What is like to work at Valve? Freedroid comes to Steam, WINE 8.0 completes the PE conversion, Intel is working on a mystery Arc, open-source LOL, and Google unlocks the Stadia controller.
Special thanks to:
Don M (resub)
Sandy (shirt)
Listen:
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:19 Making podcasts with Reaper
03:10 New desk for Jordan
03:57 The pens of Pedro
04:11 Latest game from LGC
STEAM NEWS
06:08 Working at Valve
NEW GAMES
16:45 Clunky Hero
20:15 Agent in Depth
22:21 The Multi-Medium
24:09 FreedroidRPG
GAME UPDATES
27:07 Hypercharge Unboxed
NEWS
38:49 New Arc GPU
43:53 WINE 8.0
48:57 Open-source League of Legends
53:27 HDR in Linux games
56:43 Might and Magic VI-VIII remake
59:19 Stadia controller blue teeth
REVIEW
01:06:55 Trapers Platformer
HATE MAIL
01:20:13 The Division
Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro
Steam: News
- Chris Bratt, formerly of VideoGamer UK fame, talks about the not so good side of Valve.
- He also has the audacity to point out that there’s a diversity issue at Valve, to which people in the comments proceed to call him racist over.
- Were people shocked to learn Valve is like every other corporation in the history of ever?
- Valve looks extra bad since it does not hire Jr positions.
- No, but given their lack of transparency and their desire to project themselves as “a different sort of organization” this is kinda the first glance into how the sausage is really made.
- Seemingly completely oblivious to the irony of doing so.
- The flat management structure has both interested and repelled me.
- Like, can I try it out for a year?
- It looks like the flat management structure really only applies to engineering.
- If you’re in legal, staffing or payroll there’s certainly a lot less mobility.
- And yeah, a quick look at who still makes the lion’s share of the cash kinda throws out the notion of flat management.
- Gabe and co still really call all the shots.
- All in all this is a pretty good case study in the difference between Lawful and Chaotic Neutral
- I’ve only known two people who work (ed) at Valve.
- One in infrastructure and dude lever dealt with the flatness.
- The other said it was like High/Secondary school.
- Then you read about all the good and bad stories online but one thing keeps coming up.
- Getting anything done at Valve is a small, damn, miracle.
Steam: New Games
- Bucket man 9000.
- We’d mentioned it when it was in Early Access or only the store page was up.
- It’s proper out now.
- Can we get a long play of Buckethead playing this game?
- Dodge! Cuz you only have 1 HP
- Apparently this is a pure skill based action platformer.
- Another really good or really bad contender.
- Very Terry Gilliam-esque
- I like the different art-styles but another puzzle platformer?
- Can we have a first person shooter/puzzler that’s hand drawn instead?
- It’d be nice to have some variety
- From my old HTC Desire to steam
- I really wish steam would add a pay what you want option so that these guys can make their $100 back
- Ah, Fallout Tux Tactics.
Steam: Game Updates
- Those gifs have real bad motion blur.
- I thought the game was one and done but here we are.
- Blimp boss, Shock Soldiers.
- New map Adventure Dunes.
- They are plugging along with the updates dropping every two months or so.
- So many options for multiplayer.
- 7 people playing DM on a Sat.
- That’s a chonk update.
- Why is this game still not as popular as it should be?
News:
- 42% slower than A770.
- WHAR Arc 780?
- Come on Intel.
- People have already lost their patience, you got nothing to lose.
- Yeah, trying to figure out who that product is for.
- If it’s not a mobile GPU then it’s intel’s “Midrange”.
- But their top end is already midrange.
- Controller hotplugging!
- The PE Conversion is done, so now everything can be built as a windows portable executable
- Some of the modules still need talk over unix socket though, so that’s getting taken care of for sometime in Wine 8’s lifespan
- Future proofing for the death of 32bit by using their own implementation of Windows wow64 which should allow Wine to handle multilib on its own rather than requiring the distro to do it.
- Riot got social engineered and the source code for LoL and another game and the legacy anti-cheat solution (whatever that was) got leaked.
- Riot says they won’t pay the ransom the attackers
- Imprisoning me all that I see
- No native HDR support on most DEs so you wanna use gamescope
- Dx12 only. Dx11 HDR has some more foundational issues that need to be tackled
- None of my monitors support HDR so no need to rush on my account.
- The setup shell script is now gone.
- If you want to deploy it manually to a prefix, use Lutris or Winetricks.
- Had to check back in the shownotes archive because we’ve talked about open sauce might and magic before. That was for 3
- This is for 7 8 and 9 though
- 7 is the only one that works currently
- I’mma need someone to make an open source Source engine reimplementation so we can have the complete Might & Magic collection with modern engines.
- Switching the stadia controller to bluetooth disables wifi
- But what if you want to switch it back to wifi?
- The server it talked to is gone now, why would you want to switch it back?
- “Available until December 31, 2023
You can switch to Bluetooth mode, check the controller mode, and check for Bluetooth updates until Dec 31, 2023.”
- Okay.
- If that’s what kicks off further hacking and development around the controller, and hopefully keep them off landfills, more power to you.
- Though, what is it about wi-fi direct on the Stadia controller that’s so different than what the Steam Controller or Logitech devices do?
- Watch the Ben Heck teardown if you want to see how overly engineered this controller is.
- You can run over it with a car.
- Not even joking.
CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope
– Not sure if want
– Check it out
– Shutupandtakemymonies
Game: Trapers Platformer
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2257790/Trapers_Platformer/
Devel: Molamucho.com
Engine: Godot
Price: £3.39 / $3.99 / $4.99
Wazzat: Story driven Metroidvania-ish challenging platformer with cute hand-drawn graphics and a focus on exploration.
Mandatory Disclosure: Dev sent us keys on Curator Connect
Venn:
Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control
- Yeah, it launches and you get a few options.
- Reduced difficulty, extra platforms and fullscreen.
- All this, plus a volume slider!
- No controller options and they are a bit spray-and-pray with select being jump #2.
- Ghost jumps are bad and they happened.
- OH, it autojumps. WTAF.
- I want to believe the soundtrack is from Buildzoid.
Fun?
- Trapers Platformer is, charming.
- It’s one of those games where you don’t expect much and it over delivers ever so slightly.
- I like to think of these games as prototypes that got out of hand.
- Like Vangers, with less drugs and more beatnik turtle.
- Silly little story about evil and ogres.
- You jump about and occasionally stab.
- Collect coins and power ups.
- I keep waiting on it to go full-metal Frog Fractions.
- I almost tapped out on the island with the buzzsaws in the tower.
- Need precision jumping with the autojump was to much bullsh*t to deal with.
- I left the tower and continued right only to find the room-o-rats and yeah, done.
- I like the silliness of the game and the overall charming presentation.
- But it’s charming like getting a coffee mug from your 5yo niece.
- Effort & love were clearly applied but fk all if I’m popping it in the microwave.
- Hell, if you fix the jumping I might go back and play some more.
Jordan:
Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control
- Launches OOTB
- It does have an option to toggle fullscreen but you gotta drag your own resolution
- Controls work with the DS4 but I found that using the d pad the game was dropping some inputs. No such issue with the analog stick
- Tried switching to the switch pro controller and for whatever reason this game insists that x is jump and a is attack regardless of compatibility settings in steam input
- The music got kinda grating for me. Especially that boss theme
- The graphics look like they were drawn on graph paper. Cuz they were. The hurtboxes are a bit weird though
Fun?
- Note to anyone who missed it, you can actually attack the spikes.
- I got stuck on that first boss for a bit, and the one bit of gameplay footage I found on youtube got stuck in the same way. Thank you venn and pedro for pointing it out
- Incidentally, turning on extra platforms in that fight actually makes it more difficult cuz you have less room to dodge the diamonds
- This project has a lot of spirit put into it and it shows, embracing the DIY aesthetic to a fault
- Like, the main character is a tortoise. Who knew
- It’s very basic though. While a lot of effort has been put into the presentation, the actual game mechanics are a bit lacking
- The fighting is pretty stiff. It gets a little better once you get some upgrades, but OG castlevania felt better than this
- You also suffer some gnarly knock back. On the first treasure island there is a room full of rats that almost killed me just cuz I couldn’t get to the door.
- Rats…Rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once
- The platforming is very floaty. There are long stretches of game where you’re doing nothing but platforming. And because it isn’t very tight you just sort of breeze through the areas since there’s such a comfortable margin for error
Pedro:
Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control
- Launches out of the box
- Not a lot in the way of settings
- Arrow keys are bound on the keyboard, so no chairs will be detracted for that.
- It doesn’t state controller support but it’s Godot, so both XInput and DirectInput controllers seem to work.
- The developer says it’s all hand-drawn and judging from what I played, I believe it
- It looks like they drew everything on their left over maths notebooks from school/university.
- Not a bad thing, at all.
- The music sounds like it too was made by the dev.
- Though I liked the interior/dungeon backing track.
Fun?
- It may be gauche to say, but it’s a charming game.
- It’s the work of someone working within their own constraints and building a thoroughly playable metroidvania.
- Limited visual design knowledge but can draw okay? Draw it all by hand.
- Limited musical knowledge but know just enough to create an inoffensive beat to entice the player to move? Have at.
- And it works.
- It’s not enough to overcome my general done-ness with 2D platformers, but I can safely say I don’t hate it.
Verdict:
Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:
Hate Mail:
