LinuxGameCast Weekly 275: Tickles My Pickle

Steam Autumn Sale is here! Black Mesa gets delayed, Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition heads to Linux and open source Minecraft servers are now a thing. Then Tooth and Tail faces the ChairQAsition! All this, plus your hate mail!

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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam News:

Autumn sale
https://steamdb.info/sales/

I sorta (kinda) want Road Redemption so might pick that up if it goes half off.
Also, jackbox… if native.
Bit the bullet and Grabbed Pyre and Tyranny.

Reviews revisited
http://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/2666556941788470579

Steam maths will now decide if you found a review helpful.
This was when VALVe decided to do something about review bombing and the entire bot farms dedicated to it.
- I would argue it was the AAA industry trying to prevent ReeeeEEEeeeEEee bombs.
The idea behind their review sorting mechanism doesn’t seem to match the stated end goal
They’re basing it off of people’s review patterns, which simply just offsets review floods. Doesn’t really mean anything about quality thereof. That’d require some natural language processing fuckery that nobody at valve is actually up to

Bad keys
https://twitter.com/blackpantsgames/status/933310248995246080
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidStark/20171106/308982/
http://www.indiegamestand.com/

- They claim they never hit her.
“To be honest, we have no idea what happened to the keys.”
- That, that right there set off the old bullsh*t detector.
- Might also be a single malicious actor in the company trying to jump ship
Considering most of the titles on IndieGameStand were shovelware and the like I doubt we’ll see any type of lash back from developers.
As long as these grey market resellers are around and shit like this pops up, you’re better off still buying the game directly from the developer or on Steam/Humble.

Totes not Slime ranchers
http://store.steampowered.com/app/645530/Raise_The_Dead/

Good thing zombies don’t have human rights
Looks like a fuck around simulator where you capture zombies and try to figure out the magical ingredient combination that turns them human
So the cooking from BoTW, but they made a game out of it.
Slime rancher looks fun and really pretty compared to this one.
And I didn’t particularly like Slime Rancher, to begin with.

Haque
http://store.steampowered.com/app/662540/Haque/

Roguelike classic ultima. Colour me intrigued
Plus apparently you get to murder cute things. Bonus soda
I’m really done with the “retro” aesthetic.

Mega Race 3
http://store.steampowered.com/app/733770/MegaRace_3

More PS2 “retro” goodness.
MR2 is also available.

Jack4
https://steamdb.info/app/610180/depots/

It has a 64-bit depot that according to the Steam forums “kinda works”
It’s almost double the size of MAC/WIN depot.
- Makes me think it contains a copy of the windows binaries
- Is it a real boy? Maybe it’s VP

Still on pause?
http://steamcommunity.com/games/307880/announcements/detail/1429182063894681902

It’s been four months and not a peep.
Then, BAM.
Guess I should say BAM since this is a lot of promises and their last update was “we’re working on a new project”
At one point I found a way of just getting random bits of equipment which spawned in a specific place of the map.
Made it much less grindy, so that’s a plus in my book.

Hammertime
https://www.rocketleague.com/news/adjustments-competitive-matchmaking-bans/

Now /w 7 layers of bans, delicious.
If you keep doing it once you’re already at the max ban level, they say they will look into your account and possibly ban you from online matches altogether.
- Moral of this story: if your game likes to spite crash, don’t play competitive.
- It’s rare to see a spite crash these days but not unheard of.
It’s a bit scary knowing there is an entire generation of instant gratification ReeeEEee babbys out there requiring things like this to be implemented.

HL-2 MOD update
http://www.pcgamer.com/half-life-2-work-in-progress-mod-adds-new-weapons-improved-ai-dismemberment-mechanics/

Just once I would like one of these MODs to come the FK out.
It’s the second time they’ve “come back” to this?
This does seem to suffer from the same ailment which hits many mods.
Put out some concept art and then stop updating.
I can appreciate accurately dismembering someone with the pew pew beam gun from HL
- Yeah, dismemberment is really the only selling point I’m seeing here.
But yeah, maybe releasing a WIP or hosting shit on github would be nice

Saw that coming
http://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1453963283488180339

And so it continues to be, that these lot won’t get my money until Xen is done.
Apparently what they’re doing is a bit of a departure from how the source engine does some stuff, so they’re going to backport their changes to the terrestrial levels for testing to see if they can get them working for the xen levels
- Do you see where the problem lies in this statement?
They’ve added a JJ Abrams mode tho
Five damn years and the playerbase is just starting to become restless.
They will, however, survive missing this milestone but mark my word-organ.
Do it again and Steam’s new review system be damned, Black Mesa will go negative.

Multi-Doors
http://steamcommunity.com/games/248610/announcements/detail/1451711483685817212

Just wanted to throw this in since it’s not often we see games get significant updates years after release.
That’s cute. It’s like a reverse GTA2

News:

Drivers
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/127149/en-us

As someone who wants a G-sync monitor, those prices are still shit.
So I’mma have to take this changelog on its word that there’s some G-sync fixes.
Old 600 series video cards should stop hanging in vulkan apps
It doesn’t crash my box on 4.13.13. So that’s a thing
Fixed some Vulkan bugs but nothing I was experiencing.
Installed it, works.

This is useful
https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/vulkansupport.php#linux

Though by now you should know if any of your hardware has vulkan support, it’s handy if you have an old GPU or lappy handy.
- Rule of thumb is Haswell and up for Intel, GCN 1.1 for AMD and Kepler for NVidia.

Ctrl+f multiplayer
http://blog.supertuxkart.net/2017/11/supertuxkart-093-released.html

Interesting worry about moving to Steam.
Is liability on Steam that big a concern?
With the unending torrent of shovelware and copyright infringing asset flips we’ve seen, I’d say that’s hardly a concern.

Learning is good
https://dashgl.com/

Educational projects like these are nice. Plus they get people actually working with openGL
I question using GTK instead of QT, but what can you do.
How about some of that SDL?

Meh
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2017/11/20/beamdog-announces-neverwinter-nights-enhanced-edition-for-pc.aspx
http://blog.beamdog.com/2017/11/neverwinter-nights-enhanced-edition.html
http://store.steampowered.com/app/704450/Neverwinter_Nights_Enhanced_Edition/

I do wonder about the Multiplayer.
It would be nice to get all of those old NWN modules hosted on steam workshop
That said, I’m so burned out on 3.0, I have no idea if I could even
So their motto with this was to improve and fix bugs without breaking backwards compatibility.
The big question is, is this worth the money?
If you want to play the premium mods and lost the CD-key to them, yes.
If you want to have your multiplayer server be discoverable without having to have people google for it, also yes.
You’re expecting it to be this massive improvement of Neverwinter Nights, then no.
This week I learned the reason that there won’t be a Icewind Dale 2 Enhanced edition is because nobody can find the source code for it!

Panda curtains
https://www.panda3d.org/blog/a-look-behind-the-curtains/

Another free and open source 3D engine. You can use it with python too
They have a barely functional vulkan renderer in place, as well as a webGl one
Apparently OPUS support is a new feature as well

Retro
https://www.libretro.com/index.php/retroarch-1-6-8-released/

Most of the linux fixes are adding additional ARM support (a good thing)
It’ll default to keyboard input when there is not focus
More mouse buttons!
Gamecube ISOs can now be read and imported
Kiosk mode if you want to set up something resembling a proper arcade cabinet

Glowing
https://glowstone.net/

“While Glowstone can be used at its best for lobbies, hubs, minigames and creative servers, it is not ready for survival.”
- So it’ll work for most stuff except the actual base game… >.>

Star Kinesis (beta)
http://www.jsveterans.com/1SKBETA.html

EVE with a focus on troop deployment

CHAIRQqaSITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Tooth and Tail
Webzone: Tooth_and_Tail
Devel: Pocketwatch Games
Engine: FNA
Price: £14.99 / US$ 19.99 / CA$21.99

Wazzat: Lead the revolution with an army of flamethrowing Boars, mustard gas-lobbing Skunks, and paratrooper-puking Owls. Tooth and Tail is a Real-Time-Strategy game featuring Single Player, Online Competitive Play, Split Screen, Replays, and more. Build a base, lead your army, eat your enemies!

Mandatory Disclosure: The Devs sent keys

Makes with the working

V-

It’s a relatively light game being hipster-pixel and the like.
The only slowdown @1080 was some slight when a mill exploded.
Like Rocket Cars, but with more mill.
Outside of that it ran like a champ.

J-

P-

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

Hipster-pixel done right and that’s something we don’t set to say all that often.
This was clearly done as a style choice and not because nobody on the tem could fkn draw.
It’s colourful and scales well enough.
Honestly, I kinda like that they were all, like, FK having any English voice acting .
Outside of that not much to report on the background music.
It’s there and inoffensive.

J-

The soundtrack is fantastic and fit well with the theme. Very good orchestration
You get a sort of isometric hipster pixel that reminds me a bit of Shattered Lands
All the units look distinct and recognizable though
The fake mouse russian can get a little annoying at times

P-

I’ve definitely seen worse hipster pixel graphics.
The background music was certainly there, like Venn said, but nothing to write home about.
I did like the sound effects, the screen shaking, and even the limited (read low-res) particle effects.
In I wouldn’t go so far as saying this is an awesome game in the aesthetic department, but it is well done.

Total-

Control

V-

If you have a Steamy controlla you’re actually going to have a pretty alright time.
It was the first time I felt comfortable playing a RTS while having a lean back experience.
Unfortunately having the controls tuned so well for gamepads comes at a cost.
That cost, keyboard + gerbil is an odd (borderline bad) experience altogether.

J-

Very simplified RTS controls
You are a mousebro who can cause all of the other Kommunist Kritters to come towards you

P-

Total-

FUN

V-

I rather like RTS games that don’t contain the words Total and or War in the title.
This love affair started with Dune 2 and continues till this day.
Something about resource management + muderating gives me a big ole clue.
This fills the part of my brain-organ that is not content unless we’re doing at least two (usually three) things at once.
Tooth and tail didn’t really do anything to add to the genre but it got the basics right.
And it managed to do something I have never seen done correctly.
Allow for a fun sitback experience while maintaining the mild chaos and action needed to keep me occupied… with a controlla #neat
If I had to complain about something it would be the story. Honestly, didn’t give a singular FK.
This led to my playtime being in spurts since I would nope a stage and derp right off and do something else.
Also, I could understand any arguments about Tooth and tail being a weee oversimplified.

J-

I don’t say this very often about strategy games, but it could be a little more complicated
I get why the devs made the gameplay choices they did, but I feel that the unit management could be a little more nuanced than select which type of dudes you want to advance
It kind of reminds me a bit of the RTS moments from brutal legend, except you can’t fight. Only Kritter kan fight
The use of food as a constantly variable resource is an interesting take, but it can get a little confusing at time
All in all, I didn’t really hate it. It’s simple enough for pick up and play, but it lacks any real sense of depth

P-

I get what they tried to do.
To bring an RTS to a simpler control scheme like a controller.
I guess it must be working because I still don’t like it.
There’s less of a concern with resource management since you only have one resource, food.
There’s a limited number of units you can have per mission, which I guess is necessary when you’re trying to boil down an RTS to the couch experience.
I can see most of what they did to bring a strategy game to the console crowd and I commend them for it.
They must have an awesome job because I feel about Tooth and Tail, the exact same way I felt about most previous RTS games we’ve thrown chairs at.

Total-

Final –

Hate Mail:

WAR
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?9mwsFVQ
https://steamcommunity.com/app/356190/discussions/0/135510194252752874/?ctp=16#c1489992080501285349