LinuxGameCast Weekly 248 – Glue Sticks Are Delicious

Ballistic Overkill enables Vulkan, Serious Sam Fusion 2017 gets benched, Dawn of War III is headed to Linux, and Dolphin drops D3D12. Then Charlie Murder faces the CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail!

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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam News:

Shovel cards
https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1954971077935370845

  • The lengths vALVE will go through to automate something that could be sorted with a little QA is borderline impressive.
  • This will take 7 (possibly 8) seconds for the abusive parties to find a way around.
  • So, instead of capping the card drops to time played on the user side, devs can only have cards after their game is “credible”.
  • How is that credibility determined? *Shrug* I dunno.
  • But it is supposedly going to be done on the backend and not playerside.
  • “The biggest problem is that these games fuck with our algorithm and not at all the fact people have been complaining non-stop for years now.” – That’s what Honey VALVe cares about.

Hyper 60 FerPS
http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/1869401952311815126

  • Good to see them fixing libcurl issues
  • Unclear from the post whether the controller fix beta is available on the linuxes
  • 60FerPS is now in and with it most of my complains about this game dissipate.
  • Controls feel much more responsive, running around doesn’t get choppy every time the game loaded something in the background, and it just a much smoother experience in general.

Vulkan Overkill
http://steamcommunity.com/games/ballistic/announcements/detail/2362546845451331034

  • This was one of the few Unity titles that had a hella good frame rate (200 FERPS avg) /w OGL.
  • I think this is one of the first Unity games we’re seeing that takes advantage of the Vulkan Renderer. I’m curious to see how it performs
    • If I had to chance a guess I would say something along the lines of
  • Had to use -screen-fullscreen 0 -screen-width 1920 -screen-height 1080 -force-vulkan
    • Thanks to GTuxTV for letting me know that bit of business.
    • I only needed: -screen-fullscreen 0 -force-vulkan
    • And you can get rid of the fullscreen flag the moment you go ingame and disable fullscreen.
  • It is now using 100% of the GPU and has the itsy bitsy Vulkan micro-sutter we have all come to know and love.
  • Overlay no longer works.
    • Just like Mad Max.
    • Works for me #strider

Fus-ion Bench!
http://steamcommunity.com/games/564310/announcements/detail/1273802170604814296

  • Since the BFE content hasn’t made it to fusion yet, I’m not sure how good a quality the benchmark is compared to the more graphically intense talos
  • No word on the darkness imprisoning vulkan players
  • So, these benches don’t end until you hit the the Esc?
    • No, they end… after a shitload of time.
  • I put everything on Ultra in the performance tab and ran the first level of TSE and got about 165 average FerPS in Vulkan and 98 in OpenGL.

Holla Knight update
http://steamcommunity.com/app/367520/discussions/0/1291816569116883225/

  • While this one fixes all the things it’s the next update that got my attention.
    • Expands the game’s runtime from 50 hours to Unlimited with procedurally generated content!?!?!
    • That would create a lot of new… bugs.

DOW III
https://www.feralinteractive.com/en/news/758/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/285190/Warhammer_40000_Dawn_of_War_III/

  • Arrives June 8th.
  • It’s going to be real funny when someone nopes from a heart attack because autoplay music on the minisite.
  • Moar squad management and less RTS army BS and resource gathering, please!
  • Made to wade? As in wade through the bodies of fallen heretics?
  • If they keep the same formula as DOW 2 I’ll be excited.

Interplay Solitaire
http://store.steampowered.com/app/630690/Interplay_Solitaire/

  • 20 wet-stinky for a FK mothering solitare game, wow.
    • What’s worse is they probably haven’t changed the price on brad since it was originally released!
  • I like how the traditional playing card game has steam trading cards
  • And what exactly do they do differently to justify $20 over something which is free in most distros repos?

Regale me…
http://store.steampowered.com/app/464150/Regalia_Of_Men_and_Monarchs/

  • Ooooh! Moar tactics! I likey.
  • Every time I see a voice actor I follow on twitter post a game, I check if it has ze linux support
    • This one does

News:

Direct Vulkan
https://www.pcper.com/reviews/General-Tech/Breaking-OpenCL-Merging-Roadmap-Vulkan

  • So it seems like a move away from the apple-controlled openCL
  • Unifying processing languages under a single roof will hopefully also help give CUDA a run for it’s money. Not sure how nvidia is feeling about that

Humble 18
https://www.humblebundle.com/humble-indie-bundle-18

  • Not a bad gaggle of games for cheap. Many of them fared well in the chairquisition
  • The ziggurat key also unlocks little racers street,

Thank GOG
https://github.com/yancharkin/games_nebula

  • Unable to connect to GOG.
    • Kinda ran out of FKs at this point.

No Wangs
https://twitter.com/feralgames/status/864059785490116609

  • Total Bore and its expansion are our two mystery games.
    • Made to Wade is still on the radar. This was the one we talked about last week.
  • Looks like made to wade was Dawn of War III… WAT?
    • HERESY

Nought Four Ten
ttps://github.com/lutris/lutris/releases/tag/v0.4.10

  • ScummVM is back
  • PCSX-R has been deprecated in favor of the other PCSX R(earmed).
  • dinput8 has been added as option if you want to use your controller in WINE games which use dinput.
  • And a bunch of other fixes and updates which are always good to see.

Waiting for Kickstarter
https://godotengine.org/article/godot-course-kickstarter-next-monday

Urban Chaos
https://github.com/dizzy2003/MuckyFoot-UrbanChaos
http://store.steampowered.com/app/243060/Urban_Chaos/

  • Released for all the right reason.
  • #peephysics

Itchy
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-05-16-open-marketplaces-can-work

  • It’s an interesting article about starting off as an idealistic project can lead to making all sorts of compromises for the sake of usability and adoption
  • Now that desura has been mismanaged into oblivion, Itch seems to be the last bastion for indie devs to get paid without having to jump through the hoops of/deal with steam

Dolphin D3D12 D135
https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/4424

  • Apparently there are a few more GPUs that support D3d12 over Vulkan, but I can’t find a full list
  • They want to drop D3D12 once it becomes a support burden though
  • Still, these guys are on the right track. Vulkan supports more platforms.

CHAIRQUISITION:
CHAIR– Nooope

CHAIRCHAIR– Not sure if want

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Check it out

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Charlie Murder
Webzone:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/405290/Charlie_Murder/
Devel: Ska Studios / Flibitijibibo
Engine: FNA
Price: 9.99 / CDN 10.99

Wazzat: It’s a punk rock apocalypse! Team up with your friends to lead embattled punk rock band Charlie Murder in their epic quest to save the world from rival death metalers Gore Quaffer and their legions of evil.

Mandatory Disclosure: They sent us keys


Makes with the working

V-CHAIRCHAIR

  • Multiplayer is still a hot mess.

J-CHAIRCHAIR

  • Thar be bugs. Oh yes

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Total-CHAIRCHAIR


Shiny / Sounds

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Was never a big fan of the Salt and Sanctuary aesthetic but for some reason I can dig this.
  • It’s a hand drawn beat em up, sold.
  • Only real complaint is sometimes it’s a wee bit too easy to lose track of your character.
  • As we discussed Thursday, the soundtrack is definitely something I could have pumping in the background @ home.
  • Not saying it’s great, just inoffensive.
  • Outside of that, the punching / kicking / smashing noises are sufficiently squishy.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Acceptable crust punk is acceptable
  • The aesthetic matches the narrative quite well. Plus I always dig hand drawn game art
  • Do you think they know?

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Not a big fan of the art style but there is no debating that it fits with the theme.
  • So it won’t get dinged chairs for that.
  • In fact, if I had to point out one issue with the visuals, besides losing track of your character as Venn mentioned, I’d say sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell whether your punches/kicks/spells will hit the enemy when they’re slightly above or below you.
  • What does ding it a chair is the repetitive background music in some of the stages.
  • And it’s loud too!
  • Since you’re making me mute the background music, you only get three chairs.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Control

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • It can get a little unclear where the enemy hitboxes are in relation to you at times
  • But hey, Ethan knows his way around controllers, so everything magically works. And with correct prompts too!

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • It’s FNA and it gives you the option to remap keys.
  • I never felt like the controls were an impediment to making progress in Charlie Murder.
  • Worked out of the box with The Mistress.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


FUN

V-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • What I really like most about the original Serious Sam games is that they came from a time when you could give zero FKS and just make the game you wanted to play.
  • Fortunately the ease of self publishing has brought back a little bit of that magic.
  • Case in point, Charlie Murder.
  • It’s like battletoads, guitar hero, and a brawler had sex, yo.
  • And instead of a guitar playing frog with anger issues you end up with what I like to call a “FK around game”
  • And that’s basically any game that requires 80% (or less) of your attention while still keeping you hella engaged.
  • Charlie Murder Pants pulls this off by having a little something something for everyone.
  • You got your mindless brawling, upgradeable stats (and the ability to juggle them), crafting, and some legit strategy when utilizing your defensive and anarchy abilities.
  • You can always tell when developers had fun during a games creation because it bleeds into the finished product.
  • Charlie Murder… bleeds in spades.
  • Brass tax, if you’re looking for something to kill a little time while kinda sorta doing something else this is absolutely worth a look.

J-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • It’s a competently done brawler with some nice flavour and a decent sense of humour
  • The combat is alright, if a wee flaky at times due to some attacks not lining up properly
  • Also, enemies like to corner fuck you, which can be less than fun
  • If Flibit could sort out the online multiplayer, I think this could easily get four chairs in the fun category
  • Not that it isn’t fun to beat the ever loving shit out of your teammates in order to force the games to sync up
  • Yeah, the multiplayer bugs are pretty bad, but I don’t feel that they detract much from the fun
  • The palate cleanser segments (guitar hero and vehicles) aren’t that difficult, but they do provide a nice break from the brawler action
    • Jesus fuck though that kraken fight. You straight up need two people for it, otherwise it takes FOR FUCKING EVER
  • The character progression stuff is light enough that you don’t need to analyze the crap out of your choices, but gives you decent enough stuff to spice up the gameplay

P-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR

  • Took me about 9 hours to finish the game in normal mode, you can then keep playing in Chaos mode (that’s New Game+) but enemies become so strong, it’d be easier to tear through a punching bag with cotton candy gloves.
  • If you want to get the good ending in the first run, you either get a friend to equip the special items you need to summon the final boss proper, or you need to grind your way up to level 30/32 in order to unlock the skill you need to equip everything.
  • I’m not so sure I’m going to bother trying to go back to the Normal difficulty world just to see the good ending.
  • I might, but I don’t feel like it right now.
  • I’m not saying that to imply the game wasn’t fun.
  • Because it was fun, combat gets a little button mashy in some sequences and boss fights but I never felt like I wasn’t making an impact.
  • For all those times I’ve bitched and moaned about combat not feeling particularly meaty, Charlie Murder quells all my complaints in that regard.
  • It would’ve been even better if I didn’t feel like I had the need to grind in order to be able to get the good ending, or if the enemies didn’t feel so overpowered in New Game+.
  • In single player, of course. In Multiplayer that’s not the issue.
  • The big issue in Multiplayer is the amount of progress stalling bugs that kept Jordan from progressing through certain area transitions.

Total-CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Final –CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Hate Mail:

Dying

http://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?QwPIjuH

Left

http://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?sQ3El7V

  • Left5Dudes. You’re welcome Valve
  • The trick will be seeing if I remember to fix it.
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