Linux Game Cast Weekly 447: Atari Feces

On this week’s show Steam deletes CS:GO, Audacity begins work on new ATARI 2600 titles, Microsoft drops some code into Mesa, Star Trek New Worlds gets open-sourced, and a new FMV game for Linux in 2021. Then Hover faces the ChairQAsition. All this, plus your hate mail.


Listen:


Download:


Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
05:58 CS:GO deleted from Steam
08:33 Remote Play unsupported games
11:08 Proton Experimental VR
13:28 Avorion 2.0
15:28 Skul 1.1.0
17:08 Dark Side of the Moon
20:03 Draw & Guess
21:18 Plugs & outs of shout
25:03 Microsoft adds code to Mesa
26:48 Porting Machinery to Linux
30:18 New ATARI 2600 games
32:28 Pi powered Stream Decks
36:08 AYA NEO funded
40:13 Yorg 0.11.1
41:38 Star Trek new Worlds source released
43:03 Minecraft: Pi Edition: Reborn
46:03 Review: Hover
58:13 Hate mail


Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

Whoops

  • Someone had a minor heart attack and likely almost shit their pants.
  • No official statement but they dod tweet out a whoopsie.
  • Hanlon’s Razor seems to come into play.


RemotePlayWhatever

  • I wonder how single player apps handle input.
  • Is it wicky-wicky wild wild west?
  • Curious what kinds of shite shows you can cook up with this.
  • This would make playing multiplayer emulator games without network support that much easier.
  • Assuming you’re not crossing the ocean.


Proton Experimental

  • They’re trying their damndest to get that dualsense working
  • Better VR support, cuz Proton’s the only way you can use that Vive or Index on linux outside of Alyx
  • With Proton Experimental the Dual Sense is actually properly mapped, even with games that have a native Linux version that has the face buttons improperly mapped.

Steam: Game Updates

Avorion Update 2.0

  • Spaceship pew pew minecraft now gets a free play mode
  • Free-form play and an easier way to learn new space recipes.
  • Those are good for both new and old players!


Skul 1.1.0

  • They added a whole shitton of new items
    • Including Pot of Greed. BUT WHAT DOES IT DO?
  • Localization fixes and now most of your controllers will work at the title screen.
  • New NPC that will sell you some business.
  • Bunch of bug fixes that I never made it far enough into the game to experience. .
  • But does it let you select an alternate skull of the ones you’ve unlocked to start with, or is that still random from the wolf person you rescue?

Steam: New Games

The Dark Side of the Moon

  • FMV in 2021!?
  • Bold choice.
  • At least the cinematography looks half decent.
  • There was already an FMV adventure game from 98 called Dark Side of the Moon: A Sci-Fi Adventure developed by SouthPeak Interactive.
  • What the shit?
  • Oh shit, they got inspector jenks
  • These guys have been making FMV games for a couple years now, this is their new one


Draw & Guess

  • Online PVP.

News:

Direct Mesa

  • Sparse texture support means Valhalla on AMD finally maybe
  • Big performance bump for RDNA2 Cards
  • Microsoft got some DX12 code for WSL in here too. It’s the future you know


Porting The Machinery to Linux

  • This is a new, plugin based engine in development
  • It uses vulkan
  • This blog post goes over how they implemented X windowing, clipboards and Alsa.
  • However, they didn’t need to do that.
  • They could have used SDL2.
  • Engine makers, please don’t re-invent the wheel!
  • Targeting X11 when Wayland is about to become a thing.
  • Seriously, Nvidia drivers should show up before months end.
  • ALSA (you don’t target alsa) instead of Pipe Wire.
  • Closed source and requires an account to tango.
  • Segfaults on Debian Bullseye.
  • I eagerly await a game developed with the Machinery engine


Audacity Games

  • So their ultimate goal is to make new games for old consoles
  • The 2600 seems like a bit of a strange place to start.
  • Have to imagine that it’s a small audience.
  • Then again, if they ship carts with boxes ze game hipsters will snatch them up.
  • Ayup, that’s who they are targeting.
    • CIRCUS CONVOY™ will be available as a Standard Edition for a low base price of $60, and as a Collector Edition at a higher price for those who want a low serial number and a digital download. The lowest 100 serial numbers are reserved for our rarified VIP Collector Edition that comes with additional limited-edition collectible items.”
  • Retro is cool, might as well!
  • Every release comes with a download of a digital version (with the same serial number) which is Stella emulator compatible.


Deck Pie

  • Pretty handy if you got a spare Pi and a touchscreen
  • Java on ARM man. It’s a real thing these days.
  • There’s an x64 client as well if you don’t have a spare Pi but laptop or chromebook.
  • There’s also an android client if you have an old phone kicking around!


People want it

  • I guess people really, really love the game gear.
  • Yeah, 2957% of $54,132 goal.
  • 1.6M with 25 days left.
  • Estimated shipping in May so these things are already made.
  • If the crowd-funding is just market research, then research says “Put it in my face!”
  • There’s a vocal group, small as it may be, that likes these kinds of handhelds.


Yorg 0.11.1

  • Panda3D has a new input system, so Yorg gets those improvements
  • Translations for French, Galician, German, Scottish Gaelic and Spanish
  • Improved networking!
  • Might be worth a redo of the race Venn and I did many years ago.


Star Trek new Worlds

  • I still really want someone to dump the source of Bridge Commander
  • This one is a strategy game that takes place after The Undiscovered country\
  • The game itself wasn’t too well received, being one of interplay’s more lackluster projects
  • Still, I expect to see it running on linux by the end of the month


Minecraft: Pi Edition: Reborn

  • Minecraft Pi Edition to Add Survival Mode, Multiplayer, And More.
  • They’re pulling out some of the dark hex editing arts to get at some of the features you get with the paid version
  • That will certainly make it more likely that people will play it
  • Rather than starting it once, realizing it’s only creative mode and going “Oh! It’s a first party minetest.”

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Hover
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/280180/Hover
Devel: Midgar Studio / Fusty Game
Engine: Unity
Price: £14.99 / $19.99 / $21.99

Wazzat: Experience the thrills of a fast-paced single and multiplayer Parkour game. Join the Rebellion and deride the security forces of an anti-leisure tyranny. Rise up to the many challenges of a futuristic Open World. Assemble your team, enhance your gear and perform incredible tricks and combos.



Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • It launches but the framerate is cinematic.
  • I had to slam it down to 1080 low in order to maintain 60 and that’s not a given.
  • Proton does nothing to help the issue.
  • I finished the tutorial and decided to take a break.
  • Came back to this nonsense.
  • All of the controls are locked out on this screen and guess what, the controller doesn’t work.
  • Yeah, no way out of it unless I blow out the config.
  • I’m not blowing out and resetting my pfref file every time I want to play.
  • Alright, if you manually set the controller to Xclone it works.
  • Still have to adjust the screen res and settings on each go.

Fun?

  • Welp, take this for what it is since I only played the tutorial twice and diced around in a few challenge races.
  • Sluggish controls, PS2 era graphics, and performance that would make a N64 blush.
  • Outside of that you jump around quite a bit and occasionally spray things with your handy can.
  • I guess this is something you can sit back and play mindlessly with a controller since it works rather well after you set it up.
  • Hover pulled in $116,398 from a 38K goal.
  • They did deliver the game in 2017 but dropped support a year later.
  • Jet Set Baguette could have been something fun and special but na.
  • At least they got the 30 FPS part right.


Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Can get into the menu, but can’t get into the game on the 5700xt. Crashes right as you load
  • Proton button fixes it
  • Works OOTB on nvidia
  • Bonus points for having cloud save implemented to the point where it don’t give a sghit, my save is synced
  • It likes that 1080P Window
  • Having tried the default mapping and wasd, I’d say go for wasd. Unfortunate
  • The soundtrack is okay. Could use a bit more variety of tracks

Fun?

  • It’s kinda okay as a chill out game
  • There are missions, but most of them are just excuses to run around and parkour
  • I ended up just cruising around doing tricks. I did a few missions, and they were okay. At some point you have to figure out how to get places quick and develop some skills
  • They get really repetitive after a while, but you gotta do them if you want more
  • I had more fun just running around tricking
  • It did get kinda boring after a while though. It’s got a shelf life of about 15-20 minutes a session, and to it’s credit, the missions definitely accommodate it

Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • It launched out of the box
  • Seems to not remember settings and keeps spawning in a 1080p window with medium settings.
  • The FerPS are anywhere between 144 and 70, even at 1080p medium.
  • Steam Input allows the DualSense and DualShock to work.
  • The iFYOO Pro ONE worked out of the box.
  • The UI is busy, to put it nicely.
  • And the music is repetitive and annoying.

Fun?

  • It is trying so hard to be Jet Set/Grind Radio and yet seems to miss the point completely.
  • The old game was massively popular because the chaining of tricks was forgiving but still felt awesome when you could chain massive combos.
  • Playing Hover makes me want to snap my controller.
  • The missions seem to be either parkour racing, trick chaining, or fetch quests.
  • And I couldn’t honestly tell you which one I dislike the most.
  • Trick combos would be nice if mysterious ghost inputs didn’t keep happening.
  • Random jumps, slides, immediate 180 turns, happening when those buttons are not pressed.
  • Even the settings don’t seem to like the game, as they keep getting reset every time you start it.
  • I mentioned earlier that the UI is busy, that doesn’t even begin to describe it.
  • And you’re highly encouraged and reminded constantly by the tutorial messages to use the scan ability, which, you guessed it, makes it even busier.
  • Schizophrenic comes to mind if I was asked to describe this game in one word.

Verdict:

Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:


Hate Mail:

NWN

NDI

HDMI

 

0 Comments

Leave Your Reply