LinuxGameCast Weekly EP189 – Suggestion Stick

Steam gets hacked! Two Worlds II heads to Linux, Double Fine wants your vote, and Unreal Engine 4.11 multi-threads all the things. Then Flamebreak faces the CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail!

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

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Steam News:

WTF Mate
https://www.playerattack.com/news/2016/03/29/87923/australian-government-finds-valve-mislead-gamers-over-consumer-rights/

So, refunds?
- Sounds like it. It looks like they really just plugged a loophole Valve was using
- Still gotta pay the Australia tax though. Flipping those bits upside down is expensive
“Valve had excluded statutory guarantees and/or warranties that goods would be of acceptable quality; and
Valve had restricted or modified statutory guarantees and/or warranties of acceptable quality.”
- This! This right here.
- VALVe has let the Steam store run amok over the past few years and it’s been proven, time and time again, that it doesn’t really work.
- And if you need more proof of that…

It’s just a prank, bro!
https://medium.com/@rubiimeow/watch-paint-dry-how-i-got-a-game-on-the-steam-store-without-anyone-from-valve-ever-looking-at-it-2e476858c753#.yh58fvymk

It’s been fixed but that could explain some of the shite that’s managed to get on the store.
You shouldn’t be writing client-side Javascript if you’re making mistakes this fucking basic.
That said, I’m shocked Steam didn’t ban him for a year.
- The ETS2/ATS guy that did something similar was surprisingly calm when he heard about this.
- He only sent out a couple of sarcastic tweets.
We talked about an article from last year in which the author stated that valve desperately needs a bug bounty to encourage people to find shit like this and report it
Valve has been making some improvements in the security field, but this is a really shitty way of getting holes plugged.
- There needs to be a structured and co-ordinated method of disclosing bugs to valve so that the responsible people find them first, not the black hats.
Turns out dude is 16 and slightly ticked at the VALVe.

AVGN II
http://store.steampowered.com/app/409660/

TIL AVGN was still a thing.
Whar Nostalgia Critic video game?
- Apparently, he’s in this one.
Is this anything other than a bog standard pixel platformer?

Hipster Pixel Drifter
http://store.steampowered.com/app/257850/

See, if you’re going to do hipster pixel, at least do it like these guys and make it look cool.
- ^
“Easy to pick up, difficult to master; enemies are vicious and numerous, hazards will easily crush your frail body, and friendly faces remain rare.”
I can now recognize marketing schpiel for “Like Dark Souls but…”.
- We’re going to start seeing a lot more of these on the heels of Dark Souls 3.
  - I wish From Software just released a Linux version of that.
They decided to lock the game to 30 FerPS and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, they tied the entire engine logic to the frame rate. (Sauce [see the Performance section]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1661802484/hyper-light-drifter/posts/1534048)
- Yeah, I expect a hipster-pixel game to deliver glorious 60 FERPS! not really
  - I expect it to run at 1200FPS. Why did you think I bought a 980? To play hipster pixel zelda games at 30 FPS?
Correctly identified I was on a PS4 Controller and gave me appropriate button prompts too. SDL2 FTW
- Correctly identified the Xclone as a PS4 controller.

Dark D Linux beta
http://steamcommunity.com/games/262060/announcements/detail/843670831149750514
http://store.steampowered.com/app/262060

I’m genuinely irked that it took this long, considering the game is made in Unity
Still, I have been looking forward to this for a while.
Took’em long enough.
Oh, it’s turn-based?

VR Ready
http://steamcommunity.com/games/360950/announcements/detail/848174597849696072

Hey, new level!
- Fugly as hell new level, but it’s there.
“Linux appears to not be detecting joysticks in many cases.”
- This is how I know you’re not using SDL 2.
- Which, since it’s using UE4, is something you could’ve added right from the get go.

Vikings
http://store.steampowered.com/app/440800/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

Try the demo, it’s just as bad as one might imagine.
It…it looks like a PS1 game.
- Aren’t we in a generous mood!
- It controls like one.

News:

GLVND Bugs
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/926220/linux/364-12-shadow-of-mordor-regression-perhaps-tessellation-related-/

Feral is aware: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/4c6ia1/new_graphical_bug_in_middle_earth_with_nvidia_780/d1heyhx
They say they’ll release a “small patch” to “address this issue”.
In the meantime, if you have an AMD CPU you can keep on twiddling those thumbs because they don’t seem to want to address the CPU bottleneck.
Shady Nvidia haxx0rz

4.11
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-4-11-released

They’ve improved multithreading support, so hold on to those 8150s. You might be getting an unexpected performance boost in Ark soon enough
- Multicore scaling because consoles.
“92 improvements submitted by the community”
- I’m okay with this.
- Things like this happen when you open the source
  - ^
  - Saves them a ton on bugfixing too
Crash reporting on Linux is now a THING!
- That took a while.
Looks like hairworks integration hit primetime, as well as some fabric enhancements.
You can make realistic looking eyes too. I personally am looking forward to the VR game where you sit there and get a big-ol’-fuck-you needle in your eye

Double Vote
http://support.doublefine.com/

I like that they’re doing something like this. Very similar to Valve using github as a bug tracker for steam
Right now they’re just covering day of the Tentacle
- They didn’t accept my “lack of Linux support” bug.
They’re using the Oxygen icon theme. I used KDE 4 long enough to recognize it!
It’s also laid out similarly to Launchpad, so if you’ve ever reported a Ubuntu bug, you’ll be right at home.

3 Worlds
https://www.facebook.com/TopwareInteractive/posts/10153973662430761
http://www.callofthetenebrae.com/en/

Now I know what you’re thinking. “Aren’t these the same clods who tried and failed to sell Raven’s cry Twice?
- The answer is yes
- However if, and this is a big if, they’ve designed their engine to be cross platform from scratch and they don’t try to polish an unfinished game as a finished product, this might actually be something worth playing.
- The moral of the story is: Pick up a GTX 780. Your parts might be good, but they’re configured incorrectly.
Two Worlds, the first one, was originally a shitty Oblivion rip-off.
Two Worlds 2, Manchester United 3, was very clearly a sign they didn’t expect to release a sequel and thus the naming scheme got a bit fucked.
Also, this is the kind of enthralling verbal-diarrhea we can expect from TW2:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JnLiaH_id8
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfUNfQTFnSw
And if you ever feel like you don’t enough enough about the taint, listen to these quotes from the first Two Worlds: http://audioatrocities.com/games/twoworlds/index.html

Imagine a world
https://play0ad.com/new-release-0-a-d-alpha-20-timosthenes/

#murderholes
Four new random maps and one new skirmish map
You can now loot the enemies that your doods have killed
Finally they have a credits screen. Because you can’t expect normies to look at git changelogs. But you should…

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Flamebreak
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/399640
Devel: Nimbly Games
Engine: Custom (built from LibGDX) Venn’s favourite programming language!
Price: 9.99 / CDN 10.99

Wazzat: Flamebreak is a roguelite action RPG featuring a unique blend of twinstick meets MOBA arena combat. Each procedurally generated run presents new challenges while your randomized hero’s race, weapon, and skills inspire new playstyles and character builds.

Mandatory US Disclosure: The devs sent us keys.

Makes with the working

V-

It manages to maintain 300 FERPS at 1080 and 2160 UHD.
However @ UHD the cursor lag makes combat nigh impossible.
Also, not working with Steam overlay, in 2016… really?

J-

P-

The game went “Oh! You have one of those 3840×1080 screens that don’t exist. Let me spawn the the window smack in the middle of it.”
Couldn’t find an option to make it stick to one screen on start.

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

After sitting through the initial intro I was expecting some serious LOTR type shite.
Nope! Cutesy arse-mobile graphics.
Well done cutesy arse-mobile graphics but FK me if I was expecting that.
Then again this was from the studio that pumped out such graphical juggernauts as Bumbledore and Altitude.

J-

I’m not blown out of the water by these sprites. Very much mobile graphics
The background music is just kind of there

P-

I don’t like the bobblehead stylization.
It makes it impossible for me to get immersed in a game.
And it doesn’t really take much to get me immersed in your game.
Usually a solid set of mechanics and cohesive graphics are all I ask for.
The floaty arms and heads are anything but cohesive!
I like the background music, it’s nothing spectacular, but it’s well done and conveys the setting better than the crappy bobbleheads.
I liked the poetry-lite loading screens/cutscenes.
Couldn’t really tell whether they were going for the simple 4-line of just an alternate style of rhymes, but they didn’t force it too much.

Total-

Control

V-

Oh just fk off if you think you’re going to play this thing with a controller.
Keyboard and gerbil is a must but that’s only half the battle.
The other half is not making it clear that the hotkeys for the specials can be reordered.
You put that on the menu, really?
Also, the simulated gerbil cursor when using a controlla is just janky.

J-

What I’d love to do is sit back on my couch and play this. The controls do not enable this behaviour
The controls were really sluggish last week, they seem to have fixed that

P-

Recognized the NVidia Shield Controller with the correct mappings.
Chances are you’re probably going to want to play it with the keyboard and mouse and works fine too.

Total-

FUN

V-

I’m put a real full hour into this thing, somehow.
I finally settled on a minotaur with a spear and a few ranged moves.
The he got dead and I had to start over.
“randomized hero’s race, weapon, and skills inspire new playstyles and character builds”
- No sir!
- It ‘inspired’ me to stop playing this game.
- FK permadeath and fk procedurally generated anything.
- Now that’s not really the fault of the game but if you have even the slightest aversion to either of those popular user defined tags do yourself a favour and stay away from this nope cocktail.
P.S. Quit comparing this to Binding of Isaac, it’s not. Not even close.

J-

I liked the randomized character bit. I mean, I was only good with the crossbow or musket, but if I picked a guy with one of those and at least one dash move, I did pretty well
I do like the rogue legacy type deal where you get some persistent benfits after you die t.
However, it’s pretty much a schmup. A relatively enjoyable one, but a schmup nonetheless
It did some things right, but what really costs it that third chair is the abysmal controller support.

P-

It’s a roguelite single-player MOBA, type of thing.
I like the roguelite bits.
- The Perma-death, the randomization, the difficulty. I like that!
What I don’t like is the cooldown-based, MOBA-style combat.
Pair that with the bobblehead aesthetics and you’ve got yourself a 2 chair game.

Total-

Final –

Hate Mail:

Prey
http://slexy.org/view/s21sULK8qZ

Blame Bethesda/Zenimax. They don’t like Linux and have made it pretty clear they have no intention of supporting it.
That said, you would have had a much easier time with Lutris: https://lutris.net/games/prey/

PAY
http://slexy.org/view/s21HlDvsS5