LinuxGameCast Weekly 244 – The 90s Called

Humble goes wild! DoTA wants your number, Mech Commander 2 comes to Linux, and we’re giving away a copy of Prison Architect. Then Asura faces the CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail.

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Steam News:

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam News:

Controlla update
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/announcements/detail/562230727221099103

  • Well, that’s handy. When you create a controller configuration, they automagically inject a link to it into your clipboard.
  • You can no longer hijack the key combo activators with another controller.
  • And the issues of syncing a new controller, if a receiver already a few active controllers registered with it, seem to have been fixed as well.

Bundle Vives
https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/18/htc-vive-bundles/

  • I don’t think the problem is people not having VR ready boxes, Brad.
  • The problem is that everyone who wanted a 1’st gen Vive already bought one.
    • Shhh. All problems everywhere ever are about not being able to afford shit
  • And there’s also the fact that there are still no games even remotely interesting for VR which couldn’t work just as well in a simple “traditional” display.
  • Short version: You can finance a 1070 and a vive for 50 bucks a month, a vive and a desktop for 100 a month, a vive and a beefy laptop for 125 a month
  • Or you could pick up a 1070 and a vive for a grand. Not exactly an awful deal if you wanted to get into VR

DOTA Calling
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/170170-DoTA-2-Ranked-Requires-Telphone-Number

  • Trying to cut down on smurfing.
  • High-rank players creating accounts at a lower rank.
  • Two-week grace period

Two Worlds II the sequel
http://steamcommunity.com/games/7520/announcements/detail/1292940021078761291

  • “…with a major HD engine update!”
    • It’s the Raven’s Cry engine, isn’t it?
  • Make it less buggy this time, yeah?
  • Good luck getting yourself a GTX780. Otherwise you won’t be able to run the game well enough.

Fixed Co-Light
https://steamcommunity.com/games/239140/announcements/detail/1294065920977529834

  • zombie voice chat lure issue fixed
    • Damn. That sounded kinky AF
  • Apparently there was some issue with co-op games timing out. This has been resolved
  • Maybe I can justify forking over the cash for it… once it’s goes on sale again.
  • Guess the interns finally got around to fixing it.
  • Now, fix the damn multiplayer in Dead Island because that shite don’t work and you know it.

Flinthook
http://store.steampowered.com/app/401710/

  • Bionic hookmando?
  • The time mechanic look neat.
    • As Brother Chappelle taught us, almost everything looks better in slo-mo

Le Holla Knight
http://steamcommunity.com/games/367520/announcements/detail/525075250162307643

  • Hot damn this thing is pretty.
    • It’s the lighting. Very well done
  • Tight controls are tight.
  • First time I ever put “defeat second any boss” on my to-do whiteboard.
  • Apparently this is one of those Unity platformers which did manage to get its controls right.
  • And it looks like someone had paid Tim Burton to make a cutesy cartoon.
  • Also curious to see on which side of the (glaringly obvious) metroidvania genre it lands on.
  • Is this a Guacamelee/Salt and Sanctuary type thing which is Castlevania in all but name, or is this more along the lines of Axiom Verge and Metroid?

4k Terraria
http://steamcommunity.com/games/105600/announcements/detail/500306393635986771

  • The UI scaling is definitely a thing I wish other games of this ilk *cough* starbound*cough* would have
  • They’ve fixed a number of stability issues on linux, including one where the game would crash on world generation

Late access
https://www.planet-nomads.com/2017/04/17/public-release-delayed-but-not-for-kickstarter-and-preorder-nomads/

  • Honesty in an Early Access project, nice.
  • WHY IS THE LAUNCH DELAYED THEN?
    • The game deserves to have many of its details to be better.
  • As such, backers get the game in it’s current state, but they’re not going to cut a GA release release their…early access….what….

Horse sharing
http://steamcommunity.com/games/386940/announcements/detail/809914096278729170
https://www.cleverendeavourgames.com/blog/2016/10/27/free-play-mode-snapshot-sharing-more

  • They’re introducing free mode, which will let you design crazy, mario-maker esque levels.
  • You can also share the levels you create.
  • Their trailer has some sample levels you can check out

News:

570 580
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11278/amd-radeon-rx-580-rx-570-review

  • So it’s a big pile of meh, got it.
  • Unless you are looking for a card that uses more power and provides less performance than it’s NVIDIA competitor.
  • So while Nvidia keeps pushing out crazier, more powerful, cheaper and more energy efficient cards, AMD just overclocks their old shit.
  • Does we think we’re in the clear after not fucking up ryzen?
  • So the 580 and 570 are literally overclocked and rebranded version of the 480 and 470.
  • I guess you can leave it to AMD to keep on rebranding with every other architecture.
  • The 560 and 550 seem to use a different GPU architecture, which doesn’t really mean much when for the exact same price range and 75W TDP you get the 1050ti.
  • Now, I can speculate on the performance of the 1050Ti in Linux seeing as how it seems to be a PCIe Powered 970 with worse GL performance and better Vulkan performance.
  • I have no idea how good the AMD drivers on Linux perform nowadays, but from personal experience a few years ago, probably not ideal just yet.
  • Speaking of which…

Mesa
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/mesa-announce/2017-April/000318.html

  • Oh man, there’s so much green on the mesa matrix page now
  • Haiku build issues have been addressed.
    • It won’t be long now…
  • Correct OGL version reporting for i965 and several nouveau fixes.
  • Support for the RX 580 and 570 and improved error handling for R600.
    • Still waiting on OpenGL 4.3 support on this netbook, Brad!

OCAT 1.0
https://github.com/GPUOpen-Tools/OCAT/tree/v1.0.0

  • Can you build this on linux? I see some VS stuff, but nothing that indicates cmake, scons, etc.
  • Seeing as it seems to rely on DLL injection in order to present a DirectX based overlay, the answer to that is no.
  • Would be nice if all those people who claim their Radeon GPUs work so well under Linux and they don’t see any performance issues, if they could make this work over here in penguin land. Be it in OpenGL or Vulkan, preferably both.
  • Unless of course, that spiel is just internet posturing…

Humble gone Wild
https://www.humblebundle.com/wild-frontier-bundle

  • Multiplayer ice fishing… FINALLY!
    • I smell aftershow bait

Protip by Frictional
http://frictionalgames.blogspot.pt/2017/04/evoking-presence.html

  • Tips from the studio that has only made one game… four times.
    • To be fair, they did it really well.
    • It was also 5 times, three Penumbra titles, Amnesia Dark Descent and SOMA.
  • Presence == Immersion.

Free craft
https://starcraft.com/en-us/articles/20674424

  • Now that they ported SC1 and Brood War to the SC2 engine, there’s no point in selling the OG Starcraft anymore
  • Mind you, finding a pirated copy of starcraft is easier than convincing your mom to deepthroat a sausage, but hey, it’s something
  • Don’t work in the WINE.
    • The ancient ass-pirated version does though.
  • Did they ever allow it to go over 800×600?
    • IIRC, that was always a balance thing. Limit the available map size

UT
https://twitter.com/icculus/status/854363134206898176

  • What the hell is wrong with this boy.
  • Really shows what WebGL can do
    • Well, i mean, they did get UT3 Running in webGL, so whatever
  • But when will we start seeing electron wrapped games that use it? Its the future doncha know

MC2 (from madhi)
https://github.com/alariq/mc2

  • MechCommander 2 is abandonware so have at!
  • Dude has fixed a LOT of bugs including those in the original game.
  • Sound system still needs some work.
  • Doesn’t seem to like my devel package of SDL, so it doesn’t like to build on F24

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Asura
Webzone:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/524640/
Devel: Ogre Head Studio
Engine: Unity
Price: 9.99 / CDN 10.99

Wazzat: Asura is an indie, top-down, Hack ‘n’ Slash game set in a fantasy world inspired by the richness of Indian mythology. It features heavy rogue-like elements and a unique procedural skill tree which changes on every play-through.

Mandatory Disclosure: They sent us keys


Makes with the working

V-

  • This critter only started working on Wed.
  • Yeah, that’s three days after the initial release.
  • The initial launch caused my UHD monitor to power cycle.
  • Everything works, now.

J-

  • #lestrider
  • TV box had some issues

P-

  • Wouldn’t start the first few times I tried.
  • Tried restarting Steam, didn’t work.
  • Had to close Steam and launch the game from outside and then it started working properly.
  • When it did finally start it failed to recognize my multi-monitor setup and set itself to 2560×1440.

Total-


Shiny / Sounds

V-

  • When are people going to learn how to encode intro videos so they don’t look like absolute wank?
  • Brass tax, this looks like a mobile game.
  • Granted it looks like a good mobile game but we’ve seen far better from smaller teams.

J-

P-

  • As I’ve mentioned in the past, aesthetics in video games should only serve to complement gameplay.
  • In Asura, the visual aesthetics do just that. And I do mean just that.
  • They are completely unremarkable and the different demon people you play as are literally palette swaps of the same model as are the enemies.
  • The sound… For the first few runs through the game, if you’d asked me what I thought of the sounds I would have replied “Are there sounds?”
  • And the moment I started paying attention to the very muted sound effects and extremely subtle music, I kinda wish I had stayed in blissful ignorance of the Sounds.
  • A meaty thwack when you hit an enemy can and often does go the distance between making the combat as impactful as waving a feather duster at a concrete wall to taking a jackhammer to said concrete wall.

Total-


Control

V-

  • The last update caused the Xclone controlla to alway press up.
  • This was resolved by relaunching the game.
  • Why for the love of FSM did you bind movement and aiming to the same input?
  • No WASD?
  • More like no option to do AK and ALL with the keyboard controls.

J-

  • Correct prompts for my dualshock 4? You get a bite sized snickers
  • Has Some problems with the steam controller on the steam box.

P-

  • No rebindable controls on the keyboard? In 2017? You get dinged a chair.
  • The only reason you don’t get dinged 2 is because you can at least rebind the controller mappings.
  • Not that you’d need to…
  • I’m the most particular about the controls, here at LGC Weekly, and even for me the controller bindings worked just fine on Steam Controller.

Total-


FUN

V-

  • Oh look, permadeath.
  • I like progression and storylines vs live die repeat.

J-

  • The game’s random elements seem like a bit too much at times
  • Your plethora of abilities aren’t consistent between each playthrough, so sometimes you get really good ones and sometimes you get super shitty ones
  • Enemy drops are inconsistent as well
  • In some respect, I like the idea. You can split your effort between trying to get good gear or level up to get some neat powers and better stats, or you can double down on one or the other
  • But in the situation where you get shitty equipment and shitty powers, you pretty much have no choice but to feed yourself through the meat grinder
  • Not sure how I feel about the kill based cooldown mechanic either
  • The gameplay itself isn’t too bad. Dodge enemies, shoot arrows, spears or magic, mind your stamina bar, murder things
  • When the RNG works out in your favour it’s pretty fun
  • When it doesn’t it’s just frustrating.

P-

  • What happens when you mix The Binding of Isaac and the original FORCED?
  • Some pretty weird fanart, that’s what!
  • What you don’t get is Asura, because it’s an entirely different video game. Made by people completely unrelated to either of those.
  • There is one reason this game doesn’t get 4 chairs here and it has absolutely nothing to do with the bland/forgettable aesthetics.
  • Random generation as a gameplay element is all very well and good, so long as it doesn’t affect how reliably you can perform in the game.
  • That’s actually one of the reasons I stopped playing Isaac.
  • If you want to randomize the rooms, enemies or even item drops, that’s fine.
  • But make sure you at least give people a sense of consistency in your randomness.
  • The best example I can think of is Enter the Gungeon.
  • Even though most of the stuff in Enter the Gungeon is almost as random as in this game, it does something which I think is imperative in these roguelites.
  • They always give you a weapon, some armor and a bit of health whenever you kill a boss.
  • That gives you not just the feeling of being rewarded for killing an enemy which is much harder, but it also gives players the tools they need to progress.
  • In Asura, like in Isaac, you can end up getting so shafted by the RNG that you don’t get a better weapon, better armor or even enough currency to “craft” one yourself.
  • This overt randomness is often more frustrating than it is fun.
  • That said, if they did what FORCED Showdown did with its small levels and taking away your buffs in between stages in return for a permanent increase in some stat, and some healing, it would cut down on the frustration quite a bit.
  • But, frustrating as it was, I did have fun with it.

Total-


Final –


Hate Mail:

Funding
http://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?YE9tkUE

  • I want all of ya’ll to fundle my coin purse ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Humble II
http://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?x5Q1869

  • That is what you should always do, regardless.
  • Slide the money for the non-Linux games down to 0.
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