Steam gets flat! Serious Sam 3: BFE travels to Vulkan, Hollow Knight receives a big update, and someone pokes the Lithtech engine with a Linux stick. Then Myrne: The Quest faces the CHAIRQUISITION! All this, plus your hate mail.
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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro
Steam News:
Flat steam
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/06/steam-now-available-flatpak
- flatpack run com.valvesoftware.Steam
- If your DE doesn’t have flatpak integration
- Installs on fedora 25, fails to launch steam proper after the runtime is set up
- Speaking of Steam, did anyone elks have to randomly sign in after the last few updates?
Catch them all
http://steamcommunity.com/games/250820/announcements/detail/3062859752419079879
https://blog.vive.com/us/2017/06/22/vive-jumps-on-steam-summer-sale-with-discounts-on-vive-hardware-and-software/
- I’m not sure how giving a bunch of clutter for a virtual house helps the whole VR market seem more attractive
- I’m sure there are some obsessive completionists who will be all over this, but they will already have bought their vive.
- VRHome is Valve’s own custom “launcher” for VR. The end goal seems to be to create something in VR which can be your “desktop” as it is on your PC.
- So, putting on the Vive without starting a game proper you get to run around your own custom VR Home.
- And I guess with adding to that feeling of individuality and customization that you get in your traditional desktop, will help people who bought the Vive feel a little less like they spent a shitton of money on another gimmicky gaming peripheral.
Vulkan BFE
http://steamcommunity.com/games/564310/announcements/detail/2542694703633010179
- Ya know how your box curb-stomps HL-2 and L4B2?
- Yeah, that’s what the Vulkans did to the once chuggy Serious BFE.
- I put everything on Ultra and then manually increased all the things which weren’t maxed out and it never dipped below 100.
- Getting anywhere from [email protected] with everything on ultra. Pretty good stuff
- Still not making me feel any better about needing to play it
Bogus
http://store.steampowered.com/app/272620/Serious_Sams_Bogus_Detour/
- Admittedly i’m only interested in this for the aftershowzen.
- 12 player shenanigans are pretty fun
- Think this one is limited to 4.
- Only for campaign. Vs and survival are 12 man
Anime… Seriously!
http://store.steampowered.com/sale/crunchyroll
- Only a couple series I actually recognize
- I mean, if you really want to watch animoo on linux, there are better ways.
- Diversification motherfucker!
- Crunchyroll proper still requires flash, so this is a good alternative if you don’t want to resort to your local video store.
Squeeeeeeee *faints*
http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=367520
- 2 new bosses, a Stag station, and enhanced fast-travel.
- I actually made a weird involuntary squeak when I saw this.
Geoid
http://store.steampowered.com/app/636910/Geoid/
- Play with your balls: The game
DD crimson FKR
http://store.steampowered.com/app/580100/Darkest_Dungeon_The_Crimson_Court/
- My Veins!
- After watching an hour of this business I’m unable to see the difference from the original game.
- There isn’t much.
- What they did was tweak some of the mechanics and added a whole new campaign.
Free Hit
http://steamcommunity.com/games/236870/announcements/detail/2574219120186500379
- The tutorial level is released for free. Buying the rest of the game lets you continue where you left off from the free version (a feature absent in a few games)
- Really, this is just a glorified demo, but it’s a decent litmus to see if you’ll actually like the game proper.
- It’s kinda strange watching everyone heaping praise on them for releasing the first mission.
- Yeah, back in my day it was called a demo and it’s something that should make a comeback.
Delayed Mesa
http://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/2767873904708195662
- That first comment is legit, Xen looks like a Little Mermaid set piece.
- It looks pretty, I wish I could play it!
- So, this has me wondering… when is Steam going to do away with this Early Access nonsense?
- Probably never. It makes too much money
- Alternatively, there arises some sort of speculative gambling based thing out of seeing whether or not projects enter early access, the parents complain and then they shut it down
- Cuz of the sale, it’s six bucks
In Soviet Russia…
https://steamcommunity.com/games/333420/announcements/detail/2790391902845801813
- People in glorious soviet linux brotherhood get some free swag
- These guys apparently can figure out cross platform RTS
- *eyes feral suspiciously*
Radical Access
http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/1980870483556384508
- It’s got achievements, now
- Custom music detection is better and it support subdirs.
- And they introduced what is possibly the worst, corniest, edgelordiest, voice over imaginable!
Woof!
https://steamcommunity.com/games/475490/announcements/detail/1330100338748799641
- It’s on Linux now and only here because MrFoxDogg seems to really really enjoy it.
- Like, to an almost uncomfortable level.
- One of the few visual novels that actually give you a choice.
17.1.3
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/mesa-dev/2017-June/159891.html
- This seems to be a maintenance release. Lots of patches and bugfixes
- APUs using RADV all get detected as having integrated graphics now. I’m curious how that actually affects performance, considering the shared CPU/GPU mem
- It should in theory improve memory ops, since the system now knows the GPU doesn’t have dedicated VRAM and can allocate things properly.
- I’d love to be able to test this properly but the only APU I have has a single core 1.2GHz processor and memory is the least of this system’s bottlenecks.
- Pretty sure my APU’s 7660D won’t be that support either
Cry Vulkan
https://www.cryengine.com/news/new-push-coming-to-github-ce-54-sneak-peek
- Ah, they are taking the “better start implementing this Vulkan thing since nobody wants DX12” approach.
- …and let slip the irrelevance of an engine.
- The good ol’ reactionary approach. Usually means that the end product will be of dubious quality, just like their openGL backend. PROVE ME WRONG CRYTEK
Ass
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2017/06/22/introducing-a-new-asset-store-experience/
- The Quick View and Global search will greatly increase the efficiency of asset flippers.
- Most of which will end up on the Play store since Greenlight is no more.
- Speaking of, wonder if the shuttering of Greenlight impacted their sales.
Lithtech
https://github.com/rohit-n/lithtech/
- It’s been fun watching this get developed in Discord.
- Getting Shogo Mobile Armor Division working would be awesome as far I’m concerned.
- NOLF2 was the first game that came with my first gaming PC. Would be nice to revisit it.
- Maybe some AVP2 if you’re nasty
Crown
https://github.com/dbartolini/crown
Pretty slash machine
https://ninslash.com/
- Open source, multiplayer, platformer.
- Empty servers…
- More Liero!
- Actually, it seems to be more run around and kill shit then liero. Awesomenauts-esque if you would
- Also causes my xbox controller to spaz the fuck out with vibrations
TabPad
https://github.com/nitg16/TabPad
- We need things like this on the off chance touchscreen Linux devices ever become a thing.
- Since I want a nice linux tablet, I approve of this
- You could set that up on a RasPi with those tiny touch screens and have it work as a network remote for whatever.
Social A.D.
https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/22476-open-position-social-media-manager/
- Just getting the word out.
CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope
– Not sure if want
– Check it out
– Shutupandtakemymonies
Game: Myrne: The Quest
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/589470/Myrne_The_Quest/
Devel: Beldarak Games
Engine: Unity
Price: 8.99 / CDN 9.99
Wazzat: Myrne: The Quest is a single-player, first-person, action-RPG. Get back to the world of the Myrne with its silly humor and discover why the night never goes away in this new region..
Mandatory Disclosure: They sent us keys
Makes with the working
V-
- It’s 2017 and you released a game that does not LAUNCH out of the box.
- That, and this things struggles to hold 30 @ 1080 in the first dungeon.
- Hell, most of the time it’s 16 / 20.
J-
- Had to disable windowed mode in the prefs file and set it to 1080 in order to even play it
- Don’t ever set it to fullscreen in game, or the next time you start it up, you’ll be back to square one.
- Then, after 1.5 hours it hardlocked my X session. Good thing I had the backup one so I could kill the fucker
P-
- You gotta do the Ballistic Overkill thing and disable Fullscreen in the prefs file.
- gedit ~/.config/unity3d/Beldarak\ Games/Myrne\ The\ Quest/prefs
- It defaults to 4x MSAA and we all know what MSAA in Unity games does.
- You can’t turn it off but lowering it to 2x made the FerPS considerably better
Total-
Shiny / Sounds
V-
- This looks like a bunch of store bought assets crammed together.
- I’m not saying they are but yeah, that’s what it looks like.
- At least they all follow the same theme.
- It’s got some repetitive bullsh*t humming in the background that I noped right quick.
- Technically things go beep and boop but again, it feels lazy.
J-
- Sometimes minimalist can be an interesting and compelling design choice
- This is not one of those times.
- The lighting in this game is also really bad.
P-
- Outside of Minecraft, this voxely art style has always looked completely unimaginative.
- There was a game, Eldritch, which did the voxel, big pixel, square-y, art style but complemented it with proper atmosphere and a few other subtle visual clues.
- In Myrne: The Quest, there is no atmosphere.
- Swinging your weapons about has almost no aesthetic feedback as to whether or not you’re hitting.
- You need to keep your eyes along the bottom of the screen to see the enemy HP bar.
Total-
Control
V-
- Everything “works” the best I can tell but the game leaves it to you to figure out what does what.
- It might make a bit more sense if you Minecraft but more on that in the fun section.
J-
- Standard WASD, but with the infuriating twist of using tab instead of I for inventory
- Also, scrolling up to move through a document is pretty weird man
- Crafting is basically talking to people and throwing items at other things.
P-
- There were issues with the mouse, but those have been fixed so I can’t really complain here.
- Controls work exactly as you expect them to.
Total-
FUN
V-
- First off, This game assumes I have some basic understanding of Minecraft… I don’t.
- Secondly, you might want to nope those three reviews on the store page because they read sketchy as hell.
- So, what do we have here?
- Buest guess, a Minecraft like something that gives you quests.
- That’s all I could gather in my 56 minutes of playtime and quite frankly that’s 50 more than this game deserved.
- But hey, it has crafting!
- The only thing I found interesting was how you managed to make an 8-core CPU paired /w a 980 average 18 / 24 FPS.
J-
- Honestly, this game didn’t really make that much of an impact on me
- It’s basically a crappy looking elder-scrolls esque romp through dark corridors. Sometimes a skeleton appears. Sometimes it’s a zombie pirate
- The combat isn’t all that engaging. Run away and shoot, or run away and stab and hope you can slog through their crap
- There’s an use-based skill system here that seems rather tacked on. You don’t really get to see the fruits of your effort
- The dungeon design is nice, albeit bare boned
- And then it hard locked my x session and I thought to myself: Why bother?
- Combined with the boring art style, it’s kind of hard to find something enjoyable about Myrn.
P-
- An attempt was made.
- An attempt to make a humorous action RPG.
- What you end up with is actually a bland fantasy, first person shooter with minecraft-like graphics, 0 feedback as to whether or not you’re actually interacting with the world around you, contrived puzzles/quests, very little in the way of humor and almost no signposting as to what you need to do.
- Don’t get me wrong! I’ve played and enjoyed many games with very little signposting.
- But in order for a game to motivate you to go out there and explore, it needs to actually let you go out there and explore.
- If you start railroading people and stop them from having their exploration early on, they will assume your game is not about exploration and will expect some guidance or at least a clear linear path to follow.
- Most games do one or the other.
- This one sits right in the middle, like a deer in the headlights and doesn’t really do anything spectacularly bad or really amazing.
- It’s… mediocre.
Total-
Final –
Hate Mail:
