GLXOSD is no more, Virtual Programming does us a favour, and Linus approves AMD DC for 4.15. Then Hand of Fate 2 faces the ChairQAsition! All this, plus your hate mail!
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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro
Steam News:
Unofficial Steam sale
http://www.pcgamer.com/steams-new-currency-supports-causes-chaos-for-international-pc-gamers/
- It would be nice if this problem could be solved by, I don’t know, setting a static price in USD for a game and then converting appropriately.
- I get that in some places such a solution isn’t feasible because not everything is valued the same in USD as it is in other countries. But it’s a goddamn start!
- Not surprising that some publishers have already jacked their prices up to “compensate”
- It’s amazing how VALVe keeps cocking up even while they’re trying to do the right thing.
Little fix
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/announcements/detail/1461843851749212399
- Lookit valve, supporting the dx12. They know what’s up
- Also, if you got old steamworks libraries in your games, your game should start up now
- Never had a problem to begin with.
- People who tried to use the open sauce drivers to run Steam and even some of the games would disagree.
The flood continues
http://www.pcgamer.com/more-than-6000-games-released-on-steam-this-year-almost-as-many-in-the-10-years-to-2015/
- In other breaking news, letting go of something from a height will cause it to accelerate towards the ground
- There’s been so much hipster pixel trash and shovelware it’s actually disheartening to check the new releases every day.
- Steam Direct accelerated the influx of bullshit allowing Steam to rubber stamp everything.
- That, and Unity is getting too easy to use.
- Do keep in mind a lot of the “shovelware” is not malicious.
- It’s teens using a free engine and burning $100 of allowance monies to say they have a game on the Steam.
- I would have done the same shite back in the day.
Multibots
http://store.steampowered.com/app/651560/Clash_of_Robots/
- It’s now out and priced to sell @ $9.99.
- Just kidding! It’s a fee to win mobile game available for the low low price of free on the Playstore.
- Steam really needs a (mobile) tag / warning for these type of games.
Jackbox Party Pack 3?
https://steamdb.info/app/434170/depots/
- Would be cool if this actually came out. This is a game basically designed for the aftershowzen
- Shite son, Friday night trivia could become a thing.
- I’d really like this one to be available.
…woof
http://store.steampowered.com/app/657730/Direwolf/
- There wolf….There castle
- This is Computer version of the tabletop game werewolf, occasionally known as mafia
- Use logic and deductive reasoning to determine who is the werewolf
- Toss it on the aftershowzen pile!
- That directX Linux requirement, though
No O
http://store.steampowered.com/app/457140/Oxygen_Not_Included/
- So space dwarf fortress
- It gets bonus points for the hand drawn aesthetic
- Whar Linux?
Oh Tannenberg, oh Tannenberg
http://store.steampowered.com/app/633460/Tannenberg/
- Does this really justify a new game?
- I mean, this really should be a mission pack for Verdun.
- That said, both games seem to have a legitimate fan base.
- This one is still multiplayer only.
- As someone who fondly remembers Medal of Honor Allied Assault, and don’t get me wrong I love the multiplayer on that too, I’d like to see a nice single player campaign.
Trust
http://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/the-trust-factor/
- The continuing saga of VALVe trying to automate things without the in-house talent required to do it properly.
- In most situations, I’d agree.
- Here, though, this is literally happening on the go as you queue up for a match.
- It’s unfeasible to expect them to hire thousands of people to manage these.
- That said, I do wonder just how your Steam lib2rary and your gaming habits affect the matchmaking.
- Say you’re a youtuber like Jim Sterling who plays a lot of shovelware, are you going to be matched up against other shovelware players and everyone gets to commiserate together?
Arma Sync
https://twitter.com/Arma3official/status/930105427425218563
https://dev.arma3.com/ports
- The entire premise of this tweet is just so shitty
- “The lowest bidder we’ve contracted to toss a bone to Mac and linux users has shat out multiplayer compatibility for now. You’re still a second class citizen, go fuck yourself”
- It’s like they are doing you a favour.
- It’s nothing short of amazing and infuriating it is to see the Linux gaming community at large thanking them for this.
- Thanking them for shitting from on high on people who spent the same amount of money as everyone else for what is literally an inferior version.
- We’re the assholes for pointing this shit out, apparently.
News:
Pulling AMD
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2017-November/157803.html
- I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that -Linus
- “I think this code is slightly better than STAGING quality but not massively so, I’d
really like to see that float/double magic gone and fixed point used, but AMD don’t seem
to think the accuracy and revalidation of the code is worth the effort”. - Dave is worried that if the code is left out much longer (4.15) distros will start carrying the code.
- Dave is correct.
- The backstory he provides is an interesting glimpse at their efforts to getting AMD to pull a Summer and have a Linux-friendly unified codebase for the hardware, to render things before the display server loads.
- He says it’s not there yet, hence the whole spiel about having bits Linus may ding.
- Aaaandd it’s in.
- https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=f6705bf959efac87bca76d40050d342f1d212587
- Holy mother of patch
- Well, the Linux users who bought AMD cards are certainly going to be happy
- Will it be the silver bullet patch that finally makes AMD hardware competitive on linux? Probably not
RIP GLXOSD
https://github.com/nickguletskii/GLXOSD/issues/109
- Dude straight-up tapped out.
- This is not a stealth solicitation for donations.
- He’s willing to foist ownership to anyone willing to take the project over
- Such is a common death knell of these projects, but real life has to take priority
- This is a very useful tool I’d be very sad to see die out.
Totes coming to Linux you guys
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/21183638/starcraft-ii-40-patch-notes-11-14-2017
- So basically, if you want to watch your simulation play out, now you can. That’s it
- Of course errybody’s going to hop on the “ZOMG ACTIBLIZZION FINALLY SUPPORTING LINUX” bandwagon.
- I’ll believe it when I can play Diablo 3 natively
Nimbatus
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strayfawnstudio/nimbatus-the-space-drone-constructor
- Demo runs but hello chmod +x my old friend.
- Download button wouldn’t work for me, right click inspect and I found this:
- https://i.imgur.com/h757iLE.png
- What the hell?!
- http://www.nimbatus.ch/SuperSecretDemo/
Hipster click
https://sol705.itch.io/sol705
- Fully voice acted, so that’s a thing. But when you get internet actors, YMMV. Just look at our resident star
Cities in motion not your thing?
https://www.skyscrapersim.com/index.shtml
- Just ran across this critter and wanted to give it a plug.
- Sorta sim-tower esque, but more emphasis on the actual building design
Voxel pew pew
http://openspades.yvt.jp/
- Lighting effects look nice.
- Still looks like budget Minecraft and that was programmer art!
- It works but the shooting is even more basic than the models.
- The lighting is really good, though!
- It…builds
- So basically an open source blockstorm
Linux on the go
https://magazine.odroid.com/article/linux-gaming-mobile-entertainment-system/
- It’s a little less sophisticated than the pi “switch”, but it’ll get the job done, but if you need a tiny arcade box and don’t have a 3d printer, this’ll certainly get the job done
- Doesn’t look anywhere near as sketchy as something our resident Tanzanian representative would do.
- And you can slap android on it for media consumption.
Game: Hand of Fate 2
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/456670/Hand_of_Fate_2/
Devel: Defiant Development
Engine: Unity
Price: £23.79 / €27.99 / US&CA$29.99
Wazzat: A new hero rises to challenge the Dealer in Hand of Fate 2! Master a living boardgame of infinitely replayable quests – unlock new cards, build your adventure, then defeat your foes in brutal real-time combat! Draw your cards, play your hand and discover your fate!
Mandatory Disclosure: They sent us keys
Makes with the working
- So far I have experienced 0 fuckery and that’s a rarity in the land of Unity.
- 80/90 @1080p and 30’ish @ 2160p.
- This is with everything maxed the hell out.
Shiny / Sounds
- Graphically it looks next-gen compared to the original Hand of Fate.
- However, the original looked a bit jank so set your expectations accordingly.
- Certainty an improvement over the first one
- The David Warner-ass narrator certainly sounds super shitty when the RNG fucks you over
- There’s some z-fighting with some of the card textures which causes that weird flickering effect.
Control
- So, do we have any real camera control or is it just me?
- Block and roll can become a tad unresponsive, Brad.
- The game seems to really not want you to button mash. Everything has a wind up animation and you gotta wait for it to finish before the next thing happens
- Means that block and rolls never seem to land when you want them to
- Takes some getting used to but every once in a while it still fucks you
- Also, no correct prompts on the dual shock
- Nope, no camera movement still.
- I figured out why sometimes your character doesn’t do what you’re telling it to even if you’re smacking the button.
- It queues up actions as you press buttons.
- That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just the cut off point in the queue and which actions are queued or done instantly that feel arbitrary at points.
- I guess this is to prevent button mashing but it doesn’t work as well as you’d expect.
FUN
- I really really don’t like losing my equipment after each level.
- They didn’t go full Arkam Knight with the combat system.
- Once you figure out how to roll spam the battles become tedious and unchallenging.
- FFS let me skip the dude talking bits.
- Yeah, FK this RNG bullshit.
- It’s not a bad indie game it’s just a bad genre.
- For HOF3 they really need to bring in someone who understands what makes combat good.
- Straight-up hack n slash is fun for a few minutes but without any depth it quickly becomes a chore.
- Combos, attack progression and AI that acts less like sheep is a must.
- Soooooo close guys… so, damn, close.
- They’ve certainly gone back and done some changes
- I like how they’ve varied up the type of missions. It’s cool to see the same core mechanic recontextualized to create some very different experiences
- Hell, they’ve even addressed some of the complaints we had with combat. Some, but not all
- As Pedro mentioned, that action queuing thing gets real annoying. Your weapon helps determine how badly you’ll get screwed by it, but the differences are pretty superficial
- They’ve also added a lot more card synergy
- I’m not sure I feel about the fame mechanic. It’s already a crapshoot whether or not you get the equipment you put in your deck, this just makes you wait longer. I guess it’s to stop you from breezing through some of the early challenges
- Regardless, the short missions means that you can pick up and play this game and have some decent fun doing it.
- Good jerb guys
- Much like the first one, I liked it.
- It’s like they took all of what made Hand of Fate what it was and expanded on it.
- There are more minigames, there is a much bigger variety in mechanics and they even expanded the deck building aspect.
- Now you get more weapon types, a companion, bigger map variety (there’s even some more openish type of maps) and the combat even feels a lot better.
- It’s still not perfect.
- The texture flickering and control queue make sure of that but, much like last time, I really enjoyed this one.
- It’s a roguelite with real time-ish combat.
Hate Mail:
Performance
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?1HdGL54