Linux Game Cast 509: The QuadTim

Psychonauts 2 comes to Linux next week! Steam releases a patch for whiny Steam Decks, NVIDIA Image Scaling lands in Gamescope, and GoGodotJam 3 is underway!

Special thanks to:
Kraken (Inc Patreon Pledge)
Nubbn (24x ReSub Twitch)

Listen:

Download:

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
06:54 Steam Deck battery & time notifications
08:39 SteamOS (beta) reduces fan noise
11:34 NVIDIA Gamescope
14:04 Hovercars 3077
18:16 Old World
21:34 Fractal City
23:29 Serious Sam 4 Steam Deck support
32:14 Psyconauts 2 headed to Linux
36:36 Dolphin EMU progress report
42:54 Stone Kingdoms
45:00 DHEWM keyboard & Wayland updates
48:09 GoDot Jam #3
50:39 Review: Dungeon Reels Tactics
01:04:20 Emails

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

Time and status

Your battery is almost dead and you’re disconnected from the network.
BTW, you’re late for work.
Time on the lock screen is actually very useful if you happen to lay down on the couch fallen asleep and the Deck is the closest thing to hand.
You’d just end up smudging the screen to unlock it just to see the time.
Some fixes for the per-game perf profiles.
Per game profiles were loading the wrong FPS cap. Kind of a crucial fix there
No more unexpected pinch zooming

Better Fan

Updated fan controller for less brrr.
Can confirm, if you have a Dell Latitude 5410/5420 going nearby, you can’t hear the fan in the Deck anymore.
And can also confirm the white noise with KZ ZSN Pro X IEMs is gone.
Yeah, folks were complaining about that fan noise, so there’s your fix
- Or you could just use headphones

Nvidia Gamescope

NvidiaFX incoming.
I’mma need that to be on the Deck UI so I can smell the FSR vs NIS discussions I’ve been hearing about in the Windows world.
Well, on kernel 5.17.9 w/515 and the latest gamescope git, It does work nvidias
Cyberpunk performance is still a little poo

Steam: New Games

Underground racing

That hover looks a wee sus.
That’s the Need for Speed font.
Do you want to know what an EA trademark lawsuit looks like?

Old World

Somewhat appropriately this game may cause your GPU to be encased in a block of ice
Also unlike New World being an ARPG, old world is a 4x game. Same number of clicks, different intents

Fractal City

Maggie Robertson gonna sue somebody.
If you want to generate interest in your game follow the rules and include a moving picture.
If you only have shadows, you don’t need to pay a texture designer
Claims to be a short game, so i’m guessing you may be able to clear it under the 2 hour refund window

Steam: Game Updates

Serious Sam 4 now supports Steam Deck

Latest update added new GPU support.
And they tossed in some bonus SteamDeck.
It has been 18 months since the last update.
Anyone remember Fusion?

News:

Psycho 2

About. Damn. Time.
I love it when Microsoft releases a new Linux game.
Kinda excited about this one.
I enjoyed ¾ of the original.
Historically double fine has been very, very good to the linux folks. That dropped off over time, but it’s nice to see a return to form
Psychonauts 2 is UE4 tho, and we’ve seen some pretty rough ports. Hopefully this is a non-shoddy port

Dolphin update

Nintendo killed the Wii store servers and with it took down Dolphin’s ability to reliably get official system files for the system and when a specific game requires a specific system file to be used.
Knowing how hypocritically bass ackwards Nintendo is when it comes to emulation, I wouldn’t be surprised if the knowledge that it would hurt Dolphin wasn’t a factor in killing the servers as abruptly and as quietly as they did.
Disabling MMU by default on a specific trio of Disney games does fuck all for their performance
An Exynos SoC like what you’d find on the Galaxy S22 has no GLES drivers.
It’s actually using ANGLE to translate GLES software calls to Vulkan.
Part of me wants to applaud Samsung for making a Vulkan only phone.
But Dolphin works on that too, now.
Deck performance is promising
Stick with the flatpak installation
Solid OpenGL and Vulkan performance, however sometimes the CPU power governor may interfere with what dolphin needs. Keep the CPU in the 3-3.4ghz for best results

Stone Kingdoms

Love2D Based RTS inspired by stronghold
I had to look up what the latter half of that actually means. Then I saw the box art and realized this was a PC game I had passed over at EB hundreds of time
Build historical medieval settlements, do rts or economic stuff

DHWEM update

Support (hopefully) all keyboard keys on all kinds of keyboard layouts by using scancodes for otherwise unknown keys.
- That was always one of my major hangups with OG Doom3.
No more running as root.
Improved compatibility with Wayland.

GODOT JAM #3

Starts on the 27th of may. This one’s a twofer
The ultra version is solo only, 5 days long and has a bigger cash prize
Themes to be announced.
Usually it’s the Jams with the most constraints that produce the most interesting games/demos
Same as the variety you used to find from big name publishers and developers back in the day.
Instead of the repetitive sameness they shit out nowadays.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope
– Not sure if want
– Check it out
– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Dungeon Reels Tactics
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1901030/Dungeon_Reels_Tactics/
Devel: Grandma’s Basement Games
Engine: Unity

Price: £11.39 / $14.99 / $17.49

Wazzat: Dungeon Reels Tactics is a party-based, roguelike, with slot machines and puppet shows! Collect new party members with their own pre-built slot machine reels and embark on an adventure to ATTEMPT to defeat The “Great Evil”

Mandatory Disclosure: Devs sent us keys on Curator Connect

Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

No issues on Debian 11.
Fullscreen & Windowed mode.
Didn’t check the ferps but it was well over 60 @ 2160p on the 3060.
It does function with a controller but it’s not a fun experience.

Fun?

Fuck you pillars, for I was victorious.
Might have lost two party members and was down to 2 health and RNGd a jackpot… but it still counts.
This is a RNG boop-fest.
Warrior, wizard, some useless fk who was what, lucky?
Take turns moving around, applying buffs, clicking on baddies.
Upgrade your shit and continue the adventure.
You can pick up party members among other things during your travels.
It’s really really basic and that’s a good thing since I was able to keep track of everything.
That said….
The gameplay tip text at the top of the screen scrolls left to right, aka, the wrong way.
Hit space to end turn but popup forces you to click OK.
I know you worked hard on the battle animations and the slot machine bits but that gets old after a while.
I would like to see an option to disable it.
We’ll call it “speed-booping”.
Outside of that there is nothing wrong with Dungeon Reels Tactics but it’s not going to change your mind if you’re not a fan of turn-based roguelike strategy RPGs.
I also worry that people who eat that kind of shit up will find it lacking.
At $14.99 it’s the price of one Hollow Knight so I’ll leave that up to you.

Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

Launches OOTB
Holds [email protected]
Hey, resolution controls!
Controls are mostly click and keyboard
All of the pixel art seems pretty distinct, but the limited colour palette makes some of the more crowded fights…well…croweded

Fun?

Oh it’s gambly
I gotta say, as a skinner box it’s pretty good
Hitting jackpots feel super satisfying, and I think the RNG is weighted to favour them a little. They seem to pop out at pretty convenient times
All the classes have fun different abilities and mechanics to go with them. It’s similar to griftlands or slay the spire in that regard
One gripe I have is that to “balance” the fight, most non boss fights will have 3 enemies per party member. That means once your party is full, fights are gonna take a hell of a long time
The boss fights where you have to manage taking big hits from a frequently acting bag of hit points were fun
I wish the regular fights had more. Not more enemies, just more tactical situation
For the most part, grouping up and focus firing what you can will win you most fights
The “storyline” is cute. Really re-enforces the gambling mechanics by having all the characters be gambling addicts

Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

Launches out of the box both here and on the deck
144 out of the box on this PC and whatever refresh rate you have set on the deck.
Good vsyncs!
It’s a 3D world with sprite characters, I have complained about it before and it hasn’t gotten any better.
At least the sprites are sharp and pixely this time.
What actually got me in the aesthetic department was the background music.
There’s no cohesion and yet it all seems to work really well.
Each background track seems to be inspired by old games the devs really liked.
I can make out Doom, Fallout 1/2, and early Final Fantasy.

Fun?

And as I have mentioned before, music can make or break a game.
More so than graphics in my eminently questionable opinion.
And no other game makes this more obvious than Morrowind.
Though Dungeon Reels Tactics does a very good job too.
The actual gameplay progression is laid out fairly similarly to Slay the Spire, yet another game I really like
And the combat is fairly similar as well, with you being given 3 random “cards” which are given to you after a spin of the one armed bandit.
If one of your characters dies you may want to use your soul crystals to get a scratchy for another party member, or maybe you’ll get lucky and one will be offered to you as loot.
It has all the trappings of a really good roguelite, like Slay The Spire, it just doesn’t look quite so… elaborate.
And honestly, I don’t care how it looks, I’m having a lot of fun playing it.