LinuxGameCast Weekly 286: Shmup the Shmup Up

Rust exits Early Access! GOG talks Linux, GOTDOT gets Steamy and did you know GTA III has an open source engine re-implementation? Then PAWARUMI faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Special thanks to:
Sharon (new)
Zoey (new)
Jack (new)
Eric (new)
Todd (new)
RTheren (upped)
Lutris (upped)

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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam News:

0.41%
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

Some reported growth after the pubgening
- PUBChina don’t care for mother Linux.
Yeah, simplified Chinese is 50%
17.10 adoption is up 0.6%
12GB of RAM has increased over a full percent while 8GB is down 4%.

Chilling effect
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoshGe/20180205/314314/Steam_Winter_Sale

Exposure is great if it doesn’t come at the detriment of actual sales.
Being featured on the front page during a sale gives you a lot of exposure
But people die of exposure.
So in the case of Cogmind, there were a lot more people hovering over the game but only 0.22% of those who did actually bought the game, compared to 3.18% from before the Sale.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t really look at the front page of Steam. After years of it being filled with shovelware and asset flips, I learned to just go the Linux page and sort by newest release.
- So you only see the Linux shoveassflips.
Like most people I actively avoid the front page of Steam.

Open VALVe
https://twitter.com/Plagman2/status/961470023041626112

Bet, would have lost it.
Is 2018 going to be the year AMD gets all usable and stuff on the Linux?
- One can only hope
Good to see more work being done on RadV. It seems to be the little driver that could
- A driver developed from the ground up by the community instead of AMD?
- As someone who was stuck on fglrx for a long long time, I’m all up for the community effort!

True GabeN
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12407/amd-valve-introduce-trueaudio-next-support-for-steam-audio

Valve is working with AMD to enhance the steam VR audio API
It’ll move a lot of the binaural and echo stuff to the GPU, which makes sense as it’s doing a bunch of those same calculations for the 3d shit
Maybe that’s why they hired that mesa dev. Sorry, my foil hat just fell off.
How about some of that but for non-VR games?
I can’t help but feel like VR has run out of steam, pun intended, if this is all the news coming out of it.

Godot goes steamy 3.0
http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=404790

Every so often I keep forgetting that people use steam to manage non-game software
Still needs some of that Vulkan.
Good way to keep things up to date.
Nice to see that everything is completely free.
brand new rendering engine
C# 7.0
Bullet 3D physics

Roll a new level
http://steamcommunity.com/games/456670/announcements/detail/1666764701474734022

Seems interesting but I do not have the smart to figure it out.
I really wish more devs would make high quality content creation tools for their games and release them
It really does extend the life of the game and can bring in a ton of new players
I’m curious to see what kind of wacky shit the community will come up with. Maybe dungeons you can’t roll your way out of
Game modding tools, think Neverwinter Nights, Elder Scrolls, etc., are a very good way to make games relevant for years after their release.

Conarium to Linux
http://steamcommunity.com/games/313780/announcements/detail/1675771900757464665

Another horror adventure game
This one’s UE4. Do we think it’ll vulkan?
This game has an irrational hatred for 4:3. Lovecraft thought it was a resolution for miscreants and undesirables
Slapping “lovecraftian” around a game’s description usually gets me to give it a second look.
If this is more Amnesia and less Darkwood, I’m all for that!

French Tesla
http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=636100

http://www.atomic-robo.com/atomicrobo/v3ch1-cover
- This is basically the plot to Atomic Robo and the Shadow Beyond Time
Twin stick shooter about Nicola Tesla and Howard P. Lovecraft…
WAT?!
That said, kudos to the devs for sending us some keys.
There will certainly be chairs thrown in this game’s general direction, at some point

Rocketpatch
http://steamcommunity.com/games/252950/announcements/detail/1675772534375704030

Pretty sure they’re just leaving the linux branch alone from now on
So… At what point do we just say fuck it and throw chairs at it?

Rust is out
https://rust.facepunch.com/blog/devblog-197/

It runs, like arse.
Tapping 20 on high @ 1080p.
It has always run terribad.
Remember, it released from Early Access and into Alpha…
Which means development will go from a weekly release of new versions to monthly
- You misspelled screeching halt.
Also, dat price.

Earthlings Attack
http://store.steampowered.com/app/621930/Attack_of_the_Earthlings/

So reverse Starship Troopers
Oh, hey ProZD does a Cave Johnson in this. Neat

Needs VR
http://store.steampowered.com/app/681280/Descenders/?newsId=37076

That… doesn’t look horrible!

News:

RPCS3 January 2018 Progress
https://rpcs3.net/blog/2018/02/07/progress-report-january-2018/

Nothing particularly interesting in the new supported games department
THey do have support for multiple controller profiles though, which is neat cuz now you can have two people playing off the same keyboard. Why? For extra fuckery!
Apparently the Nvidia OpenGL driver has some problems with index offsets in heap buffers. THeir fix results in some significant openGL performance improvements
- Does this mean Demon’s Souls is playable on Linux now?
- I was getting some really bad framerate rubber banding last time I tried.

GOG
https://boilingsteam.com/linuxvangog-talks-about-gogs-stance-on-linux/

Galaxy is in the “big picture”, meaning don’t hold your breath.
One thing I do like about the process they describe is that they don’t try to introduce workarounds and encourage devs to fix the issues upstream
So as we’ve suspected, CDPR and GOG are colocated, but Siloed. Doesn’t bode well for their first party games
I will continue to use GOG to buy old games for the data files when a FLOSS engine shows up for game X.
Until they poop out a client Steam gets all my monies because I am DONE /w having a “games” folder.
“While currently GOG isn’t developing the Linux client, it still remains in the big picture and is planned to be done eventually. We are not working on it at right now and it won’t happen anytime soon.”
- Gotcha, Steam’s stranglehold on Linux game clients continues unchecked.
He also dodged the question of why games take longer to release on GOG if they have more than just the Windows version, by shifting the narrative to the fact that Linux still has such a small adoption in the desktop market.

Fishy engine
https://github.com/VectorWolf/RawSalmonEngine

We’ve talked about tiled a few times on the show
This project aims to create an 2D engine similar to the infinity engine and ended as a functional tiled map viewer that you can use to make games
Apparently their game involves anthropomorphic cats. I’m just gonna leave it at that…
One of the listed dependencies is touch a salmon, they conveniently forgot to mention the bear you’re likely to find when attempting to do so.
And not the sexy kind of bear, either.

OpenSC2K
https://github.com/rage8885/OpenSC2K

Jesus fucking christ this is a nodejs project. This shit is for webapps, not everything else!
- I…I may have had to deal with some dumb-ass node nonsense at work
Are you so hooked on SimCity 2k that you need to be able to play it anywhere and everywhere?

Good luck /w that
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/report-google-considering-a-game-streaming-service-console-hardware/

OnLive take what, 3?
I don’t see this taking off with things like UE4 in the browser being a thing.
Going by Google’s previous efforts, shit’s gonna be region locked so bad only the US will be able to use it.
- Don’t forget the part where they abandon it after a year.
Game streaming will become a thing (and will eventually be the majority) but it won’t work as a subscription and wont take off until steam rolls it out.

Lintendo Switch
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/02/hackers_get_linux_running_on_switch_and_claim_nintendo_cant_patch_the_exploit

Perhaps it’s some remote jtag thing exposed by tegra that these guys are taking advantage of.
Whatever it is, we’ll have to wait for the release to see

Open GTA 3
http://openrw.org/

Didn’t know this was a thing.
Compiles under Linux and lets you buy the Rock Humble for $1 Heretic free.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: PAWARUMI

Webzone: PAWARUMI

Devel: Manufacture 43

Engine: Unity

Price: £12.99 / US$16.99 / CA$18.99

Wazzat: Pawarumi is a modern shoot’em up set in a retro futuristic sci-fi pre-Columbian universe. You’ll take control of the almighty ship Chukaru and its three unique weapons! Shoot wisely to either do double damage, heal yourself or charge your Super Attack!

Mandatory Disclosure:

Makes with the working

Venn-

Had some issues /w UHD during Early Access but those have been sorted.

Jordan-

Pedro-

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

Venn-

Looks good for a shoot em up @ 2160.
Hell, for the first few levels ir holds a solid 60.
Then it goes to hell in the jungle ant drops to 30.
1080p looks blurry /w a case of the jaaaaags.
Overall the game looks quite nice.
Detailed backdrops (almost to a fault)
No sound, only silence.
It’s the only way I can enter my pew state.

Jordan-

The visual style is pretty interesting. I like the astec aesthetic
The music isn’t too bad either.
Vsync is on by default, killing that and it can hold 60ferps @ UHD with occasional dips to the mid 50s

Pedro-

Temporal AA works, that was nice to see.
It’s less effective that other types of AA but also much easier on resources and doesn’t make everything look blurry like FXAA.
The weapons seem to lack some impact.
I can see how devastating they are but unleashing the ultimate just looks and sounds so miserably inadequate.

Total-

Control

Venn-

Steamy detection OOTB.
Logical layout.
No lag here.

Jordan-

Just a nit to pick with the attack colours corresponding with the xbox controller buttons. DOesn’t as easily translate to the dual shock
Still works fine though

Pedro-

Whar mouse controls?
Not saying you had to bind everything to the mouse. Not everyone has a 10 button mouse…
But at least letting you move with the mouse wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Total-

FUN

Venn-

Sweet hell that was wicked-short.
80min at the speed of cocking about.
Yeah, not $16.99 well spent.
Easy: Boring
Normal: Kinda fun
Hard: FK you hard no fun.
I really want a 3rd person view ala FoxStar.
It’s a short shooter that really doesn’t bring anything new to the table.
They did a good job with the game but that price is too damn high for something you can accidentally beat.
If it goes 90% off give it a look.

Jordan-

Sorry Pawarumi, you’re just not my game
Suck at schmups, and one needs to be super compelling to make me want to play it for more than an hour
And super compelling this isn’t
It’s pretty looking,

Pedro-

I didn’t hate it!
It’s not stupidly hard like shmups nowadays feel like they have to be.
Even with all the colours and everything else on screen I never really lost track of my ship.
That said, it hasn’t really done much to change my mind about shmups
Demon Star still holds a special place in the derelict unused wastes of my brain.
I don’t know if it’s the lack of impact to shooting or getting shot, the feel like that of piss hitting grass from the ultimate weapon, apparently the fact that it’s pretty short.
I couldn’t be arsed to try and get to the end because it just didn’t grab me.

Total-

Final –

Hate Mail:

Controlla
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?xeop4vF

Honestly, in terms of compatibility your best bet is still the good ol’ vanilla 360 controlla.
Agreed, Xclone gets shite done but I have been using the Steam controlla for the last few months without issue.
If you want compatibility without having to rely on Steam or other third party tools, the Xbox 360/Logitech F310/F710 controllers would be my suggestion.
If all the games you’re playing are on Steam, I’d lob the Steam Controller in as well.

RSS
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?w6pg8uC

Included this for two raisins
- There is at least one person using SailfishOS
- IVO filed a bug report /w the podcatcher devel instead of expecting us to somehow fix it.