LinuxGameCast Weekly 395: GNUclidean

Valve Index orders have reopened! Proton 5.0.4 fixes the GD Batman, Minigalaxy gets a pause button, and RIP GOG Downloader. Then Black Mesa faces, the CHAIRQASITION! All this, plus your hate mail!

Special Thanks to:
Cory (latest patreon)

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Timestamps:
05:25 Index orders reopen
08:30 Proton fixes Batman
10:55 Steam Labs patchnotes
12:55 Neverwinter Nights Dev build
16:05 Cobra Horse
17:40 Black Mesa co-op
21:15 Shameless self promotion
25:05 Drauger OS
28:40 Oculus Rift Linux support
31:20 RIP GOG Downloader
33:50 Minigalaxy
35:15 HyperRouge
38:05 GOverlay
40:50 TuxBuilder
42:00 CHAIRQASITION: Black Mesa
56:01 Hate Mail

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

Index orders have reopened

Comes with a free copy of Alyx
If you already own an index, you also get Alyx for free. I guess they really want people with VR headsets to try it
Granted, Alyx will make people buy an Index who would have never entertained the idea.
But how many of them are out there?

5.0.4

Gaddamn Batman works now.
The hook is available now and crouching won’t crash the game anymore.
Runs like poo but, yeah.
And it’s clear that it runs like poop for others.
Some fixes to the origin launcher to get it working. Now you too can play star wars dark souls
The one Linux using co-worker I know of tells me Monster Hunter is now playable on High graphical settings.

Steam Labs Patchnotes

Well, they’re clearly still working on older steamlabs stuff
The big one is that games now have their own news hubs
Also filthy tab openers like myself get better support. Yes valve! Embrace the disease!

Steam: Game Updates

Never Development

Having finished the 3 original campaigns on the previous development patch, I am very glad to see these fixes.
Especially the metamagic and the “No preparations left”!
Alphabetically sorting spells is also nice for…you know…finding spells

The A-cobra-tic

A new character, two new levels and four new ways to murder your friends!
Skateboarding snek is best snek
Apparently they also got the hug of death. Good for them. More people should play this game

Steam: New Games

Hello Mr. Freemans

Requires you to maybe set up a port forward
I wonder if any of this will go to synergy
- One can hope.
This is going to be hella broke but might be fun for a goof.

News:

The What OS Now Gaming

So it’s a desktop operating system that is to be used only for gaming?
SteamOS tried that approach and, despite being even more laser focused, it failed.
I can see the point of SteamOS, I’m one of the few apparently.
Heck, find me anything better than Fedora and I’ll run it on the Steambox.
This… this doesn’t seem to be it.

OVR

Because the one for GOG Galaxy worked, right?
I mean, facebook isn’t ridiculously anti-linux so it miiiiiiiiight work?
- I’m not holding my breath though
Still not sold on the VR thing.

RIP GOG Downloader

Now for sure that galaxy client is coming to linux. Right? Right?
Good thing lutris still works. Or I guess you could use the next thing
The downloader was only good for getting games with multiple files in one go.
Considering how most of the games I have on GOG fit in a CD, I’m not terribly worried
Not to defend GOG or anything but 6 years is plenty of fair warning.

Minigalaxy version 0.9.3

The new version lets you cancel and pause/resume downloads now!
They also have a babby overlay that lets you show FPS stats

non-Euclidean roguelike

If you’re into hyperbolic geometry, this game is for you
What interests me is the difficulty scaling. Each of the levels has a bunch of treasures you’re supposed to collect. The more you collect, the harder the game gets.
There’s a free version, but the paid version gets updated more frequently and will get new levels
The way the map moves, it fucks with my eyes

GUI Overlay

Don’t wanna prefix commands to use mangohud? This is a gui that has you covered
- I mean, not that it’s particularly difficult, but people seem to like clicky solutions
Linux needs more GUIs

Learning penguins

Learning by example is best learning.
This could help you get your platform on in GODOT.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Black Mesa 1.0
Devel: Crowbar Collective
Engine: Source
Price: £14.99 / $19.99 / $21.99

Wazzat: Relive Half-Life in this fan-made re-imagining.

Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

Works, all of it.
1080p, 2160p, on 11, well over 60.
Proton is equally performant.
The only catch being the OBS OpenGL capture issue.
It goes all blink-o-tron 9K like Portal 2.

Fun?

Welp, for the first time in a decade it’s safe to save your game.
At least I hope, seriously, that nonsense better be over and done with.
Have I ever mentioned that I’ve never played the OG Half-life, this week?
That’s important to know since I had no idea what I was in for, not even a little.
All I knew was that it involved a science human with a wicked goatee, armed with a crowbar, facing off against some particularly hostile seafood.
But that’s enough about my sex life, let’s focus on the game.
It’s HL-1 abridged with sparkly cowboy boots and a lacquered hairdo.
Everything needed to attract a modern audience and people desperate to relive the good bad old days of PC gaming, minus the bad parts …ish.
But at the end of the day it plays like a FPS from 1998…. With a HD texture pack and pretty lights.
Not to take anything away from the work that has been done, but that’s what Black Mesa is.
A MOD from 2012 that’s got a little out of hand.
I like the level and puzzle design and the challenging enemy AI, FK that AI, in a good way.
Hell, I’m on a road to Xen because I want to see what 5 years of work on a level looks like.
It better look like a milkshake.
If you never played the original but enjoyed HL-2 this is worth your moneybits.
It’s paced about the same, and will keep you engaged.
WHAR proper Synergy MOD.

Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

It seems to be equally performant at 1080P and UHD from a ferps perspective
UHD seems to have some herky jerk though, likely some frame timing issues as it seems to be proced by mouse movement
Also, the flashlight in some of the tight corridors don’t work too great sometimes
Controls like a half life should

Fun?

It half life
It a prettier looking half life with an updated engine, but it’s still fundamentally half life
It does seem like they’re taking the opportunity to massage out a few level idiosyncrasies from the original
It’s otherwise pretty faithful from what I’ve seen. All the crap I remember from my playthrough of it millions of years ago still seems to hold water
It’s a good way to experience half life for the first time if you haven’t played it for whatever reason
It’s good fun, but I’m not expecting to be surprised at least until you hit Xen, because they did re architect a bunch of it
I’m kinda hoping they do opposing force and blue shift. And of course the inevitable, potentially synergy fueled insane multiplayer.
- Think about it: What if gordon freeman was replaced by a dozen interns

Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

It launched
It remembered my control settings
I did notice some performance issues at 2560×1440.
For the most part, even with everything on 11 it held way above 200FerPS, almost hitting the 300FerPS cap of the Source engine.
There was one level, the one in Office Complex with the office filled with water and electricity, where at one point it came down to the 30s.
There was also a floating green circle, probably a light source, that was shining through solid walls.
There’s an aliasing bug that makes certain textures look bright red where they were supposed to be transparent around the edges of models.
It’s a bit rough in points but it does work and, glitches aside, looks very nice.

Fun?

The game said the last time I had played it was in November 2017.
Then it still ended just as you jump into Xen.
Playing it again and playing what is effectively a reimagining of the first Half-Life, it’s pretty fun.
I did notice that they made some of the levels smaller.
And I’m absolutely, 100% in agreement with that!
On a Rail was a chore to get through at the best of times and the first few levels in Unforeseen Consequences did drag out a little too long.
They changed the pacing and there is a lot less downtime now
The purists will hate it, but I very much enjoyed the new non-stop set piece to set piece pace.
It has the same “very hard to put down” quality like Half-Life 2.
It is buggy, but I did very much enjoy my time with it.
Including the times when I stopped to put some of the pickups on the physics objects and watched them go crazy.