LinuxGameCast Weekly 279: Dr. Hackerman

The Steam Winter Sale is live! Bridge Constructor plays with Portals, Road Redemption gets naughty, and AMD releases their Vulkan sauce. Then Crashlands faces the ChairQAsition. All this plus your hate mail.

Special thanks to:
Dr Hack (new patreon)
Madhi19 (DAC from our Wishzone)

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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam News:

Everything’s fine
http://www.pcgamer.com/australian-court-reaffirms-that-valve-misled-gamers-23-million-fine-upheld/

But here’s the real question de jour: Did valve make more than 3 mil worth of profits in the interim?

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

Other than rounding up all the DLC for Borderlands 2, I can’t really say I was looking forward to this.
About on par with the autumn sale. Could’ve saved 3 bucks on tyranny

Awards
http://store.steampowered.com/news/35437/

Only vote for Linux games.
I don’t care if the developer supported Linux in the past, if the game that’s on the poll doesn’t have Linux, they don’t get a vote.

Blocked
https://www.vg247.com/2017/12/19/the-steam-community-has-been-blocked-in-china/

Good ol’ public censorship. Don’t want das volken to start having a case of the wrongthink
This just serves to inconvenience the people who can bypass it and will unfortunately have the desired effect on the vast majority of the people who can’t.
So, anime/3d rendered boobies are a big no no in China?
Oh no, wait! It’s free speech they don’t like.

Steamy Solus
https://solus-project.com/2017/12/19/lsi-0-7-2-released/

New Unity “black screen of nope” workaround.
It intercepts the game call to the .config/unity3d/*/prefs file and redirects it to the shim config file which disables fullscreen.
Even if the game goes fullscreen after launch, that’s fine since the bug only happens when you first start and it wants to render in a 0x0 space.
As neat as this project is, my Ops brain itches at the notion that we’re simply codifying workarounds instead of addressing the actual issues
- This is the best we get when neither the devs or VALVe seem to give a toss.

Redemption GONE SEXUAL
http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=300380
http://www.pcgamer.com/porn-game-publisher-is-paying-to-make-motorcycle-brawler-road-redemption-x-rated/

Just checked, we have the tech to pixelate in real time.
“Does your game suck big donkey balls? Have you bored your userbase to the point that they don’t even remember your name? Put some cartoon boobs in your game!”
“They still won’t remember your name, but they’ll know that one game with the motorcycle violence and tits!”
I mean, financially it’s not a terrible idea if you can actually bring in the money. Mind you, people aren’t exactly in the habit of paying for porn

Gun condoms
http://steamcommunity.com/games/239140/announcements/detail/3113541737451710272

Moar gun! Singular.
Needs its own kind of ammo.
Whar potato

Hammertime
https://www.feralinteractive.com/en/news/838/

More DLC for the red headed stepchild of the dawn of war series
New elites and multiplayer maps for that “I can’t believe it’s not dota” flavour

Ice Ice
http://www.moddb.com/mods/ice-a-half-life-2-expansion-pack

Great, a HL-2 MOD comes out and it’s one I don’t really care about.
They say to “consider it open source”, meaning you can do whatever you want with the original mod assets. Nice thing to do

Despite all my rage
http://store.steampowered.com/app/679990/HalfLife_Caged/

HL-2 escape mode activate!
- HL1. Looks pretty good for goldsrc too

Manos add-on
http://steamcommunity.com/games/456670/announcements/detail/1587947907183050655

Free DLC is best DLC.

Bridge Constructor Portal
http://store.steampowered.com/app/684410/Bridge_Constructor_Portal/

At least it managed a day-1 Linux release.

Bud Spencer & Terence Hill game (RTheren)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/564050/Bud_Spencer__Terence_Hill__Slaps_And_Beans/

I’m getting some big ol’ Bayou Billy flashbacks
As Rtheren says, this is early access so thar be bugs
Curious if they’ll actually deliver on their rather lofty promises of slaps and or beans

M-i-c
http://store.steampowered.com/app/561120/Disneys_The_Lion_King/

That game was fucking hard
Apparently it’s a dosbox wrap.

K-e-y
http://store.steampowered.com/app/561110/Disneys_The_Jungle_Book/

More dosbox
Looks like disney is trying to foist as much of their back catalogue on steam as possible.

M-o-u-s-e
https://steamdb.info/app/561100/

Old Mansion
http://store.steampowered.com/app/529890/Maniac_Mansion/

Looks like DF didn’t get the rights to release an enhanced version of this game
Speaking of disney. Did they get the rights to the remaining lucasarts IP?
- They got Lucasarts Games when they bought Lucasfilm.

News:

OpenV
https://github.com/GPUOpen-Drivers

Look it’s the Abstraction Layer that Linus shut down and then shouted them down for trying to do it.
Yeah, I’m curious if any distro is gonna bit the bullet and try to integrate these drivers.
AMD’s being kinda short sighted here. Just trying to bait unnecessary fragmentation

RIP32
http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-is-ending-gpu-driver-support-for-32-bit-operating-systems/

Eh, if you are running a 32-bit system you probably don’t have a card current enough to justify needing anything more then stable.
People bitching about their 7 year old video card in their 10 year old system in 3.. 2..
- Great. Go use nouveau then. Help that project out with some feedback
We’re 18 years out from the unix time bug. It’s time to stick a fork in 32 bit

SCUMM 2.0
http://www.scummvm.org/news/20171217/

Hot damn. Support for both Phantasmagoria games. How’s that for a live stream?

Open Star Racer
https://github.com/OpenSWE1R/openswe1r

Made it as far as installing the unicorn engine.
I want some of this.
I loved SWE1 Racer game when it first came out on Windows.
Ah, the only good thing to come out of the phantom man-ass

Open thunder
https://www.reddit.com/r/risingthunder/comments/7knc33/coming_in_jan_rising_thunder_community_edition/?st=jbcn6dln&sh=dc45e75c
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/12/22/fighting-game-rising-thunder-free-release-coming/

This could be fun if/when the eventual Linux port shows up.
I’m not entirely sure the Natural Selection 2 model of development is a good thing.
Just saying…

Ppsspp gets Spocked
https://github.com/hrydgard/ppsspp/pull/10413

Didn’t we cover this last week, or is it something new?
Last week the PPA didn’t support vulkan, you needed to build it from sauce

0 Autumn report
https://play0ad.com/0-a-d-development-report-autumn-2017/

This is more of an update of stuff that’s on the go
THey have death animations for Zebu and some siege units
Primary and secondary attacks for unit seems like a nice touch
They’re removing a bunch of legacy UI cruft

Enhance your head
http://blog.beamdog.com/2017/12/nwnee-head-start-patch-notes-v748153.html

No more proprietary middleware for audio or cutscene video.
Bink and Miles are gone and buried.
They’ve been replaced by a mixture of OpenMP3, OpenAL, and WebM for audio and video.
I’m a little too biased to give this game a fair look at right now.
I’m positively giddy with them fixing all the niggling issues which were never fixed in the original.
And on top of that, they’re now improving the scripting and the models.
It’s just a wee ironic that Sword Coast Legends is shutting down for good while this, the game it was intended to replace gets a resurgence.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Crashlands
Webzone: Crashlands
Devel: Butterscotch Shenanigans
Engine: GameMaker: Studio
Price: £11.99 / US$14.99 / CA$17.49

Wazzat: Crashlands is a story-driven crafting ARPG set in an outlandish world of hidden magic and high technology. Fight and tame alien beasts, craft resources into menacing weaponry, befriend the locals, and go toe-to-chin with a world-domineering maniac.

Mandatory Disclosure: The devs sent us copies through Curator Connect

Makes with the working

Venn-

Monitor keeps timing out.
Need to create an account to enable cloud saves.
Keep getting killed to death because of the monitor going dark.
Only one other game (out of 503) has this issue.

Jordan-

It loud
Also the “shapes” controller preset don’t work son!

Pedro-

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

Venn-

Everything scales well because mobile.
Graphics are nice.
Think cutesy Don’t Starve.

Jordan-

All of the assets use a cartoony aesthetic
To be honest, it doesn’t really do anything for me
The game defaults to a loud as shit volume, and the soundtrack is kinda forgettable

Pedro-

For such a simple art style, there’s a lot of charm.
The dialog also helps.
The sense of humor in this game has a lot of overlap with LGC.
As repetitive as the soundtrack is, I didn’t find the need to immediately go and mute it.

Total-

Control

Venn-

Works really well the the Steam controller.
The only downside (it’s wicked annoying) is the auto lock on / aim thingy.
I know it’s there to replace the touch interface but it really gets in the way.

Jordan-

They offer a configuration mode for playstation style controllers, and the buttons on screen don’t correspond to those on the controller
WTF guys

Pedro-

Immediately recognized the Steam controller and everything works.
They also keep the labels on screen so there’s even less of a margin for error.

Total-

FUN

Venn-

Lot of grinding here.
There is a fun little time waster hiding behind an egregious technical blunder.
Also, doubling the price from the mobile version is kinda a dick move.
And don’t tell me it was because you spent time reworking the game for PC.
If that was the case I would have Steam cloud saves instead of having to sign up to your bullsh*t service.
So, yeah, I noped out of this game after about an hour of on and off playtime.
The second time getting squished because screen timeout was the last nail in the coffin-organ.

Jordan-

Let’s be real here. This is just don’t starve
Sure there are quests and what not, but they always devolve to “go there, get this thing” or “go kill that” or “Build this thing” or some combination of the above
It gets pretty monotonous after a while
The game doesn’t do anything particularly original. Which is fine, but it just does the survival crafting thing kinda mediocrely
And that’s the big crime of this game. It’s boring. It isn’t engaging.

Pedro-

I like the idea behind these games.
It’s an RPG/Adventure game where you need to craft your way to success.
You have goal or at least a general direction and the quests/dialog help keep you driven.
This was the reason I enjoyed Planet Explorers a lot more than I did Minecraft.
That said, Planet Explorers realized just how grindy these kinds of games can get before you can make a significant enough impact in the world, or deal enough damage to the creatures around you.
In Crashlands that realization didn’t seem to happen.
Maybe it’s the mobile game DNA, with keeping you waiting for things to happen and having you do a lot of repetitive, menial tasks for a bit then giving you a quest where you go explore a bit of the map or kill some named monster.
The menial tasks are what you do during the day while you’re bored at work, then you come home and you play the actual adventury bit, since you have a bit more time to focus on the game.
I can see what it is, but I don’t like it.
This sort of design has no place in a PC game.
I don’t think of myself as a purist of video games but certain mediums do lend themselves better to different games.
And Crashlands, while not being absolutely terrible, doesn’t really shine on a PC.