LinuxGameCast Weekly EP205 – Titan Mic Drop

Undertale comes to Linux! Steam goes after gambling sites, Starbound exits Early Access, and NVIDIA counts to X. Then Day of the Tentacle Remastered faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

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Steam News:

Colour key – Venn Jordan Pedro

You got served
http://www.esportsbettingreport.com/valveskinbettingceasedesist/

  • SUE THEM. SUE THEEEEEEEEEM!
  • We’re super cereal you guys.
  • “We’ll even terminate your Steam account!”
    • Even though you can just make another free account and fill it up with duplicate Humble keys and spend another $10 or so get access to the Marketplace, again.
  • Empty threat that makes for good PR while they wait for things to blows over.

Job
http://www.pcgamer.com/rimworlddevhaltssteamkeysalesaftergettinghammeredbyfraudsters/

  • The grey market strikes again.
  • Just a reminder to the kids: Don’t buy shit from key resellers. It ultimately hurts devs worse than piracy.
    • Key word being “kids”.
    • The ones without fully developed brain-organs and hella nonexistent impulse control.
    • Protip: Your average teen isn’t going to wait six months for a Linux port, either.
  • If you REALLY need to save the money, just pirate the game and then pick it up when it goes on sale on Steam
  • or GOG.

This is How We Do it
http://developer.humblebundle.com/post/147806409802/humblefraud

  • Seeing as Humble Bundles are one of the main sources of resale keys, it makes sense they’d want to cover their asses.
  • Interesting ad for their services.
  • That siftscience service actually looks pretty interesting in terms of fraud prevention
  • The other shit they do are fairly legitimate anti-fraud steps
  • But like Venn said, this is very much an attempt to win the favour of devs. Still a good thing though.

1.0
http://steamcommunity.com/games/211820/announcements/detail/978787857390234346

  • After 5+ years of deleted saves!
  • Guess I’ll probably have to go in and see whether or not it retains the charm.
  • I did sink like 8 or 9 hours in when the first version came out on the Linuxes.
  • This is what I fear will happen to Distance.
  • Roommate loves these types of games and keeps trying to get me to play this with him. I might end up capitulating if we throw chairs at the 1.0
  • 1.0 mean the engine is finished, not the game.

Undertail
http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540

  • There was a hack that made this game work under linux (mono and whatnot), but it’s good to see official support
  • This is the new critical darling of RPGs, so we might end up throwing some chairs at it.
    • Indeed, this game has a decided lack of coverage.
  • I am so conflicted on this game.
  • As a critic, or an asshole on the internet if you prefer, I love this game.
    • It mixes and matches several different genres and, if you believe the internet, it does so in a way that is the best thing to happen to video games since Doom.
  • But speaking of Doom, the graphics and audio are certainly taken from the same time period.
  • And, not as a critic but as someone who really does enjoy playing videogames, I hate this game.
  • Aesthetically it’s antiquated, mechanically it’s completely unoriginal, and it spawned a torrent of shitty “4th wall breaking” games.

Strange
http://store.steampowered.com/app/319630/

  • I made it to the point where she took a selfie with a Polaroid.
  • UE3 engine and uses 2.littlebitoftherestofthem cores.
    • It pegged 3 at 100% on my end.
  • 60+ on YOLO @ 1080.
  • If I play it in Fullscreen 1080p, I’ll get like 80-90 FerPS.
  • The moment I switch to Window mode (and it has 2 window modes which don’t seem to be any different), the FerPS come down to 50-60.
  • And if I have the gall of wanting to watch a Youtube video on the second monitor, 43FerPS is the best it can do.
  • Go team blue. Getting 50+ferps @UHD and 120+@1080
  • Still pegs two cores though
  • Not a fan of the in game music though. Wish this game had a Music folder like GTA Vice city on Windows so you could have your own instead of the indie rock 4 dummies they have playing

Nice road to Death
http://store.steampowered.com/app/252610/

  • Big thank you to the developers for sending us keys.
  • You best build a log cabin. \
  • Just watch out for that moose, eh?

News:

Gonna give it to ya
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/07/21/titanx/

  • Ah, yes! They’re bringing the SHIELD naming scheme to their GPUs.
  • Because we’re talking about the Titan X, not the Maxwell architecture one, but the Pascal one.
  • Was it that much of a problem calling it the Titan P or S or C or L.
  • There are 4 consonants in Pascal which you could have used and yet you went with X, like you had with Maxwell.
  • Pedro had the fastest video card for all of 7hrs.
    • So salty
      • He is.
  • So, let me see if I get this right.
  • 60% better performance than the old Titan X for $1200.
  • Isn’t the GTX 1070 just an itsy bit faster than the old Titan X and sells for $400?
  • So…It’s a 300% price jack for 60% better performance.
  • Ladies and gentlemen, the GTX 950 has officially been dethroned as the WTF Card.
  • I don’t get what Pedro is so mad about.
  • There will always be people who have way too much money and need to give it away asap. And who is Nvidia to say no to $1200 USD a pop?
  • NVIDIA releases these monsters at such a price so they can saysee how cheap the 10X series are in comparison”
  • That, and it’s a polite way of telling AMD

Intel 4.5
https://mesamatrix.net/

  • Ronpaul.gif
  • Intel is the first driver to have full openGL compliance in mesa (not on all IGPs however). NVC0 and RadeonSI aren’t too far behind.
  • By years end we should have support for the other drivers as well
  • Now the mesa folks can focus on what the drivers have been really lacking: performance
  • Sure I’d like to see a push on the OS vulkan driver development, but openGL performance should be their next big goal. Something close to AMD proprietary driver performance but, you know? Works?
  • This is for the Gen8+ (Broadwell and up) Intel integrated graphics.
  • If you have a Haswell processor, you still only get OpenGL 4.0

Hawt
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/CasesandCooling/AMDWraithCPUCoolerReviewCoolandQuiet

  • So it’s a lot bigger and only slightly quieter?
  • At least the cooling performance is a bit better.
  • It’s not like you can buy it separately but anything is better than the old dustbuster.
  • I kinda want to slap it on a FX-9590 and watch it turn into a piece of slag.
  • It’s performing on par with the 212 EVO, temperature-wise.
  • That’s a pretty good thing.
  • Pair that with AMD’s recent uptick in revenue and there may still be hope left.
  • Main advantage is that it uses the AMD lock clippy thing.
    • Seriously. Literally billions in R&D and intel can’t come up with something better than push pins?
  • Honestly, I’d like a standalone version of this. I might need to replace the heatsink in the TV box soon and this would be lovely. Shame I need to buy a useless CPU to get one. Although I could pop it into the old desktop mobo….and I’m broke

#LGCcares
https://github.com/lutris/ffmpegnvenc

  • France and Deutschland have sex, yo.
    • There’s probably a WWII joke to made here but since we have jewish co-host, I’m just gonna keep it to myself.
      • I’m not! Venn be all about the ol’ belgium reacharound. Something something bypassing Strider’s Maginot line
  • I know it works on 14.04 and Frenchy claims it now works on 16.04.

Frenchy is about to make you his bitch
https://lutris.net/games/daikatana/

  • Plus it comes with a free ffmpeg binary
  • That’s the thing about preserving videogames, you need to preserve the really terrible ones too.

OpenXeen
https://github.com/busyDuckman/OpenXeen

  • So apparently people really hate DOSBOX and want it to DIAF
  • Still, if you had a hankering to play some MIght and Magic 4 or 5, this is the project for you
  • Welcome to this week’s update on the Year of the Open Sauce Reimplementation.
  • Hm, Java!

CHAIRQUISITION:
CHAIR– Nooope

CHAIRCHAIR– Not sure if want

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR – Check it out

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR – Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Day of the Tentacle Remastered
Webzone:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/388210/
Devel: Double Fine Productions
Engine: SCUMM (2009)
Price: 14.99 / CDN 16.99

Wazzat: Dr. Fred’s mutated purple tentacle is about to take over the world, and only you can stop him!

*Ported by Josh Bush

Originally released by LucasArts in 1993 as a sequel to Ron Gilbert’s ground breaking Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle is a mind-bending, time travel, cartoon puzzle adventure game in which three unlikely friends work together to prevent an evil mutated purple tentacle from taking over the world!

Disclaimer: They sent us keys


Makes with the working

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • 60 @ 1080 & 2160

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Like Grim Fandango before it, there’s absolutely nothing to point at here.
  • This is probably one of the very few games where the frame limiting is a good thing.
  • I’ve already heard the 1080’s fans scream at the top of its aluminum fins (surprisingly quiet) with some of the benchmarks, no need to put strain on it for this simple a game.

Total- CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Shiny / Sounds

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Looks like someone took an auto-vector convert-o-tron to the original content.
  • I’m not saying it looks bad in the slightest but, yeah, I’m just saying.
  • Zero fks were given about the mouth animations / voice sync.
  • Double Fine located the original master tapes so it definitely makes with the sounds.

J-CHAIRCHAIR

  • Oh man, that voice acting. Quality 90’s stuff. Right up there
  • Yes, for what it is, the game looks good. The remastered models look a lot better than the old ones.
  • I’m still not blown away.

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Bonus points for the remastered audio.
  • That said, visually the game is still actively trying to maintain the dithering in the backgrounds and the slow/low-framecount animations.
  • This wasn’t as glaring in Grim Fandango, although that game’s 3D models on top of 2D backgrounds were certainly jarring on their own.
  • I guess those are the limitations of having the new engine still be based on the old SCUMM engine.
  • Maybe time to remaster the engine itself, ‘eh Double Fine?

Total-CHAIRCHAIR


Control

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Point, click, shite gets done.
  • I tinkered around with the original version and it’s a massive improvement.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • It thinks my steam controller is a PS4 controller. Whatever that means
  • But yeah, point and clicked

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • This was a very good surprise.
  • The Mistress and the Logitech F310 both work out of the box, if you really need them.
  • The surprise came when I saw that they give you the old UI, with the Use, Open, Close, Push, Pull, etc., commands.
  • But they also give you a newer UI, very similar to that of Broken Age.
  • I’m almost willing to believe the Broken Age kickstarter was to fuel the R&D necessary for the remasters and the game itself was kinda just a side thing.
  • I’m on to you, Tim!

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


FUN

V-CHAIRCHAIR

  • Disclaimer: I never played the original.
  • Old point-and-click adventure games are hella obtuse.
  • Requiring hella time and unless you are sitting at home on summer holiday (or a recent grad with a degree in liberal arts) you’re going to be hard pressed to find it.
  • It’s three people, in three times with a novel time travel mechanic.
  • You steal things and attempt to use them on other things.
  • Sometimes you must combine stolen items with others because that was a thing back in the day.
  • Outside of that it’s listening to endless dialogue (mind you, some of it still holds up) and using all the things on all the things in hope of causing another thing to happen.
  • At lot of neat happened in 93, the first X Files, Haddaway’s “What is love”, Dazed and Confused, and most importantly Groundhog Day.
  • DOTT, was more of a side note, at best.
  • And like everything I just mentioned I don’t think it needed to be remastered.

J-CHAIRCHAIR

  • I never really got into point and click adventure games
  • Up until I started doing LGC, I think I really only played one or two, sporadically if at all. One of them was Myst in my therapist’s office. Then I went and talked to him about the trauma Myst caused me
    • He also Had Indiana jones and the kingdom of atlantis, so I played more of that
  • But I digress, this is definitely a point and click adventure game. It operates on Sierra Logic, while I operate on regular logic
  • Some of the dialogue got a chuckle out of me, I basically devolved to attempting to brute force the solution, which wasn’t particularly fun
  • Still, I can’t say I hated the game. I have no strong feelings one way or the other

P-CHAIRCHAIR

  • Platformers, I’ve grown tired of.
  • RTS, I hate with a passion.
  • Sports games… Just, why??
  • Point and click adventures, outside of Grim Fandango, I never really saw the appeal.
  • And Day of the Hentai Sex Instrument is a very good example of that.
  • This game, and the other Lucas Arts/Sierra games back in the 90’s, spawned the “Videogame Logic” meme.
  • At one point near the start, in order to release one of your characters, you need to paint the Kumquats in a tree red so an NPC thinks they’re another fruit and chops down said tree.
  • My save game says I’m 25% of the way through, I dunno how.
  • All I’ve been doing is rubbing a thing on another thing to make a third thing happen.
  • And most of the times, when said rubbing does produce an effect other than the refusal of the character you’re controlling at the time, I have no idea why.
  • I guess that’s kinda how most people did it back in the day but back then the “hold down Shift to find the interactible stuff” wasn’t there.

Total-CHAIRCHAIR


Final – CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Hate Mail:

Purchase
http://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?kauxJNS

  • If it has a native launcher then have at.
  • However, when Open Skyrim comes out I don’t get to subtract a heretic purchase.
  • By all means go for it. If you held out for morrowind, go and play it now that you can!

Holding it wrong #Brigador
http://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?aOMzLcU

  • Oh! Everyone complaining is playing it wrong, are they?
  • I had to fight every single instinct in my body to play for as long as I did.
  • Oh, it “just boils down to ‘learning to have fun’” does it?
    • By that logic, I could learn to have fun while holding my hands under a hacksaw and make a little a game of seeing how far the blood would squirt before I passed out.
    • Yeah, that moment when you pass out is pretty fun. For no other reason than you can’t feel the pain anymore.
  • The “it gets better after a while” reasoning always rings of Stockholm Syndrome.
  • If you get kidnapped, after a while it gets better. Mostly because you’re no longer feeling scared and miserable. You’re left feeling just miserable.
  • Miserable, like Brigador’s control scheme.
  • As I mentioned in the review: Tank controls make sense if you’re doing an over the shoulder style shooter. Not an Isometric one.
  • Bad control schemes are bad. You can still get good at them, but it doesn’t stop them from being flawed in the first place. There is no defending it

Kicked
http://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?EMZHhVt

  • This is why we only mentioned their campaign after the Linux demo was out.
  • And even then, Venn made pretty clear the why they released the Linux demo.
  • And I wholeheartedly agree! Devolver Digital, Double Fine, tinyBuild, Paradoxx, Feral and Aspyr do amazing work.
  • If people wanted to reward good Linux support instead of only claiming to, those are the publishers/devs they should be backing.
  • Unfortunately, we still have a decade of bad marketing and FUD to undo. People as a whole don’t realize how far linux and it’s userbase have come.
  • It’s going to be a slow process though.
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