Steam finally supports high-DPI displays! Rust exits Early Access, Paradox releases a nifty Bundle and Helium Rain brings the Vulkan. All this plus your hate mail.
Special thanks to:
Scott Michaud (increased pledge)
Freedom Penguin (new Patreon)
Grazen (welcome back)
Linux gaming mayhem & madness with a side of news, reviews, and whatever the Hell-Elks™ we come up with.
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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro
Steam News:
- When everything is on sale, nothing is
- I’m pretty sure at this point Valve has just trained everyone pavlov style to just buy games on sale weeks.
DPi
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta#announcements/detail/1655505073049286411
- Wow, that’s delightfully busted.
- Had to disable the hiDPI business.
- Steam now closes when you shutdown.
- Okay that’s one here’s a few more:
- Fix those and most of my complaints with the client will be gone.
Link to the arcade
https://imgur.com/a/vmBZl
- Almost makes me wish I had picked one up for $3, almost.
- Apparently DiY arcade sticks work with the steam link. Who knew?
- Steam’s controller configuration relies on SDL2.
- If Valve was a publicly traded company I could understand why they would be fighting this in court.
- You done goofed, pay the fine.
- Valve doesn’t want to pay, Aussies want the set precedent that software companies gotta pay up.
Steam: Game Updates
No Tide
http://steamcommunity.com/app/552500/discussions/0/1483233503859850386/?tscn=1516491023
- Unfortunate, considering most Warhammer games do have a linux version these days
- “No immediate” means no, +- some NDA/we need money
- I would like some Warhammer Left 4 Brad but it doesn’t look like it’ll happen.
- Figures, this is the first WarHammertime game that looked interesting to me.
Dicks
http://www.pcgamer.com/rust-will-leave-early-access-in-february-but-its-not-finished-yet/
- Still a broken mess that runs like poo but hey, why not.
- Garry was never really in the business of making well performing games. Just fucky interesting ones
- “Leaving prototyping and entering alpha” means that he’s gonna be riding the EA train for years to come.
- So they’re leaving the Early Access stigma in hopes it’ll drive sales.
Helium Vulkan (Steve 0)
http://steamcommunity.com/games/681330/announcements/detail/1660008672652086656
- UE4 Vulkan?
- Kinda want to see what that nightmare looks like.
GILF update
http://steamcommunity.com/games/431240/announcements/detail/1662260472459236990
- Oh fuck. There’s a hockey mode now
Steam: New Games
Stroking
http://store.steampowered.com/app/336940/Basingstoke/
- A one HP roguelike with stealth elements. Honestly, it could go either way.
- Not entirely sure how the crafting will work with the random nature of roguelikes.
Battle Chasers
http://community.airshipsyndicate.com/t/linux-test-branch-is-up/4068
http://store.steampowered.com/app/451020/Battle_Chasers_Nightwar/
- Linux could use more JRPG style games. Decent looking ones at that
- It’s using SDL2, which is a good step
- Hey! Check it out!
- This was a game I actually wanted to come to Linux and they’re actually doing it.
- Good on them!
Iconoclasts
http://store.steampowered.com/app/393520/Iconoclasts/
- I’m always looking forward to metroidvanias.
- Especially those who fall more on the vania side of that genre.
- This one seems to have blown up, so I hope the dev does get back to me on my email about it.
- Made by a single person.
Mass of cysts
http://store.steampowered.com/app/713220/Mass_O_Kyzt/
- A game where you get to pick how you’re fucked
- Kill aliens until the level ends. Coming Feb 2
- There’s also talk of a demo
- The devs sent us some keys on the Curator Connect thing.
Starward Augments
http://store.steampowered.com/app/767650/Starward_Rogue_AuGMENTED/
- 7 Bucks for a content pack seems reasonable.
- A decent sized one at that.
- They have a bundle too that gets you the whole kit and kaboodle for a buck more than the base asking price. Good on them for that
- I really liked Bionic Dues but, even though this reuses some of the same assets, it was a bit boring for me.
- Still, it is good know they’re still alive and kicking.
News:
Paradox
https://www.humblebundle.com/games/paradox-bundle-2018
- 5 titles from Paradox so at least you know they work.
- Pillars and Stellaris are a pretty solid yoink for 12 bucks
Dismiss CRY
http://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/01/21/cryteks-legal-response-to-star-citizen-dismissal/
- The slap fight continues.
- Robert Space Industries filed a motion to dismiss, now CryTek says the motion is meritless.
- This isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
- Only $75K?
- That really makes things looks worse.
- I mean, all this is really doing is sending a message to developers to never partner with crytek
- If they ever change their minds, they get sued. Sounds like a solid partnership
Passthrough patch
https://www.reddit.com/r/VFIO/comments/7slj72/threadripper_reset_patch/
- On Thread Ripper, when you pass through any GPU to a virtual machine on Linux, you will not be able to gracefully shutdown the VM.
- This sorts said issue.
- This happened because Threadripper follows the PCIe spec to the letter and there is a bug without the spec is implemented in the Linux kernel.
- It seems Intel handles the PCI reset in firmware while AMD tried to follow the spec as well as it could, to let the OS handle it.
Vulkan curious?
https://www.lunarg.com/extend-your-vulkan-test-coverage-with-free-lunarg-tool/
- It won’t be as effective as actually testing on a physical device but, if you’re developing your Vulkan game on a shoestring budget, this could be a very good validation tool.
Xonotic 2017
http://xonotic.org/posts/2018/2017-by-the-numbers/
- 3K Additional Players in 2017
- Turns out the best time to look for a game is 8PM UTC
- Everybody loves mortars, nobody loves the lightning gun
Still kicking
https://www.reddit.com/r/opensourcegames/comments/7qk6l3/falltergeist_fallout_2_engine_reimplementation/
- A few weeks ago we were talking about abandoned open source engine re-implementations.
- This is apparently not one of those
- It works but it doesn’t seem to be complete: https://i.imgur.com/iCeHPaU.png
- It started a new game in Klamath – Trapper Town, skipping the whole Arroyo bit.
- Also, it would be great to have support for the FO2 Restoration project mod.
Tux in a Snap
https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/call-for-testing-release-announcement-supertuxkart/3655?u=ziesmcdoom
- They’re looking for some multiplayer and controller testing w/ze snaps
- Supposedly everything’s working, but give it a try and give’em some feedback. It’s the future of gaming
Open Mafia (RTheren)
https://github.com/OpenMafia/OpenMF
- “We take inspiration in OpenMW”
- Gotcha. Crazy people.
- If they had been inspired by the RPCS3 project it would be done by now.
- I remember seeing this game all over the place back in they day. Never played it
- I started to play it but while in GTA3 everything felt weightless, in mafia everything felt like it weighed way too much.
CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope
– Not sure if want
– Check it out
– Shutupandtakemymonies
Game: ERSATZ
Webzone: ERSATZ
Devel: Paris Stalker
Engine: GameMaker Studio
Price: £6.99 / US$8.99 / CA$9.99
Wazzat: ERSATZ is a speed focused, hardcore Action Platformer with Rhythm elements. Featuring a multiple genre Original Electronic Soundtrack which dynamically builds and changes based on your progression!
Mandatory Disclosure: Dev sent us keys
Makes with the working
V-
- Starts in an itsy bitsy little window that thankfully expands.
- Solid 60.Steam controlla worked out OOTB.
- Missing out on sales by only listing Windows on the store page.
J-
P-
Total-
Shiny / Sounds
V-
- Hipster ATARI pixel?
- Character blindness is real.
- Not a fan of the overall look but it was not lazly done.
- Original Soundtrack reads like a list of audible NOPE.
- I only listen to classical house wub.
J-
- Oh man, they like their super saturated bright colours.
- On the ice level boss fight with the chimp it straight up hurt my eyes
P-
- Aesthetics should serve as a compliment to the mechanics, not to hinder them.
- Ersatz is another perfect example of a game in which the visuals are highly detrimental to your ability to play it.
- The backgrounds are made up of the same colorscheme as the actual level.
- The character leaves ghosts of itself as it moves, which in the middle of boss fights becomes a crapshoot to figure out which of the semi-transparent splotches of pixels you’re actually controlling.
- It encourages movement yet certain obstacles are damn near impossible to see while you’re trying to woosh past the levels.
- The music was alright… nothing to write home about, but at least I didn’t feel the need to mute it.
Total-
Control
V-
- Tighten that business up, yo.
- Everything get compared to the Hollow Knight standard, this is no Hollow Knight.
- Not busted, hell they are nicely laid out but I expect tight ridgid controls when I see pixels.
- Serviceable
J-
- Usually for a precision platformer I prefer to use the dualshock 4 cuz it has that nice d-pad
- Wouldn’t get detected tho. So that’s a shame
- Xbox controller works
P-
- The actual controls are fine save for the fact it doesn’t hide the mouse cursor.
- That’s something I thought every engine let you do easily, these days.
- But the big thing here is the camera… fuck this camera!
- Every time you dash, the camera moves to where your character would be assuming a successful dash.
- Problem is, when your character hits an enemy and gets pushed back slightly, the camera does this awkward jerk back to where you are.
- It’s disorienting and makes certain levels a bit of a crapshoot whether or not you can actually make progress.
Total-
FUN
V-
- I really struggled to put an hour in this.
- 10min in and I was all “yeah, I get it. You made a FK you hard game”
- On top of that you race against a clock and loose time for regenerating health.
- I like me some precision platformer but not with a heaping side of bulls*it Twitch bait game mechanics.
- It’s not bad for a game created by one person but it belongs on itch, for free, or simply as an item in your portfolio.
J-
- Hyper precision focused speed based platformers have never really been my thing
- Back as a wee child I was diagnosed with a medical condition which my old piano teacher Mrs Mellinger referred to as “stupid fingers”
- Sliding around feels good and fast, but you’re you only have a set number of slides/attacks before you need to back off and recharge
- The character blindness and the lack of consequence aside from meaningless time rankings I don’t care about basically turn this into a repetitive, frustrating heap of game I’m not all that interested in
P-
- Ersatz is trying to be a platformer with a focus on speed but, often, you end up getting stuck in certain levels because the camera is all over the place and you can barely tell where your character is.
- It becomes much easier to play if you take your time.
- “Oh, but then your score will be shit compared to your friends.”
- That’s implying I have friends or that I care about the score, or even this game for that matter.
Total-
Final –
Hate Mail:
AMD
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?S6AL7ml
- If it is free with a product then no, it does not count as a heretic purchase.
- That said, I gave my free copy of whateverthehellitwas from my 1700 to Frenchy.
