LinuxGameCast Weekly 270: Assemble My Own Rabbit

Steam sale dates revealed! Overgrowth exits Early Access, Observer heads to Linux, and we’re giving away three copies of Layers of Fear. Then Beat The Game faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Special thanks:
Bobby D (Newest Executive producer)

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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam News:

Sale
https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-sale-dates-2017

Once upon a time I got excited for the steam sales.
Now thanks to humble and the limited selection of good stuff on linux, there isn’t much to be excited for anymore. Especially now that it’s once a month for the holiday season
- That said, I might yoink tyranny if it gets super cheap. Or Pyre
At least once every other Sale there will be something wicked-cheap that I would normally never buy.
More often than not I end up using it as an excuse to buy people games on their wishlist #LGCcares.

TF 2.5
http://store.steampowered.com/news/33661/

Oh, they are adjusting game mechanics.
- I for one look forward to the fanboy screeching about “bad” or “pointless” changes
I look forward to the screeching.
Real TF2 players use the original Quake MOD, on dialup.
6 new maps.

Serious VR
http://store.steampowered.com/app/552440/The_Talos_Principle_VR/

Talos didn’t really need a VR version, but the serious engine supports it so here you are
I’m interested to see how teleporting around makes the timing based puzzles easier or harder
Supposedly this will work with your Radeon card. How well is TBD.
- The AMD using Linux VR market is probably smaller than my dick, so we may never find out
I like to think there is that one guy inside Croteam (like @ ID back in the day) that is hell-bent on Linuxing all the things.
- Or, like we’ve been screaming for years, if you do the work once on the engine, ya don’t really have to redo it
- Straight from the leprechaun’s beard
At least someone still cares about Linux when it comes to VR.

DN4E released
http://store.steampowered.com/app/25000/Overgrowth/

They were not kidding about a short beta period.
They started Humble Bundle two years after Overgrowth was announced.
Seriously, this game was announced when George Bush was president.
The reviews seem on par with what I expected.
A glorified sandbox with a slapdash story mode that seems rushed out the door.
Now, let’s see what score IGN gives it *grabs all the popcorn*

Dying content
http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/2139632606731468392

Three new weapons.
Because in 2017 it’s a legit event to include free content.
Also, don’t show me that damn video everytime I launch the game.
The new weapons would be nice if they didn’t break after 5 swings.
I’m just glad to see they’re still actively maintaining Dying Light.

Yarrr
http://store.steampowered.com/app/723790/The_Pirate_Plague_of_the_Dead/

I’m not that big into sailing simulators, open world or no
That said, you can release the kraken in this, so my interest is piqued
- That may or may not be a euphemism
It’s free, so it has that going for it.

Dungeons 3
http://store.steampowered.com/app/493900/Dungeons_3/

Man, I love when games provide actual Linux requirements. I feel spoiled Dungeons 3
This is a dungeon keeper style game where you design death traps for heroes and populate them with monsters to pick off the stragglers. Warms my sadistic heart
There is an overworld mode which is more like an RTS. I’m not sure how I feel about that part.

GokenUP
http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=671260

They’re fixing the performance!
They did something, the frame time jank is much less pronounced now.
But it’s still there!
- How. though?
Yeah, just tried it and the jank is most assuredly still there and wicked-noticeable.

Green Acers
http://steamcommunity.com/games/255710/announcements/detail/3011079766659897063

Lots of bug fixes.
No Hulk :( !

News:

1070
https://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/unofficial-launch-GTX-1070-Ti

*holds his breath until the 1380/3080/whatever comes out*
It’s basically a 1080 that miners won’t be all that interested in because memory.
I could never justify a 1080 (even for benching) but FSM damn this woke other Venn from his slumber he wants it
It’s a slightly cheaper 1080 until the miners buy them all up.
AMD put out Vega and NVidia releases a Ti that’s aiming at the exact same performance/price range as the Vega 56 was supposed to.
Supposed to being the operative words there, since they’re stupidly expensive because of the miners.

I come from a
https://www.humblebundle.com/down-under-bundle

Holy shit! An actual worthwhile bundle! All but Hurtworld are on linux
- Suck it IGN!
Man, if Crawl had some network multiplayer, it would be hella after show bait
I really don’t want to pay $12 for Armello.
It’s the only Linux game there I don’t have and would like to.

Observe, citizen
https://www.aspyr.com/games/observer

The game that was on Linux (then no so much) is now back.
It’s not entirely back, yet!
They say it’s coming soon but it’s not available yet.
- 10/24 if you read the email.

Scanning
https://github.com/scanmem/scanmem/releases/tag/v0.17

I had to go back and check, but we didn’t talk specifically about this one back in ep 162, but a related project that uses this
It’s a handy dandy utility that lets you see what your application is doing in memory. Handy for writing hacks or fuzzing
They have a number of optimizations that add anywhere from 10-40% performance boost in certain operations
They’ve also split the code into the UI (Text or GUI) and library

Needs more metal speedo
http://www.openra.net/news/release-20171014/

They’ve ditched the mod selector in favour of having dedicated shortcuts/apps for every mod. Useful if you’re only playing Dune 2000
There’s also a command bar
Autodiscovery of lan games is a nice touch
Community-driven balance improvements to Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn.
- Always iffy. Communities usually have a skewed vision of “balance”

Wowza
https://github.com/wowserhq/wowser

Actiblizzion Cease and Desist inbound in 3…2…1…
- Followed by account bans of anyone who uses this
It’s a neat project though. Trying to get a functional WoW client done in the browser using WebGL
So far they’re only supporting up to the Wrath of the Lich King Expansion.
Not sure if this’ll be useful for full on raids, but doing garrison missions and other time-related side quests would benefit from not needing the full on client
Didn’t they shut down all non-official servers?
- No, just the big ones.

Exploitable SDL
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-2888

Ol’ Ickybutts is impressed with this one
Yeah, that’s above my paygrade but don’t let that stop you, PANIC!!1!! DX12ALLTHETHINGS!

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Beat The Game
Webzone:Beat_The_Game
Devel: Worm Animation
Engine: Unity
Price: £6.99 / US$9.99 / CA$ 9.99

Wazzat: Beat the Game is an adventure game where you find your way with sounds. Sounds you find introduce cinematic cutscenes as the story unfolds. You can create new combinations on your holographic music mixer throughout the game. In the end you perform a live show with all the sounds you find.

Mandatory Disclosure: The Devs sent keys.

Makes with the working

V-

60 on “beautiful” @ 1080
30 @ 2160.

J-

Unity scream of nope. Gotta ding it a chair

P-

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

It looks alright but yeah, has that blender feel.
Not much to look at since your sandbox is roughly half the size of Peter Dinklage.
This game is supposed to be about the music?
Oh FK right off.
This is sampling and sequencing, nothing more.
You are basically generating background tracks for the game Distance.

J-

Sounds are a bit tricky on this one, considering you can futz around with the soundtrack to make something you’re partial to
It looks like psychonauts and the blender foundation had a baby. Make of that what you will

P-

Total-

Control

V-

Serviceable but pathfinding is glitchy as hell.
Some places you just can’t reach without said pathfinding.
While it does have the ability to move the camera don’t be under illusion that you have any type of real control.

J-

The camera in this is pretty terrible

P-

Total-

FUN

V-

51 minutes in and no (as in ZERO) idea what’s going on or what the hell i’m supposed to be doing.
What the actual hell, that’s it?
That was a tutorial level if if i’m being generous.
It came across more like an wholey unpolished tech demo (the kind you take around to investors) if i’m being honest.
That, or it’s some hipster art project of bullsh*t.
This is the first time I would be 100% A O K with someone refunding a game after they finished it.
Quit trying to pawn off your unfinished art projects on Steam.

J-

Yeah, what the fuck am I supposed to be doing? I’m collecting sounds and ground-lsd.
Dropping some phat beatzzzzz tho
After Pedro mentioned he fluked into beating Beat the game, I decided to take another crack at it
Okay, so the game itself is about an hour long
It starts off as this really vague and ill conceived scavenger hunt and ends with a pattern matching game for 3 year olds
Honestly, I think it’s pretty stupid
I get that they were trying to do something different, but the thing about experiments is that they sometimes fail. This is one of those times
Really not worth 10 bucks. Maybe 2 at most for the amount of actual gameplay you get
Also the sequel baiting was a bit of a fuck you

P-

It was the To Be Continued screen of nope that had me going WHAT?!
The moment I started to get what the game wanted me to do and had any kind of gameplay mechanic that wasn’t just meandering about, hoping to trigger a cutscene, the game just ends.
They call themselves Worm Animation, was a game really the best medium for this “story”?
Heavy air quotes around the term story there because even in the 47 minutes it took me to Beat the Game (that’s not a clever name btw!) they introduced a ton of things and explained nothing!
I can hear some of you asking “Aren’t you the one who is okay with games not telling you what to do and just letting you figure it out?” – Yes, I am! I was starting to enjoy my figuring out of where to get sounds and interact with the world, but then the game ended.
And I still have no fucking clue what the hell anything is, in this world.
There’s a lot of environmental clues to a post-apocalyptic world, which is now inhabited by sonorous geometric shapes, odd looking creatures and a zombie named Bob.
I want to know what Bob’s motivations are!

Total-

Final –

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Advice
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