LinuxGameCast Weekly EP187 – Signs Of Life

PAYDAY 2 heads to Linux! AMD delivers the Vulkan, NVIDIA gets in our face, and Oddworld teases Soulstorm. Then Sunless Sea faces the CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail!

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http://store.steampowered.com/app/304650/

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Ben

Steam News:

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

PayDay Linux DLC
https://steamdb.info/app/218620/history/

I forgot this was coming to the Linux.
- Yeah, it got revealed when they also announced Batman. Glad at least a few of them are squeaking out
Picked up a 4-pk over a year ago so it will probably be a VP port.
- Yeah I hope not. Multiplayer would be fun
Encrypted depots are encrypted.
Looks like they will be supporting the Controlla.

HAWT
http://store.steampowered.com/app/399640/

Rogue-lite, bullet hell type deal where you pick from a choice of characters and have at.
Hella sweet intro does not prepare you for the mobile graphics.
Works with the PS4 controller, but the controls are just sluggish

Sheltered
http://store.steampowered.com/app/356040/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

This Hipster Pixel War of Mine?
I’ve heard it said that it’s more along the lines of a Fallout Shelter that doesn’t suck.
- Which incidentally has anti-incest logic

Play Chess like a real pro
http://store.steampowered.com/app/352050/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

Ah, 2016 when “no in-app purchases!” Is a fk mothering feature.
- Guess they only mention it because it used to be Free to play, now it isn’t
Whar Megachessotron?

Super meat box
http://store.steampowered.com/app/438820/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

It has a “total fails” counter.
Whoever made this thinks this is hip with the kids in 2016.
How is this game 600MB? That’s what I want to know

Ca-Caw!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/451670/

Welcome back to 1996!
- Holy dated Graphics batman!
Apparently you can just run it with a CPU, ram stick and an old flash drive. No OS required
Try the full game for free on your aDevice.

Tiny Rick Knight
http://store.steampowered.com/app/445210/

Terrain graphics are more than a little reminiscent of torchlight.
But then you have the Final Fantasy-wannabe protagonist and it’s a 3D platformer.

News:

Too little too late
http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDGPU-PRO-Beta-Driver-for-Vulkan-Release-Notes.aspx

It’s only for the Virgin Islands family of cards.
Means, if you have an R9 390, which is a rebranded 290 Hawaii card, you’re in the dirt!
- I think they work but AMD could not be arsed to test them.
  - At least Nvidia supported 3 Generations of cards. Intel has at least partial support for everything up to Sandy bridge
Also, it only supports Ubuntu 14.04.4
I am genuinely curious about how they’ll perform. I kinda wish we had someone in shatrealm who could.

Face Sauce
https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/

Ooh. Shots fired AMD
So far it is only faceworks, which is only supported by D3D11, but now that the source is out, some progress might be made
For select GameWorks libraries.
Still, good on them for actually releasing the sauce.
It should help them make a case against those people who say they’re assholes for limiting the availability of *their own* technologies.

Cry
http://www.crytek.com/news/crytek-unveils-all-new-cryengine-v-and-community-centered–pay-what-you-want–model

You know I TRIED to get a copy of your engine for tinkering.
You want my home address before I can DL a copy? Yeah, no.
BTW, your ‘pay what you want’ model reeks of desperation.
- Yeah. If they were really serious, they’d follow Epic’s model.
- The humble bundle-esque indie fund contribution seems interesting, but I’m pretty sure that won’t actually go anywhere
No Vulkan support? OpenGL? Crytek, I am dissapoint
VR is the hot new thing, and VR don’t work under Linux apparently.
Hmm, FMOD audio. Get ready for the all the buffer underruns when/if it comes to Linux.

Hahahahahahaha, no
https://developer.unigine.com/en/devlog/20160317-unigine-2.2

Better tools to make your performance benchmarking software
How about they compile that Oil Rig demo and let people test it?
- I’m getting a bit tired of looking at the Heaven and Valley benchmarks.
Seriously, there are what, five released games that use Unigine?

Get Unity Certified
https://certification.unity.com/

It’s only $250 and if you don’t finish the 100 question exam you will be graded on the portion you have completed.
- I can get a Linux sysadmin certification for $200. Somehow, I think that’s better value for the money.
I’m tempted to fly out, find one question I know and hand the FKR in.
- There’s one in Ottawa on the 30th of April. We should send Sandy
I doubt this is going to be a lifetime certification (though I can’t find any mention of a recertification period), so it falls into the standard Cert racket
- Considering how much changed from Unity 4 to 5, definitely not.
I am however looking forward to people who are able to pass the test still producing shit games.

Odd
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Oddworld-Game-Announced-Next-Year-124627.html

Considering they still haven’t really fixed the controls in the last one, meh.
I dunno, the oddworld setting is already pretty dark.
Dark tones in media walk a pretty fine line, because things can actually be dark, or just grimdark.
It’s worth pointing out that there is no confirmation of a Linux release, yet.
We’re working off the assumption that they may.

Hack the planet
https://crowgirl.itch.io/hackers-versus-banksters

It’s a choose your own adventure style visual novel where you have to count caloires for one character and avoid stressful situations with another one
Yeah…That’s about it

Hi TSA
http://pandoralive.info/?p=5519

Not too shabby looking for a handheld computer
Currently it has no heat sink and no hardware acceleration

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Sunless Sea
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/304650/
Devel: Failbetter Games
Engine: Unity
Price: 18.99 / CDN 20.99

Wazzat: LOSE YOUR MIND. EAT YOUR CREW. DIE. Take the helm of your steamship and set sail for the unknown! Sunless Sea is a game of discovery, loneliness and frequent death, set in the award-winning Victorian Gothic universe of Fallen London.

Makes with the working

V-

Not losing a chair over it but it does have intermittent sutters when derping around in the ship.

J-

P-

It did that stupid Unity thing of trying to fullscreen into both my monitors and failing miserably, but they fixed it within a day of me sending them an email about it.
If you look at the Steam store page you don’t see a Linux icon for the game.
The Developers said that since that icon means SteamOS and Linux, and since they don’t have any kind of controller support for it, they’re waiting on that to tick that box.
- http://steamcommunity.com/app/304650/discussions/0/405692224243457401/

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

If you’re not reading text you are putting around in a ship.
The view is 2D top-down
I really like the soundtrack when it decided to play.
Sound effects are bog standard.

J-

I mean, the graphics get the job done, don’t get me wrong
Honestly, I have zero recollection of the soundtrack.

P-

The graphics are very simplistic.
I’ve seen naval games on the Unity engine, that only take 50MB of storage space and manage to have some very competent looking graphics.
That game is called Windward, you may want to keep that name in the back of your head for later.
It doesn’t get 2 chairs because the background noises are damn well done!
They’re very subtle but they’re very competently done and will smack you across the head with atmosphere.

Total-

Control

V-

Keyboard mappings are all over the damn place.
Really all the control you will be doing is driving your ship in circles.

J-

The controls are sane for the most part. The main issue I have is that the keyboard shortcuts for maps/journal/lights is on the other side of the keyboard

P-

This is a very slow paced game.
Most of your controls are click the thing to make another thing happen.
The boat, I assume the starting boat is purposely slow, but it makes turtles look brisk by comparison.
Even crabs can do a charge attack and munch you.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
I feel the controls work for what they are, but proper controller support wouldn’t go amiss.

Total-

FUN

V-

Combat sucks alligator anus.
This is a glorified visual novel.
The majority of your time will be spent reading.
And every time you get noped you are rewarded by reading the same startup BS for the first 30min. Guaranteed!
If you give 0 fks about the story (guilty) this is nothing more than a unnecessarily hard grindfest.

J-

So much grinding. So much
There are elements of the game I really like:
- The various currencies
- The relatively freeform mission/goal structure
- Exploration
All that is harmed by the painfully slow pace. And the grind
There are also a few things that insta-screw you the first time. The only way to avoid them is to know ahead of time
The crab battles devolve to flailing around trying to keep them in your firing arc

P-

This is not the kind of game I was expecting.
I can recognize it’s worth as an atmospheric, story-driven game with a degree of exploration and a lot of risk-reward situations.
What I wanted to see from it was Windward with a heavier focus on story.
As far as gameplay mechanics go, Windward has nailed the top-down sailing action to a T.
Sunless Sea on the other hand, adheres to the school of game design of “Tell, don’t show.”
“You have fell in love with a beautiful lady” the game says in the little journal. But all you can see is said journal.
“The sisters tell you a haunting tale of the Zee” and I’m still looking at that same journal.
In Windward by contrast, all you do is play and whatever bit of story you get, is often a small bit of text and something will happen in the game world. Like a pirate ship appears from off-screen ready to munch you, or a town will be under attack by an opposing faction.
What I’m saying is, to reiterate what I said a few weeks back: when it comes to games, I’d rather have solid mechanics and gameplay than a good story.
I can get a good story in TV shows, books, movies or any other medium.
When it comes to video games, it’s the interactivity and the mechanics that fuel it that are important. In my opinion. I recognize that is not the case with other people.
But since this is the most subjective category, I didn’t really have fun.