Linux Game Cast 558: Free Raccoon

The latest Steam beta comes with some big changes! Prices leak for the Asus ROG Ally, AMD announces the Z1 series CPUs, open-source Carmageddon, and why it’s normal to game in your 50s.

Special thanks to:
Notaduck: (gifted game)
Pedalhappy (new patreon)

Listen:

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:30 Hello straw
00:58 ReCore is not bad
03:26 Racoon update
05:17 Pedro vs cloud
STEAM NEWS
08:21 Steam beta whooshy update
11:17 Open-source Steam client
NEW GAMES
14:23 Gravity Circuit
16:21 Lichenvale
18:21 Teslagrad Remastered
GAME UPDATES
20:49 Besiege new blocks
NEWS
29:49 AMD Z1 CPUs
34:23 ASUS ROG Ally pricing
40:49 Reverse-engineering Contra NES
43:47 Open-source remake of Carmageddon 1997
47:27 Gamers over 50 are a growing force
REVIEW
51:47 Photon Engineer
HATE MAIL
01:07:17 Shippy 1984

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

Steam desktop update

Somebody at Valve is learning how to make a Chromium based UI.
We are the test subjects.
It’s jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanky when browsing and scrolling.
I had to roll back to the stable client.
The new Steam overlay is nice and minimalistic
Yeah! When first opening the window, even if the contents have all loaded, I can’t click or scroll at all for a solid 30 seconds.
I like the notes app on the overlay, that alone may make paper obsolete for me.

Open Steam

It uses libsteam so you probably won’t get vac banned maybe sorta kinda probably?
Steam in under 70 mb. Sounds useful for getting files on to low memory ARM systems
Don’t run it concurrently with actual steam.
You’re gonna have a bad time.
Hey look, a 64-bit client.
No, Windows support is not planned.
I like the idea of a Steam launcher that only launches games.
VALVe needs to give this person a buttload of money and make it official.
If you want to run Steam on older laptops/netbooks, this is significantly faster… once you manage to login.

Steam: New Games

Gravity Circuit

BionicCoMegaTroid… vania.
Windows demo but it’s legit.
Solid pixels and tight controls.
#NotMegaMan
I played Megaman X3 on the Saturn and that’s when I learned it wasn’t my thing.
Yuip that’s some megaman X right there

Lichenvale

FPS == FIrst person Stabber
Hexen meets elder scrolls?
Needs the elusive Tuvok GPU
Looks very Ziggurat-y, which is not a bad thing, only the focus is more on the slashing.
The Painkiller-style arena shooter could use a solid slasher!

Teslagrad Remastered

RIP top-down Tesla.
According to their system reqs no 60FPS@UHD 4 U

Steam: Game Updates

New Besiege blocks

Axle blocks and nom noms
More efficient explosions
No more blood transfer issue

News:

Z1-extreme is getting 73 on Tombs.
These little bois will support a maximum TDP of 30 Watts with a min of 15.
I want some $150 Pi sized boards.
Will we see a Z1 deck refresh?
So… not actually an Asus exclusive?
ThePhawx on Youtube did some extrapolating on the specs and claims these will be on par with the 7840U, the same one in the upcoming Ayaneo 2S.

Speaking of

Sooo $51 more than the 512GB Deck.
$700 is 1.16 4070’s.
But you’re stuck trying to use windows with a controller.
If Steam would release some *.iso goodness I would be a little more excited.
How easy will this thing be to repair?
Raw hardware performance is one thing, but this guy is gonna be the edge for most windows devs
One of the main strengths of the steam deck is the tight control valve can exert over the environment in which most games run . Asus doesn’t have the brainpower or the infrastructure to do that with their model

Reverse Contra

Break out the ca65.
Ok most of this is over my head but I understand that this can break down the existing Contra (US) rom into library and then use that recompile into a byte for byte match of the original rom.
Couldn’t get it to build but more games nintendo can’t do fk all about is a good thing.

Dethrace

We can finally have Carmageddon on Linux.
With SDL 2.
Carmageddon II added a LAN Network multiplayer option with IPX.
Don’t know about the first one.
Doing a bit of searching turned up OpenC1.

Old gamer human

Brought to you by the Bi-weekly LGC trackmania streams
It makes sense. If you were born in the early to mid ‘70s you got to grow up with colecovisions, ataris and arcades and you fall into this bracket
It’s still kinda novel to some people that video games are a universal form of entertainment and these days it’s very much a cross generational thing
About 50% of those gamers include mobile gamers, but those still do count!
Again, our retirement homes are going to be lit, son.
In your 50s maybe you’ve worked yourself to a cushy enough job, and with the ‘rona event, you have a lot of money to spend while working from home.
And as Jordan mentions, mobile gaming is fucking huge.

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

Game: Photon Engineer
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2305110/Photon_Engineer/
Devel: Grégory Petit (aka Deer Vision)
Engine: Urchin Engine https://github.com/petitg1987/urchinEngine
Price: £19.99 / $20.49 / $32.50

Wazzat: Master laser manipulation and environmental control in this sci-fi puzzle game. Unleash your creativity and uncover the secrets of mysterious platforms that have suddenly appeared near Jupiter.

Mandatory Disclosure: Dev sent us keys via Curator Connect

Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

On the 3060 at 2160p this guy was hoving in the high 70’s on 11.
I mean, it should, not much going on here.
Detects the controller but that’s due to Steam and the movement is spastic and no way to adjust that in-game.
Keyboard and mouse get the job done.
Menu needs some work since some important options are in the bottom right of the screen.
Block rotation is a bit of a PITA.

Fun?

Last week we agreed this was Talos on a budget and 60 minutes into the game, yeah.
The puzzle mechanic consists of two things.
Blocks + laser and that slidey thing to unlock containers.
The puzzles are alright but it’s missing the thing that made Talos and Portal interesting.
That constant “wtf is going on here” that’s slowly dished out by the mysterious overload watching the mouse in a trap.
I thought something neat was going to happen when I had the bits for the first part of the moon-glyph shape selector.
Nope. More puzzles.
If all you care about is solving puzzles and can overlook the less than stellar block rotation mechanic it might be worth a look.
If you’re looking for some story to go along with that, well, look elsewhere.
Consider making a demo.

Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

Launches OOTB
Holds 120+ @UHD
Hey look graphical options
Speaking of, they’re pretty basic 3d graphics. Which is fine cuz it’s a puzzle game. As long as the puzzle pieces are good and clear, we’re gravy
The soundtrack is okay, but I would’ve preferred a lighter touch.
No cloud saves and no controller support.
You can totally play it on the deck if you go through the trouble of mapping all the keybindings

Fun?

Ow my Brian
That’s the sound of a good puzzle game
It’s a mix of pretty easy sliding blockpuzzles, which are your rewards for the talos principle laser puzzles
There’s a collectathon going and Clearly there’s some backtracking once you start unlocking codes for the mysterious combination lock in the hub
Yeah, level 5 shows you what the game is really about
Multi-phase puzzles where you need to make the most out of an absolute bare minimum resources

Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

Launches out of the box, on the Desktop and the Deck
No controller support so it correctly defaults Steam Input to mouse and keyboard on the Deck.
Holds 144 at 2560×1440 and respects the refresh rate settings with both VSync and the built in frame limiter.
I shouldn’t be applauding that as this is expected behavior, but seeing as the majority of the games we throw chairs at still haven’t figured that out I will.
The graphics are not here to blow your mind, they’re here to convey what you need to puzzle your way into progressively more elaborate space stations.
The soundtrack made me open the credits because I immediately recognized 2 of the background tracks.
Kevin McLeod is omnipresent these days.

Fun?

Do you like the Sokoban block sliding puzzles?
Did you enjoy the laser puzzles in The Talos Principle?
Did you maybe wish those laser puzzles had any actual challenge to them rather than artificially padding the time needed to complete them with bullshit?
I think you’ll like Photon Engineer.
From level 5 the puzzles become deceptive.
Some lead you to overcomplicate from the start and you fuck yourself over and others seem so very simple, which then turns out to not be the case at all.
I got some Myst series vibes from the way you’re just dropped in and the only tutorial you get is on movement.
Everything else you gotta figure out for yourself.
I like that.
Too much text on screen and that notification message is really annoying in the way it takes up a 5th of the screen front and center.
There’s a reason most games put those up or down in one of the corners.

Verdict:

Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:

Hate Mail:

1984