Linux Game Cast 468: Full-Metal Panda

Linux reaches 1% in the Steam hardware & software survey! Playstation emulator RPCS3 enables support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), Back 4 Blood mysteriously works with ProtonGE, and a predictable end to the 3DFX announcement.

Special thanks to:
Linuxgnuru (mic arm form wishzone)
BASIL (twitch resub)

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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
06:45 Linux reaches 1% in Steam survey
09:25 Steam enables patch notes for developers
12:05 Back 4 Blood with Proton 6.14 GE
14:20 Carrot Heart
16:35 Jupiter Hell 1.0
17:55 Death Trash
19:50 The Cork Book I
21:10 Unbound: Worlds apart
24:15 Total War skin pack update
26:05 1 year of Hellpoint
28:25 Dead Cells training room
37:15 3DFX hoax conclusion
41:05 RPCS3 gets FSR
43:40 GCoC 2021 GODOT
45:45 Athenaeum v2.0.4
48:25 Dungeonz
49:30 Remembering Loki 20 years later
56:50 Review: Jupiter Hell
01:05:55 Emails

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

We are the 1%

1.0% for the first time in years.
Fairweather Linux fans showing up for the Gabe Gear party.
There’s a big bump in machines with 256mb of vram, which could indicate Virtual machines
Slight uptick in manjaro users, trying out that steamOS lite maybe?
People seem to be upgrading their Ubuntu boxen.
Will we be tracking SteamOS or Arch this time next year?

Patch notes!

So if you clicked on the release notes button on the update screen and it redirected you to the generic news page for the game was deliberate?
I was willing to blame game devs who care more about the money than their customers, but I think I need to blame VALVe’s own Steam devs who care more about the money.
The SteamDB dude took a rightful shot at them for finally adding this.

GE 6.14

It runs back for blood. Don’t ask eggy how
There’s a hotfix out for two games
I’ve been poking at some games with GE FSR, Fallout 4 at 1080p looks like native 1440p but running at 144Hz instead of 60 like if it was native.

Steam: New Games

Carrot Heart

Co-op roguelike with online multiplayer? Colour me intrigued
There’s some emphasis on position and terrain control too
A GTX 480 seems a little excessive as a min spec for a 2d game tho

Jupiter Hell 1.0

Played it on Tuesday for the stream.
Rocket launchers go splash splash
I deliberately avoided playing this until 1.0 was out.
Stay tuned for the chairs!

Death Trash

Hipster pixel Fallout with real-time combat now in Early Access.
Hopefully they add online multiplayer before they hit 1.0.
If the first DLC for this game is not titled Full-Metal Panda I will be disappoint.
I think we played a demo of this a while back?

The Cork : Book I

“draws inspiration from classic Metroidvania platformers (with a heavy emphasis on vania) and the deliberate, challenging combat of Souls-likes.”
- So it’s Salt and Sanctuary without the edgy art style.
Sounds a bit like it’s just a Simon’s quest remake.
That character sprite size is a wee on the small side.

Unbound: Worlds Apart

Remember Snapshot?
That portal traversal reminds me a lot of that mixed with Guacamelee.
Definitely has good art direction going for it.
It does look nice but is that the only mechanic?
I like a good Metroidvania but / puzzle game but you have to mix that business up.
Something Ori and Hollow Knight got all kinds of right.
Thais one simple track looks like it would become stale after a few minutes.

Steam: Game Updates

One last hurrah

Well, so much for Venn’s promise last week.
- That said, this was already in the pipe, so Feral’s just releasing what they got.
Guess the contrat wasn’t over, eh?
Did SEGA’s lawyer rock up to their emails and go “I’m sorry, what?”

1 year of Hell

Now with 100% less seizure sparkles.
There’s a tournament to see who the best cenobyte is.
My money’s on Jerry.

Cells make perfect

Practice mode so that you can figure out how to deal with problem enemies and bosses
But no surprise bosses.
Maybe I can finally beat the third boss!.

News:

3DFX #2

The thrilling conclusion.
This dude better two factor all his things.
His LOL JK ATI account noped as well.
He’s going around squatting on twitter handles.
That won’t end well
And the account is gone altogether.
This being the internet, anyone can say anything
There was a will to believe though.
A smart manufacturer might want to pay attention to that

PS3 FSR

I’m interested to see if this result in a substantial performance bump, especially when running at higher than native resolution
No 3D for ps3d
If you leave Demon Souls at 100% scaling (720p) and turn on FSR, it does look passable at 2560×1440, but the internal scaler looks better.
- https://i.imgur.com/osCl498.png
If you’re trying to PS3 on a laptop or a certain portable handheld device, you can probably PS3 at 60FPS.
This is going to help when playing on your GabeGear.

GSoC 2021 – Progress report #1

Five projects are getting GSOC contributions
- Implementing a DAP backend for debugging Godot projects by Ricardo Subtil (Ev1lbl0w)
- Adding pseudolocalization to Godot by Angad Kambli (angad-k)
- Improvements to Godot’s soft-body dynamics by Jeff Cochran (jeffrey-cochran)
- Automated graph layout in VisualScript & VisualShader editors by Umang Kalra (theoway)
- Command palette for the editor by Bhuvaneshwar (Bhu1-V)
Go read their progress reports, maybe help’em out

Athenaeum v2.0.4

This version is a return to form after a shark jumping last version.
The UI has been simplified and hopefully some of the bugs ironed out.
Still no plans to allow developers to sell games.
The “new” UI makes a hell of a lot more sense.
I mean, it looks like a launcher

Dungeonz

Browser based MMO
It’s intended to be an ongoing project so people have something to cut their game Dev teeth on

20 years of not loki

I would like to know once and for all what really went down.
The deets we get from that thread are more than enough to justify why Ryan didn’t want to talk about it on LWDW.
Ah the early 2000s internet boom.
We’re not gonna get another wild west like that for a good while

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Jupiter Hell
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/811320/Jupiter_Hell/
Devel: Chaosforge
Engine: Custom
Price: £19.49 / $24.99 / $28.99 (20% off until the 15th)

Wazzat: Jupiter Hell is a turn-based shooter from the depths of cosmic hell, built on a classic roguelike framework updated with modern 3d graphics. Rip and tear zombies, demons, and heavy metal monstrosities with chainguns and chainsaws. Like chess… with shotguns!

Mandatory Disclosure: Thanks to Evolve PR for the keys

Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

Sudo service lightdm restart.
It’s been a while since I had a game cock up my X session.
I tried it with Vulkan and OpenGL.
OpenGL fullscreened on the correct monitor, Vulkan, not so much.
I was able to window the Vulkan and move it and fullscreen to the correct display.
Then I cut on the FPS counter and played the tutorial.
Noticed I was dropping into the 40’s so I went to dial the resolution down to 1080.
Yeah, hold on to something.
OpenGL or Vulkan, changing resolution in fullscreen jacks up all the things.
Nope, fk that, it did it again when changing resolution in windowed mode.
Steam couldn’t kill the game, impressive.
Tapped the Proton button and this worked as expected.
What’s the deal between High and medium? Going from 47 to 72 at 2160p.

Fun?

I remember DRL being more… roguelike?
Jupiter hell is described as chess with shotguns but it feels like a twin stick shooter that was smacked rather lightly with the turn based stick.
Turns out making a shooty pew pew game top-down, roguelike, and turn-based is about two slices of sun dried tomatoes away from a nope sandwich.
Forcing me to drop to TTY twice didn’t help things.
Passable soundtrack, has that going for it.

Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

Launched OOTB
It causes some monitors to blink while fullscreening with compton
Yeah, make sure your controller is connected
It really likes to vibrate my ps4 controller, but it will work until you unplug it
The tileset is fine. I’d like a little more distinct protagonist though. Sometimes he blends into the background
The soundtrack is alright. A bit too generic metal for my taste

Fun?

Why is my mail in /var/mail/root?
The game itself is pretty fun.
There’s an emphasis on cover and running to get a better ranged vantage and that’s reflected in the weapons stats for min range, max range and effective range
One thing I’m a little lukewarm on is the waiting mechanic
Basically, it encourages you to open the door, aggro all the baddies and run to a nice cover spot to pick them off, which would be great if most of the fights didn’t end up like that
Still, it’s a pretty solid roguelike. I’d argue they priced it a little too high at $30CAD, but if you’re a fan of the genre definitely pick it up when it goes on sale

Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

It launches out of the box.
Holds 144 at 1080p but at 2560×1440 it has some issues.
Uses 100% of the GPU doing it, too.
The graphics are isometric 3D and they do their job.
The music is pretty high octane, I like!
Only XInput controllers work, and it ignores Steam Input altogether.
And you have to plug the controller in before starting the game, otherwise it doesn’t work.
But it’s a roguelike, so you’re probably going to play it with the keyboard more often than not.

Fun?

Yes, yes it is.
It’s a better version of Doom The Roguelike without poking Bethesda’s lawyers, well Microsoft’s Lawyers.
It takes the base game and mechanics of DRL and puts them in an all new 3D engine with a pretty metal new soundtrack.
DRL was one of those games I always installed on every computer I use regularly, along with Fallout 2 and Soapbox Race World.
I can tell you I will be replacing DRL with Jupiter Hell on every single laptop that can run it.
I like it a lot and now that it has its own identity, even if it’s taking more than a few cues from Doom, it can stand on its own merits.
Good job, Chaosforge!
Controller support needs work but I do like what you have going on here!