LinuxGameCast Weekly 330: Tentacle With a Handgun

Steam Winter Sale dates leak! New games come to GOG Connect, Unvanquished gets a nifty launcher, and why the Epic store is not so epic for Linux gamers.

Special thanks to:
nybbles (latest patreon)
MikeG (vixia cam from our wishzone)


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Morning zoo radio thinly disguised as a Linux gaming podcast. Whether you're a seasoned Linux gamer or just starting out, we have something for everyone. So join us on our journey into the world of Linux gaming!


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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro


Steam: News

SALE!

  • I hope Nair Anemic Tarantino finally goes on sale.
  • I think a great deal of people only do it for the cards and the badges these days.

 

RIP Linux gaming

  • This sucks for a gang of reasons.
  • The main one being developers who release Linux ports going Epic only.
    • This is the big one
    • Supergiant almost exclusively uses FNA for their games so linux support is trivial, as it was for Bastion, Transistor or Pyre, and Hades is gonna be Epic store only, at least for a while
  • They have a 2019 roadmap that dares not mention the L word.
  • Discord just went 90/10 in a “hey, remember us” play. . and to their credit one of the devels said Linux would eventually be a thing.
  • Android is linux, right you guise?
  • I want Steam to see some competition, but that competition needs to happen on Linux for me to give a damn.
  • I get that game developers don’t like the 70-30 split, but I like Linux games and this isn’t doing it.

 

There is no 3

  • They know it drives people bananas
  • It’s actually kinda sad if you think about it. Valve can’t put little easter eggs in anything anymore without everyone going tinfoil hat.
    • I wish I could dry my tears on their pile of money
  • Better to quit while you’re ahead, right?
  • It’s not like Artifact has blown anyone’s mind.

 

Proton Update

  • 28 new games added.
  • Looks like they are working on better .net support.
  • Flibit’s Faudio changes have made it into proton as well, so your Fallouts should have better sound?
  • Better support for embedded Chromium-based web browsers. Games and launchers that contain an embedded web browser may now work better.
    • Electron through wine makes me itch
  • Fallout 4 has become very freezy with 3.16-5.
    • Scratch that, deleting the Proton folders and forcing Steam to redownload 3.16-5 seems to have fixed the issue.

 

Iron Price

  • Considering this week I saw someone drop $300 on the chance of getting some competitive magic cards, this honestly isn’t too bad
  • I wonder if artifact will ever have phenomena like black lotus or Jace the Mind Sculptor
  • That’s not bad at all, if you’re alright with spending $220 on a videogame.
  • Which I’m not!

Steam: Game Updates

1.1

  • Member how I (and everyone elks) said it was going to eat poo?
  • Well, I’m not saying it’s eating poo… but it’s averaging 8/9K players per hour.
  • They added a couple short tournament modes to keep people actually playing engaged
  • Also improved forever alone mode
  • It’s a niche market to start with and tying to DotA doesn’t really help.
  • That and most of those people who stopped playing were probably only there to see what the hell this new VALVe game was.
  • And now they’re off to some other new thing.

 

Ho ho RUN!

  • Want to see how bad you really are at this game? Join the christmas tournament
  • You could win a jingle trail for you runner, or entry into another tournament

 

Distance Nexus

  • A new mini campaingn.
  • 6 new tracks.
  • Reindeer car decorations.
  • It’s the Christmas thing, again!
  • Only this time, it brings another forever alone campaign.

Steam: New Games

Clean the mess

  • It was only a matter of time before the lampoons started coming in
  • This is the developer’s third tycoon game
  • Can you do a better job than valve?

 

Godly Corp

  • Whar spaghetti dlc?
  • It launches but has some rough edges.
  • Thanks for sending over seom copies, will take a look.

News:

New GOG connect games

  • Yoinked Abe’s Oddysee, Shadowrun Dragonfall and Trine.
  • Got the rest of the shadowrun games and the first trine
  • I have no mouth and I must scream is on the list, if you’re a big fan of existential horror
  • Full Throttle Remastered is/was free.

 

Progressive light

  • Only explicit linux callouts are you can now edit your games using a visual studio code plugin and a promise that their progressive lightmapper will eventually make it to linux and OSX
  • One of the two Linux mentions is Visual Code Studio!
  • If wasn’t already halfway down bald avenue I’d be pulling my hair out.

 

Linux 1’st

  • There was another small indie studio that was doing this as well
  • It’s all well and good, the main problem is unless you’re developing on Godot, it’s a bit of a hard ask
  • Unity and UE4 linux builds of the development environment aren’t feature complete and most larger studios are still leaning on directX for graphics, input, sound etc
  • I’m all for devs getting more money, but you’ll be hard pressed to see me looking for games outside of Steam or GOG if the Waxing Gibbous is a particular shade of orange.
  • And like me there are many people who can’t be assed to go look for games anywhere outside of their usual places.
  • Hell! Console players get all their games from ONE single retailer, the platform holder.
  • This won’t be very effective in the short run and less so as time goes by and people forget.

 

Space Opera

  • 2D mission-based space shooter, based on the Battle for the Solar System space opera novel trilogy.
  • Compiles easily enough
  • Gameplay kinda reminds me of asteroids, but with people shooting back at you
  • It’s Asteroids… with a story!

 

Area 51

  • Fancy new launcher to update and download the game.
  • Along with gameplay changes, a little cleanup and they have done some backend work on asset management.
  • Hey! Launchers are good!
  • Launchers mean, whenever I see the icon out the corner of my eye, I can always click it and check to see if there’s anything new!

Tippy Taps

  • Frets on fire, eat your heart out.
  • Hey look, Fedora build instructions.
  • It’s a stepmania clone, so it’s DDR for people who don’t like to go outside
    • The pulseaudio application sink is called stepmania
  • I watched some people play this on the Tubes… I don’t have enough fingers.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Oxenfree
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/388880/Oxenfree/
Devel: Night School Studio
Engine: Oxenfree (Unity)
Price: £14.99 / US$19.99 / CA$21.99

Wazzat: Oxenfree is a supernatural thriller about a group of friends who unwittingly open a ghostly rift. You are Alex, and you’ve just brought your new stepbrother Jonas to an overnight island party gone horribly wrong.



Venn:

Does It Launch

  • Launches.

Performance @ 1080

  • 60 @ 1080 & 2160.

Graphics

  • Windowed and fullscreen work.

Control

  • No issues with the Steam Controlla OOTB.


Jordan:

Does It Launch

  • ja

Performance @ 1080

  • It perform

Graphics

  • The art style kind of reminds me of a lot of canadian animation coming out of Quebec and Vancouver in the early aughts

Control

  • I grabbed the GOG version cuz I didn’t grab it when it was on sale on humble
  • Dualshock has a bunch of buttons mismapped
  • Keyboard and mouse works fine

Pedro:

Does It Launch

  • Launches both on this box and the SteamBox 360

Performance @ 1080

  • There’s a whole lot of not much of anything on screen so even a Ryzen 2400G with its Vega 11 can push this at 1080p60
    • GalliumHUD if you’re wondering how to get a FerPS counter on SteamOS/Big Picture.

Graphics

  • There are teeny tiny characters on screen for most of it.

Control

  • Steam Controlla, 8bitdo SNES Pro and Dual Shock 4 all work.
  • Bonus soda for not having actual key prompts.

QA Score:

Fedora:
Soulless:
Ubuntu:


Fun section:

Fun?:

  • Venn:
    • I want to preface this by reminding everyone I both dislike children and choose your own adventure book games.
    • This (when you boil it down) is an adventure book game.
    • Night School Studio did a great job with it.
    • It runs well, controller works, looks pretty, has organic conversations.
    • However it quickly became apparent I give negative FKS about teenagers going to an island and dealing with spoopy shite.
    • I lasted 43 minutes, right up to where the game forced me to do something stupid.
    • As far as gaming, the only gaming element I could find was tuning the radio to trigger an event that furthered the story.
    • Sorry not sorry but if you don’t dig games like Gone Home you’re Drunk, Life is Strange and the like, Oxenfree will not change your mind.
    • P.S. I want to live in this world where THC infused brownies kick in around the 3min mark.
  • Jordan
    • In have a pretty low tolerance for teenage drama, and this game made the unfortunate misstep of frontloading a lot of it, which made me not really care
    • That said, once you power through the introduction, the drama bits are far between, and you get to determine how much of an asshole you are to your step brother
      • I was the biggest asshole
    • I am, however, a sucker for a good mystery
    • Oxenfree has a decent one. Lots of little scraps of information are everywhere and it’s fun for me to try and put it together
    • And I gotta say, unlike Gone Home, it does something with the atmosphere and spoopernatural stuff
    • The gameplay elements are a wee lacking though. Your walk cycle is painfully slow and exploring takes forever
    • The radio bit is a little interesting, but it basically boils down to doing sweeps until your screen starts glowing red
    • All and all, if you like FMV games or mysteries, you might get something out of it
    • People looking for more traditional games aren’t gonna dig it.
  • Pedro
    • I mention time and time again that games, in my opinion, should be about the mechanics.
    • Oxenfree right off the bat feels like a bare skeleton of game mechanics, which are there just to qualify this is in fact a video game.
    • The meat here is in the story and the dialog choices you make as you go along.
    • I can see why the first bit of the game wouldn’t punish you for making one choice over another and I do get the sense that, after the little supernatural event, that’s the point where choice starts to matter.
    • The core mechanic here is the dialog and how what your character decides changes what other characters say and do.
    • I have trouble relating to teenagers in the real world, let alone virtual ones.
    • I’m not saying the dialog here is as bad as Life is Strange, because it isn’t!
    • It’s actually much better and the characters all feel like they have their own thing going on.
    • And your protagonist isn’t just a pair of teenage pants for you to don.
    • I play videogames for what they can show me, not for what they call tell me.
    • And there’s a lot of telling rather than showing in Oxenfree.
    • I care much more about the supernatural and weird elements here than I do over the petty squabbles of teenage 1s and 0s.
    • Unfortunately, when the focus is on the teenagers my interest was kinda lost.

Fun Score:

Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:

  • I’d love to see more games with a similar magical radio tuning mechanic, which affects the rest of the world.

Hate Mail:

DLC

  • Ya get 5. Period?
  • Does the DLC have a penguin icon next to it?

FIG

  • We need to see something come out of FIG that isn’t that Fortnite rip off
  • Yeah, CRAZY JUSTICE soured me on Fig.
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