LinuxGameCast Weekly 303: Poutine Samurai

Thrones of Britannia gets Vulkanized, Steam opens the floodgates, Paradox Plaza teases a Linux client and new games for GOG Connect. Then Visual Out faces the ChairQAsition!

All this, plus your hate mail!

Special tanks to:
Nine Bullets (new patreon)
Bithir (new patreon)
Orderly Unicode (returning patreon)

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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro


Steam News:

All welcome
https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1666776116200553082

  • Read “we can’t code our way out of it and too many people are complaining about whatever we implement.
  • Therefore our only remaining option is to do nothing until someone threatens to call the cops”
  • Oh FK right off, VALVe.
  • You had a system where people could vote games off the island and you ditched it.
  • Since then it has been proven that anyone with a few $$$ can get their game on Steam.
  • And if your internal system is not automated like you claim ya’ll motherfu*kers just damn incompetent.
  • If you’re willing to be the wall people throw shit at to see what sticks, Valve, more power to you.
  • If you choose to double down on the hands-off approach, don’t be surprised when shit hits the fan and you get some of it in your mouth.
  • Part of me likes this idea.
  • I really don’t get the “we’re letting everything in” bit.
  • You, already, did.

Make up your damn mind
https://www.pcgamer.com/aids-simulator-and-other-games-removed-from-steam-valve-clarifies-trolling-policy/

  • Well that trolling “clause” was a bit vague.
  • Besides, I wonder how long VALVe will keep up the pretense when someone finally takes to court over something to do with shitty products being sold on their store.
  • We’re letting everything in unless it’s illegal or violates this vague BS trolling clause.
  • I mean, I don’t think anyone’s gonna miss this batch of games
  • Still, trolling is ambiguous and they’re going to lean into that ambiguity.
  • If enough people complain, they’ll probably do something about it
    • Pretty much valve’s modus operandi these days anyways
  • I like to think JFSS’s “VALVE endorses AIDS Simulator” video had a little to do with this.

Polski jęz
https://steamcommunity.com/games/617480/announcements/detail/1655516030150417160

  • They seem to be listening to what players have been complaining about.
  • Though they don’t seem to be changing the walls of text out for some actual CG scenes and player character animations.
  • But did they sort the performance?

Thrones of Fish & Chips
https://store.steampowered.com/app/712100/Total_War_Saga_Thrones_of_Britannia/

  • On behalf of the Linux gaming community, meh.
    • ^
  • Again with the Intel only system requirements.
  • I’m sure there is a market for these sorts of games
    • We are not them tho
    • That’s the thing. Brad.
    • The three of us like radically different games but can all agree hells to the nope on this genre.
  • Once again I find myself pondering whether the overlap is worth it or if that engine port just makes these piss cheap.
  • Mac/Lin multiplayer so only pick this up if you like playing in forever alone mode.
  • This one has been met with mixed reviews because they nerfed it down to “streamline the gameplay” and (as always happens) pissed off the core fanbase.

Mesozoic Park DLC
https://www.rocketleague.com/news/jurassic-world-car-pack-dlc/

  • I Kinda like that Rex goal.
    • I wonder how much performance jank we’ll see from that.
  • The Jurassic World Jeep Wrangler uses the Octane hitbox.
  • Whar Jeff goldblum bobble head topper and accompanying sound pack?

Free ones
https://store.steampowered.com/app/670350/The_Free_Ones/
https://farsky-interactive.itch.io/the-free-ones

  • This looks a lot like that game we tossed the Chairs at a few months back.
  • It looks like Valley, but with much less production value to the trailer.
    • Oh, it plays a lot like Valley as well.
  • Hopefully the game will be good.

Soda Girls
https://store.steampowered.com/app/519080/Soda_Girls/

  • 2d sprites on a 3d background. My eyes bleed
    • Eeeeeh I would say 2.5D.
  • Not gonna fault the guy (English is hard) but this seems like the store page was written by google translate
  • Looks like a well done little brawler (and take a shot) without online multiplayer.

Aragami: Nightfall
https://store.steampowered.com/app/771720/Aragami_Nightfall/

  • We talked about it before, but it’s out now.
  • If you liked the base game, get ready for more ninja shenanigans. Shenaninjas?
    • Ninjanigans
      • Oh, say this aloud on the show.

News:

Stable
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/134859/en-us

  • Hey! Wine fixes.
  • Say what you will about nvidia’s open source track record but they do fix their damn bugs
  • Quite a few crash fixes in this one. Makes sense for the stable branch
  • Hopefully we’ll get back to proper NVidia drivers soon.
  • These past few releases have been on par with AMD’s FGLRX.

420 Vulkan
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/8osbac/vulkan_in_unreal_engine_420_shows_huge_30_gains/

  • Vulkan in Unreal Engine 4.20 shows huge (30%+) gains for AMD over DX11
  • Unfortunately, these are windows only, so no real notion of what this means for Linux users on AMD cards beyond speculation
    • But this is Linux fuck mothering game cast.
    • Baseless speculation is our bread and Mayo
    • What this does is gets developers looking into Vulkan.
    • Especially those wanting to make up the AMD / NVIDIA performance delta.
    • Trickle-down rendernomics.
  • In other shocking news, sky reportedly still blue.
  • I wonder what the next excuse for the shoddy Linux support will be?

The PPSSPP Hello
https://www.ppsspp.org/#news

  • A whole whack of vulkan performance improvement and prime time support on the SDL builds
  • Opengl is now multithreaded, much to the joy of mac gamers everywhere.
  • A bunch of mobile improvements, mainly centred around a better aarch64 JIT compiler.

Coming soon for Linux?
https://play.paradoxplaza.com/

  • Like, before or after Carmageddon Reincarnation?
  • I would have used GOGGalaxy as an example but that’s a bit unrealistic.
  • Welcome to the brave new world ladies and gents.
  • Every studio with a few games under their belt will be testing the Steam-free waters.
  • With the shitetastic way Steam has been acting as 3004of late can’t say I blame them.
  • Yeah, this is what happens when the monopoly no longer offers the best experience.
  • Wouldn’t hurt Steam to get something in way of competition and if GOG doesn’t step up, Paradoxx has a big enough Linux line up to make it worth considering.

New Connect offers
https://www.gog.com/connect
https://www.reddit.com/r/GameDealsMeta/comments/8oh4xi/new_games_have_been_added_to_gog_connect/

  • FTL, Psychonauts, Jotun and A Machine for pigs.
  • Joton, Grimlock.
  • Note: I had to set my games profile on Steam to public?
  • Well, it bitched about it but added the games anyway.

Open Star Seeds
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/8ocemc/seed_of_andromeda_and_vorb_engine_are_now_open/

  • Now with 100% less Kevin Sorbo
  • The devs of this open source planet explorers style game got too busy to maintain it so they’ve released everything they can under the MIT license
  • Compiling it on Linux may or may not work according to the dev.
  • It was sorted once, but things have changed since then
  • Dev says the code was mid refactor when they decided to open it, so a lot of it commented out.

GPD Win 2
https://plus.google.com/+flibitijibibo/posts/XwfpN313VpX

  • I can’t get over the sticker shock.
  • I want one but it’s 100% something I would tinker with for an afternoon and never use again.
  • 3 lines of “copypaste code” as Flibit put it and now the GPD Win 2 works ootb for the Linux, or it will once that code reaches the mainline kernel.

CHAIRQUISITION:
CHAIR– Nooope

CHAIRCHAIR– Not sure if want

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Check it out

CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Visual Out
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/675910/Visual_Out/
Devel: MadameBerry Games
Engine: Construct 2
Price: £6.99 / US$9.99 / CA$10.99

Wazzat: As a program defying your operating system’s wishes, plunge into the depths of a dying computer, and augment yourself with data-scrambling abilities like the Jammer, Current, Turret, and more. Uncover the secrets behind the computer’s – and its creator’s – demise.

Mandatory Disclosure: Dev sent us keys


0 Does it FKN Work (does it even launch, bro) ✅ | ❌

  • Venn:
  • Jordan:
  • Pedro:

1 Performance @ 1080

  • Venn:
    • 2D pixel and does not work with overlay but no noticeable jank.
    • If you can load Facebook you can play this game.
  • Jordan:
    • Don’t play it on your raspi
  • Pedro:
    • It runs well enough.
    • Then again, this is an HTML5 engine.

2 Graphical Fuckery (black screens, missing textures / windowing / multi-monitor issues)

  • Venn:
  • Jordan:
  • Pedro:

3 Control Fuckery (non-rebindable / non-working)

  • Venn:
    • Oh, this is a hot damn mess.
    • If you try to rebind the controls it inputs gibberish… and saves.
    • Yeah, I had to button mash to get out of the configure menu and decrypt the button mashing in order to reset it because FK ALL if I could locate where it stored the config.
  • Jordan:
    • Yeah, didn’t grok the steam input DS4. Fortunately you can remap the control s
    • After that, everything is fine
  • Pedro:
    • I didn’t try to rebind the controls because the 8bitdo controller worked fine.

4 Fuckery Fuckery (hard-nopes and the like)

  • Venn:
    • F12 brings up the Devel Tools Chrome extension.
    • That’s a new one.
  • Jordan:
  • Pedro:
    • Game doesn’t save progress when you shut it down.

QA Score:

Fedora: CHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIR
Soulless:CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR
Ubuntu:CHAIRCHAIRCHAIR


Fun section: (Catch all) Were the controls good, graphics pretty, nice sounds etc.

Hate:

  • Venn
    • Forced me to play with the keyboard.
    • I can’t platform using a keyboard, my brain-organ is no longer wired for that.
    • No quick way to access the map.
    • Several fake walls that lead to nothing.
    • Guess you get something to sort that later on.
    • Severely limited by the Construct 2 engine.
  • Jordan
    • This game really doesn’t give you much to work with
    • You can make the argument that most metroidvania’s don’t really start you out with much in teh way of information, but at least they have clearly established combat mechanisms
    • This is “Find a glowy ball that kills both you and the enemies” and drag them to the enemies, which will often involve putting the thing that kills you directly in your path
    • Also not very helpful is the whole not showing your health thing
    • You unlock other ways to interact with the environment, but they’re a little esoteric
  • Pedro
    • I couldn’t save progress. It would nuke my save every time I quit.
    • I guess you could just finish it in one sitting
    • But that leads me to the other point I hate about this game.
    • The graphics are kinda meh.
    • Which is disappointing.

Hate least:

  • Venn
    • I dig the look, and the minimalist but fitting soundtrack.
    • Has a Axiom Verge on a budget vibe to it and that’s not a bad thing.
    • Lot’s of bullsh*t to explore.
    • Not horrid for something that came out of a game jam but it’s too bare bones to justify the $9.99 price tag.
  • Jordan
    • I’m torn when it comes to the visual aesthetic. Sometimes it feels genuinely inspired, other times it feels kinda lazy
    • Once you get it in your brain that you can’t really fight things, it gets a little better. Until you need to fight things
    • It really does make sense that this came out of a game jam. Experimental stuff like this has to thread a needle of complexity
    • And it isn’t horrible
  • Pedro
    • I like Metroidvanias and this very much fits the bill.
    • I really liked the atmosphere.
    • The music really helps and the background noise of random computery bleeps, bloops and old hard drives spinning up adds to the atmosphere.
    • Honestly, I wouldn’t have an issue recommending this game if only I’d been able to save progress.

Fun Score:

Venn: CHAIR
Jordan:CHAIRCHAIR
Pedro: CHAIRCHAIR


Hate Mail:

Valve takedowns
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?NSEJSQy

WINE uses
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?SxMhruO

Disgaea 2 Review
https://linuxgamecast.com/bradley/?wNc6I4m

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