LinuxGameCast Weekly 299: Dongle Mode

Steam goes mobile! EVERSPACE exits beta, Intel discrete GPU rumours and why Rocket Pass might not be the end of the world. Then Trailblazers faces the ChairQAsition. All this, plus your hate mail.

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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam News:

SAIL.webm
https://www.vg247.com/2018/05/09/steam-summer-sale-2018-date-leaked/

With everything going on sale all the time and the last few Steam sales being meh it’s hard to get hella-excited.
Maybe I’ll get some of the games I’ve asked for keys and the devs/publishers never replied

Mobile Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/steamlink/about
https://store.steampowered.com/news/39998/

And now you know why the Link was on fire sale.
“Wi-Fi or LTE”
- Hope you have a good mobile plan and home internet connection
Wonder if we will see Android tablets with built-in Steamy nipples.
- Do we really want SmachZ tablets?
- A lot of people do.
- Well, they want what the SmachZ promised almost a half decade ago and has never delivered.
I guess you’re gonna need to get a USB otg adapter for that steamy controller
Maybe we’ll see a blueteeth capable areola controlla
- Pfffft!

Well.. duck, fu*k it!
https://steamcommunity.com/games/353370/announcements/detail/2503317299191608387
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7728-QESJ-4420

It fucking works
The magic of software defined radio

Steamy bounty
https://hackerone.com/valve

It’s better than getting you account banned.
6 fucking years later
Some of those out of scope bugs don’t sit right with me
- Yeah
One that jumped out at me is the physical access one.
How about those internet cafés running Steam for multiple people?
You’d think that’d be a significant risk vector which would warrant good security practices, no?

Sauce on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/9035867-Open-Source-Community/

Since we mentioned open source projects on Steam last week.
THAR list.
19 is a much higher number than o would have guessed
Although krita and a few other open source content creation tools are on the list too.
TIL Krita is on Steam.

Campo Update
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/05/09/exclusive-campo-santo-talk-to-us-about-moving-to-valve/

So Campo Santo still exists, but firewatch and the employees belong to valve
May Valley of the Gods not end up like Half-Life 2: Episode 3
Don’t worry, they won’t tell them their new full time jerb is making hats until the third month.

Darkest colour
http://www.darkestdungeon.com/the-color-of-madness-releases-june-19th/

This is headed straight for the crapper.
- You have no idea
A horse based wave mode is a fantastic idea if you feel you’re going to live too long and want to shave some years off your life

Rocket pass
https://www.rocketleague.com/news/rocket-league-roadmap-summer-2018/

Getting a new arena this month.
Create cross-platform parties with the new user ID #.
Rocket Pass == loot box?
https://imgur.com/3iokUwP
- Hybrid loot box and cs:go style pass where you get season specific event access and rewards.
They say you can still unlock these for free but if you want to pay, for a flat fee you get everything.

Savage
https://steamcommunity.com/games/307880/announcements/detail/3357875332836354082

After three years in Early Access it’s time to release the game come up with an excuse to keep it in Early Access.
This “update” only comes after a recent influx of reviews pointing out that the game has been abandoned for some time.

Ever out
https://store.steampowered.com/app/396750/EVERSPACE/

This is the closest thing to PARSEC I will ever get.
Admiditally it looks nice and seems to perform well.
Me and roguelike elements don’t mix well.
It’s very pretty!
The combat takes some getting used to, unless you’re used to the 6 DoF gameplay.

Residente del Mal
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1157848998

Anyone manage to get this working?

Pillows of Deadfire II
https://store.steampowered.com/app/560130/Pillars_of_Eternity_II_Deadfire/

You can import your POE1 character in true SSI gold box tradition
Still gotta fucking finish that first one dammit
So far the only major complaint I’m hearing about the game is that the ship combat is a CYOA novel
That whole finishing the first one bit is gonna take some time.

HL3
https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamsofhalflife3/comments/8hnosh/official_project_borealis_update_3/

One of the many Half-Life projects that will be finished before Xen.
The real tragedy here is that you’re going to have a ton of passionate fans putting in a ton of work and it’s probably gonna suck
They’re not taking monetary donations but are looking for people to help with a few areas of development.
Seeing what money does to certain fan projects, that’s probably a good choice!

News:

Team Blue
https://www.techspot.com/news/74532-intel-rumored-unveil-discreet-gpu-ces-2019.html

We need this so hard I can taste it.
That said, 2019 seems a wee optimistic.
NVIDIA could do with some competition.
Also, having a Intel GPU with AMD CPU will short circuit fanhumans.
- Wanna bet there’s gonna be some scummy Intel shit requiring it to have a specific chipset for non crippled performance?
- Oh no doubt they would love to do that but even Intel knows you can’t pull that shite when entering into a new market segment.
I’m betting these are going to be a lot more enterprise/machine learning focused than straight y0l0 gaming cards
- Though I can imagine, seeing how the Nvidia Titan V performs with gaming, that is also well within the scope.
Though, with Intel’s resources and people they’ve picked from the industry, I think they could and probably will release a gaming GPU.
It’s going to be great in single-threaded loads and suck at Vulkan.

Thanks Jordan
https://wccftech.com/873853-2/

1080 Ti performance for $499.
Without fail
And the 1180 supposedly faster than the Titan Xp

HiDPI
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/05/07/unity-2018-2-beta-whats-new/

Added Vulkan support in the Unity Editor on Linux.
HiDPi on the editor and new particle effects and camera tweaks.

Heretic Vulkan
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases/tag/v0.50

Huh, they’re fixing Witcher 3 bugs
I still have that copy that came with my 980. I should give it a whirl
If you use Lutris, getting some of the games which don’t work in WINE or even WINE Staging is just a click away.

Wesnoth LIVES!!1!
https://www.wesnoth.org/start/1.14/

They finally moved to SDL2.
Frabulous day!
They’ve added a 4k

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Trailblazers
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/621970/Trailblazers/
Devel: Supergonk
Engine: Unity
Price: £29.99 / US$29.99 / CA$33.99

Wazzat: Trailblazers is an innovative co-operative racer with groundbreaking on-track gameplay. Racing in teams of up to three-versus-three, players paint the track to create the best racing line, then use that paint to boost up to insane speeds. Drive with flair and style to gain skill points and blaze your way to victory!

Mandatory Disclosure: The publisher, Rising Star Games, sent us keys

Makes with the working

Venn-

Main mechanic is broken on Linux.
- Still broken after the patch.
- Wonder why your boost is so irregular?
- Because it’s showing painted track where there is none.
Does not save resolution settings.
- This has been resolved.
- I TAKE THAT BACK.
- It now defaults to 1080p on the main menu but everything in-game is 2160p.
Resets player’s option configurations and save data.
- Also, resolved.
Performance
- Has yet to dip below 60 @1080 with everything on 11.
- 30 @ 2160 /w the crusty, old, 980.

Jordan-

60 ferps @ UHD on the 1080ti. Although it better

Pedro-

They put out a Patch on Friday which fixed the issues with not saving configs or progress.
Yes, this game wouldn’t save progress when it was released.
I didn’t have the issue with track painting just happening without having to hit A

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

Venn-

If you ever wanted to know what would happen if Borderlands fuc*ed a flying car.
Don’t know why but the soundtrack reminds me of SEGA Dreamcast.
That, or the late 90’s in general.
Each character has one or two lines that they repeat ad nauseum.

Jordan-

I keep saying cell shading helps hide a lot of the flaws in a games visuals
Soundtrack has wub

Pedro-

I can, and – spoilers – will, leverage a lot of criticism at this game
But the graphics look nice.
Granted, they look nice if you’re just wooshing along.
The moment you see any type of animation to or around your ship, that falls flat on its head.
The sounds are also on par with generic racing game #26’543’739 the likes of which Steam is infested with.

Total-

Control

Venn-

ZErO keyboard / gerbil support.
Steam controller works OOTB and things respond accordingly.

Jordan-

Played it with the blueteeth paired areola controlla

Pedro-

Changing controller layout with Big Picture makes fuckin’ all difference.
No rebindable controls
No way to change it even by setting a different layout through Steam.
No keyboard support
Accelerate is R2(RT) and paint is A.
For someone without fingers in his right hand, this game was a wrist pain inducing experience.

Total-

FUN

Venn-

Single player has a few tracks (artificially inflated because they count mirrored and reversed as additional tracks) and some brain-dead AI.
Multiplayer is literally nonexistent.
I have cross-platform play enabled and will be leaving it in a lobby waiting on players until the prepre super showzen.
- Scratch that, the Steam conrolla times out after 15 minutes and you guessed it, nobody in the lobby, nada, not a single one.
The primary game mechanic “painting the track” is still borked on my end and several others.
It seems to be a rendering glitch causing the car to lay paint 24/7 but you can only get boost from the areas you have actually painted.
Later in the game boost is required to win and good luck telling what is (and is not) real.
No sense of speed and yeah, no speedo.
Now for this last part IMA need you to listen to me hard as you can, K?
You want $30 for this.
Do you know what $30 is?
Ten dollars more than fuc*ing Rocket League.
That’s what is is Brad, and at the end of the day (take that shot) it’s all that matters.
If / when you un-FK this game you might have a fun little derp around racer on your hands.
Something that could fall comfortably in the $9.99 price bracket and build a decent community.
Seriously whomever decided the pricing on this is incompetent or even worse, malicious.

Jordan-

A far as racist games go, this one’s alright
That’s really about all I can say
Paint the ground, go zoom zoom, slam into walls
The AI is dumb enough for me to beat it. Makes me feel smrt
Way more dialogue than I expected for a racing game
Makes me want to…Race through it
Real trailblazing humor right there

Pedro-

Playing this game caused me physical pain and forced me to consider that grippy mechanical claw thing that Tim mentioned in last week’s hatemail.
I don’t think it would have helped much but maybe it wouldn’t have been such a slap in the face of people like myself, with less than ideal right hands, to have an option to rebind the fuckin’ keys.
Remember when I wondered if it’d be to much to ask this game didn’t suck?
Well, I think they may have been listening and decided to make it the worst possible game for me, specifically.
Also, £30 isn’t the same as $30 US.
What the fuck kind of pricing model is that?

Total-

Final –

Hate Mail:

Bits
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?2WazC2e