LinuxGameCast Weekly 245 – Hell Elks

Motörhead: Through the Ages gets a release date! Germany removes the nuts from Half-Life, Feral talks Vulkan, and Awesomenauts goes free to play. Then Hollow Knight faces the CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail.

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Steam News:

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam News:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/04/29/half-life-uncensored-germany/
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/foruncut/announcements

No longer on the List of Media harmful to young persons.
I didn’t look too far but I found this list (from 2007) of the “Index”ed games:
- http://www.cybercafe-software.com/indexlist.html
It’s always nice to see a bit of stupid undone.
You gotta imagine the confusion of those german kids who went into this game 20 years ago with zero context as to what happened
Hopefully Valve just switches the german depot and doesn’t make them pay for the game again

NAME at the end of the URL
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/67qt4s/valve_is_now_automatically_adding_the_games_name/

Just noticed this was a thing.
HL3 confirmed!111!
Kinetic novel == visual novel?
- Basically, except in the former you do nothing but click to progress.
I guess this will make games easier to identify by their Steamy URLs.
You still need the steamID to actually hit the game’s resource
See uniqueArtwork’s comment for more fun

Tracking
https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/19/htc-opens-up-the-code-for-its-vr-vive-tracker-devices/

This is for that thing that you can stick on objects to have the vive track it
Perhaps they’re trying to encourage the creation of custom peripherals?
- I don’t think that’s a good idea. VR is enough of an investment without adding fancy toys into the mix

Awesome Not
http://steamcommunity.com/games/204300/announcements/detail/1299695964228789174

Removed offline mode /w bots, dumbasses.
You get a medal if you had purchased it.
Peak daily concurrent players hit 800 on the 25th
Seems to have added about 4K new players according to SteamDB.

Bubba
http://store.steampowered.com/app/595140/

Needs more Ho-Tep.
So Ancient Egyptian Hillbilly Ziggurat?
- Good band name
  - It’s no aphrodite bodycount.
From what people have been saying, not as good as Ziggurat.
I did send them an email about sending us keys, but they haven’t replied.

Everything? Everything!
http://steamcommunity.com/games/582270/announcements/detail/1296318264517805616

From the creator of Mountain
- And I just lost what little interest I had.
I’ve seen some playthroughs of the game. It’s basically a fuckaround simulator where you can take control of anything in the game, change your scale and get lectured at about existentialism

MotörVran
http://loudwire.com/victor-vran-overkill-edition-motorhead-through-the-ages-gaming-expansion

Releasing May 30th
Looks like a borderline TC.
“Starring” Lloyd Kaufman, owner of troma films
I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. It just needs to fucking come out already

Feral Vulkan QA’ish
http://boilingsteam.com/feral-discusses-mad-maxs-vulkan-renderer/

That’s all very well and good but fact of the matter is Mad Max’s engine, as Feral’s own Marc Di Luzio told me, is still very much reliant on the CPU and as such the move to Vulkan still leaves it bottlenecked there.
- Even so, Vulkan made MM playable for a lot of people.
In the interview they mentioned “ The hardest part was the initial refactor in our shared codebase to allow for these explicit APIs.”
- Does this mean they’re going to be doing away with stuff like indirectX? Or will they create Indirectx2- The search for spock?

News:

If you bought one
https://www.techpowerup.com/232498/radeon-rx-480-cards-can-successfully-be-flashed-to-rx-580

Because it’s the same fuckin’ card!
Still gotta OC the fucker to get the performance parity
There’s just one issue, though.
The RX480 is a 150W TDP card with a 6 pin PCIe extra connector, while the 580 is a 185W card with an 8 pin power connector.
When you’re going above 75W on the 12V PCIe connectors you do want those extra grounds.
The moment you flash the RX580 VBIOS into a 480 the limitations AMD put in place, after their snafu with it pulling more power than it should, go right out the window since the 580 has those extra pins and can handle that much power safely.
It’s only a matter of time until we hear one of these Not 580s caught on fire.
- Just like those PCI powered 480s

Vega (From Che)
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/57313/amd-radeon-rx-vega-loses-gtx-1080-1080p/index.html

“…I’m expecting at least 15-20% additional performance over the GTX 1080 Ti at 4K/Ultra graphics in games like Quake Champions, DOOM, Rise of the Tomb Raider, etc.”
- So now we know the bias of the writer. Also LOL!
- He can expect all he damn well pleases.
- At least one of those games uses vulkan
Being able to compete with the 1070, at least on performance, is something AMD needs to at least stay relevant.
But, while 1070 is a 150W TDP part, the RX Vega is reportedly 225W TDP.
Do you need a space heater for the winter? Get an RX Vega and start coin mining.
“4K and beyond” is the reason this writer suspects the performance delta. I dunno about your reasoning there brad

Ctrl+F “Linux” *closes tab* 1.2
https://www.gog.com/galaxy

At this point I don’t even care.
Since this is irrelevant in the context of Linux, I say cut this and just have the reddit story below. ↓
- It’s called a lead-in story.

Ctrl+F “Linux” II
https://www.reddit.com/r/gog/comments/67uksk/gog_bizdev_qa_answers/

They deflected the hell out of the Witcher III port being canceled.
- Not involved but you know the damn answer and if that answer was anything other than “oh fuck the hell yes” you would have said something.
No Galaxy, no Witcher and no Linux native binaries for games which have them because “licensing issues”.
As much as I wish Steam had some competition in the Linux gaming market, GOG doesn’t seem to want to step up to the task.
Apparently releasing DOSBOX bundled games on linux presents some sort of licensing issue as well. I don’t quite understand how.

That’s the issue Asura was showing
https://ctrl.blog/entry/glibc225-unity-black-screen

For what it’s worth using JEMALLOC does seem to make Asura start reliably without having to futz with it after a “clean” install.
- Did you try just adding the preload specifically to the game, or did you have to start steam with it?
- You can set the preload per game using the advanced launch options.
- LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib64/libjemalloc.so.2 %command% on Fedora or;
- LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjemalloc.so.1 %command% on Ubuntu
  - Good stuff. UNITY. EDUCATE THE PEOPLE BETTER!

That thing Icculus said he wouldn’t do
https://github.com/MrAlert/sdlcl
https://twitter.com/icculus/status/856173759006474240

Considering this was started less than a week ago, it’s super impressive that Mr.Alert has UT99 and Prey working.
- At all
Shatrealm: Doing what nintendon’t

Two More for the Ass Pyre
http://boilingsteam.com/the-next-two-games-from-aspyr/

Perhaps Ass-pyre is getting into the publishing business because porting isn’t going so well
Either way, we’re likely getting Layers of Fear 2 – The stackening and a game that has nothing to do with Robert Picardo
Old news is old
We’ve covered both individually.

Browser Raider
https://github.com/XProger/OpenLara

It’s no UT but at least it’s playable.
The damn thing even supports joysticks.
Mark my word-organs, ten years from now this is how 90% of games will be delivered.
- They’ll still find an excuse not to make it work on Linux.
- And you said I was talking bullshit all those years ago
There will still be issues with games using webgl when it comes to, ya know, needing more than one thread

Just a quick mention
https://twitter.com/grumpygamer/status/858387467187101696

Didn’t expect that.
Shows that we are a demographic with buying power. Especially for an indie adventure title

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Makes with the working

V-

Noms all the RAM.
Fueling my conspiracy theory that this is a stealth 2.5D game.
You can run it at 2160 but it still displays (in-game) as 1080.

J-

Minor gripe, no steamworks save integration

P-

I made the camera freak out for a second during the Master of Souls boss fight, because at one point it breaks the glass floor and the camera is set to immediately go down.
But since I managed to get to the ledge on right side, my character didn’t drop and the camera was like “Oh, shit! You didn’t drop.”
Still, while in many games *cough*Tomb Raider*cough* that would’ve probably required a restart, in Hollow Knight it sorted itself.
Also, this is a Unity game which not only didn’t fuck itself trying to span across both my screens, it allows you to enable and disable VSync at will… if for some reason you want to play at 300 FerPS.

Shiny / Sounds

V-

Ari Gibson, you know how to art, son.
You know you’re in for something just from the “start” sound in the main menu.
And that’s just the tip of the pretty.

J-

Ah, the classic highly designed foreground and background with the minimalist character designs
It works pretty well, and all the little bug people have their charms
I’m not at all sure if there was much in the way of sounds. I didn’t really hear too much of it aside from the jibberish dialogue and the thwacky noises
Still, the art resonates with the theme and tone

P-

If A Bug’s Life had been directed by Tim Burton and produced by Studio Ghibli, not only would it have been a much more interesting movie, as it would’ve probably looked a lot like this.
In all my rants about how aesthetics are supposed to only serve the mechanics and cut the crap, I often just assume developers can either do one or the other.
We’ve seen it time and time again, games which sacrifice functionality for the sake of visuals. Aragami with its takedown animations and Pavilion.
In Hollow Knight you can have your aesthetic cake and eat it too.
The visuals do a phenomenal job of creating an atmosphere of desolation and loneliness.
Even those few other NPCs you run into look and sound unreliable.
Like they have their own motivations for being in this place and just because you’re there and you have a camera following you, they’re not just set pieces for you to gawk at and expect them to come to your rescue.
And, while the “voice acting” if it can be called that is very limited to simple gibberish which serves only to convey the tone which the NPC is giving you, it doesn’t outstay its welcome.
And if all the characters had been fully voiced, there would have probably been one which would ruin it.
Even the background audio, subtle as it is, just nails the atmosphere coffin shut around you.

Total-

Control

V-

Normally I would have just used the analog stick but I could tell in the first 10min of gameplay that would get me killed to death.
Most games are so floaty you can get away with using the analog stick and over the years this caused my D, pad to become unresponsive.
Hollow Knight is so precise I ended up taking apart the Xclone and cleaning the D, pad.
After doing that I was rewarded with arguably the most precise controls ever to grace the Linux.
And you’re going to need them, son, because some of the special items are hidden behind spike traps that make custom Mario Maker levels look like amateur hour.
Go back and watch my livestream if you need to check with the judge.
You will hear me say “I FKD that up” not “I would have got that if XYZ were better”

J-

The sensitivity of the controls can definitely take some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, smooth-ish sailing
You’ll still fuck it up
Minor complaint, but if Asura can have correct button prompts on the DS4, why can’t this one?

P-

Okay, someone else who realised the default Unity input settings are floaty as fuck for platformers and went out of their way to make sure they worked properly.
And I do mean properly.
If you fuck up a jump or you fail to do the downwards slash and fall right into an acid pool, you can’t blame shitty controls on this one.
When you hit a button your character responds accordingly and with no noticeable latency.
When you tell the “little ghost” to move just a teeny tiny bit closer to the edge, it will.
And if you fuck up and pushed too long, you’re gonna die or at least take some damage.
Because if you’re about to shoot yourself in the foot, Hollow Knight doesn’t just stand there it watch, it’s gonna help you aim towards each individual toe.

Total-

FUN

V-

Pacing, this game nails it.
So far every single time I start to get board something pops up that regains my interest.
- Hell it even changes up levels later in the game but no more on that because spoilers.
Don’t even mind charm juggling.
- What are charms?
- Special abilities that can make or break ya (think augments)
- Learning to stack these little critters is a minigame in itself.
FSM damn do you get some pure, not from concentrate satisfaction when beating a boss.
One hit one heart.
The smallest beddies can still FK you right up.
That’s something they got hella right.
- No matter how YOLO SWAG you get charging through an area without paying attention will get you noped.
Is there backtracking? Yes, but it’s Skyrim scale backtracking.
- It’s not a mechanic to artificially inflate playtime (seriously, this game is massive) it’s done so you get your exploring on.
And get this shite, 30 HOURS in, the game threw me a OH HELLS NAW WTF BBQ twist.
I sold two copies of this game simply by saying I kinda liked it.

J-

It also makes me super paranoid, although I know that even if I die, the map will still be updated
The game also does the dark souls thing, where it encourages you to try again after dying by sticking all your coins near where you died
I’m not 100% sure how I feel about the charm system. You juggle them to customize your little dude’s behaviour, but needing to find a save point to swap them out seems a little tedious
So far I’ve got the kamehameha and the dash. Abilities seem tied to various milestones you reach in the game, unlike metroid where you can just sort of run into them, which definitely dangles the carrot in front of you
The challenge is real, and the tough but fair controls really re-enforces that. Nailing a move or getting through an area you were struggling with does give you that precious dopamine rush
All in all, I like the game. I definitely need to sink some more time into it.

P-

I could spend hours just wrapping my lips around the proverbial dick of Hollow Knight.
It’s a good, interesting, compelling, well paced, atmospheric, and positively brilliant game.
But since I’m basically the reason why we can’t have nice things, I wouldn’t be a proper games critic without something to criticise.
Which wasn’t easy. I like to think of myself as an asshole which can ruin a perfectly good thing, but Hollow Knight looked at me and said “have at, bitch!”
Many times I got dealt bullshit damage from something I couldn’t see because the camera was being slow or a building in the foreground didn’t fade out in time.
Also, there is a fine line to be walked between organically promoting exploration in a Metroidvania game and leaving players frustrated with their inability to progress.
There is such a thing as too much negative space, albeit temporary negative space, when it comes to level design.
At around the 2 hour mark, I didn’t have the dash, I didn’t have the mantis claw, I didn’t have the ground pummel ability, I didn’t have the Super Dash and I sure as hell had no idea what to do with those dark barriers.
I got a little bit disheartened at that point.
Then I realised, this isn’t Dark Souls, this isn’t a game designed solely around your skill (There’s plenty of that, don’t you worry).
Here, you need items, you need certain skills, you need maps, you need to every now and again just go back to town and talk to all the NPCs.
The moment that mindset kicked in, I was back in full Castlevania: Symphony of the Night mode and the game itself seemed to say “Someone finally gets it!” and everything started to make sense and the few bits of frustration just turned into, “Fuck it, I’ll come back later.” moments
And once the game had beat me into submission, I realised this is probably Linux Game of the Year 2017 unless something else really good comes along.