel like they have to reinvent the wheel in order to get their idea of mechanics/plot across, the exact way they want you to experience.
Anything other than that and off to the brig with you!
I lost count to how many times I died because I procced a ranged enemy that was just far enough away to not show up on the very limited field of view.
And my character just dropped because I didn’t even realise I was losing HP, on accounts of this game having shitty feedback.
The combat is about as satisfying and impactful as blowing spitballs at a concrete wall.
Some game stipulations (as it were), like a wide ranging camera in a 3rd person view game, exist for a reason. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel, indie developers!

Total –

FUN

V-

94 115 minutes and 11 achievements later I’m stuck and simply don’t care.
This is 100% FK you hard for the sake of being FK you hard.
Yes, I know they retroactively added an “easy” mode but all that does is allow you to quick save and that does not, in any way, fix the core issue.
That issue? Controls controls controls!
Having the movement and camera controls locked to the gerbil is beyond hella stupid.
It basically forces you to use the slo-mo mechanic to attack anything more than a single enemy.
I guess that technically passes for “Real Time Tactics” ?
Well, at least when the AI is not flipping out.
You know, if they had a working camera I would have a completely different take on this critter.
In a game where stealth is a thing, not being able to see FKs everything out of the gate.
And there is no wiggle room. 99.99% of the time if you accidentally trigger a baddie it results in a squad wipe.
That’s not fun, that doesn’t make people rage-quit, nay!
It causes them to calmly close the game and request a refund.

J-

Reminds me of space hulk meets satellite reign
- Except those games were competent at what they did.
Listen, I came into this game wanting to like it. I love scifi/fantasy mash ups, but this game is a turd
What could be decent gameplay is ruined by gods’ awful controls
The stealth mechanic is non existent. You can “sneak past” stuff when the game feels like it
Your view is locked to this tiny portion of the map, and you’re meant to find tiny little objects that blend into the background so easily that you have to take three or four passes on the map to find them
And then the non stop death because you didn’t execute the correct commands in the correct order
I can play this game maybe 15 minutes at a time before wanting to smash my keyboard and mouse

P-

At first I was kinda iffy about this game. Is it an RPG? Is it a single player MOBA? I don’t really have an issue with either of those.
I like what I’ve played so far of NeKro and this is basically Diablo with World of Warcraft comba-….
- Oh, for fuck’s sake!
This is a single player, linear progression, MMORPG.
I should have realized it from the sheer amount of achievements of killing X amount of monster Y and the one click combat.
It’s just like playing an RTS game where you control a teeny tiny regiment. Get it, because they’re dwarves?!
The game claims you’re progressing but it seems more keen to actively reward you with even more achievements for fucking up, than when you actually progress.
There’s not “one big thing“ wrong with this game that kills it.
It’s just the pile of small nagging issues and mechanics, which are like someone played the tutorial for World of Warcraft and/or Guild Wars over and over and nothing else. That’s what kills it for me.
Dark Souls and Bloodborne can get away with fucking balls to the walls hard combat, because their combat is actually skill based.
In this game it’s trial and error. And that’s bad, lazy, bad, bad, lazy game design.
Visually and audibly, it looks and sounds great. It’s a shame the mechanics are bare-bones at best.