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AdVenture Capitalist is a so-called "idle game" that has been available as a Flash game on Kongregate since last year, and is now available for Linux after a few months on Steam. If you're not familiar with the genre, this short trailer should give you a good idea of what it's like:
Basically, you invest in-game money in different kinds of venues and wait for more money to trickle in, and then invest your profits in more outlets and upgrades. At first you have to trigger the revenue stream from each store, but you'll soon get enough money to hire managers that automates this process, meaning you won't have to keep a constant watch on things to earn money. You can then just quit the game and go play something else while you earn money, which is the reason the developer Hyper Hippo describes their game as "the game you play while playing other, better games".
There are several upgrades to choose from that will increase the speed at which you gather profits, and there are also bonuses tied to milestones such as owning 25 of each type of outlet. For every purchase of a specific type, the unit cost increases, so once you're past your initial investments, there isn't a lot to do in the game at a time. This makes it a nice game to pick up for a few minutes every day or so. Though if you really can't wait for the in-game money to pile up, there's the possibility of paying real money for gold bars, which lets you speed up time, among other things.
AdVenture Capitalist is powered by the Unity3D engine, and I didn't have any issues playing it, other a minor annoyance: The default Unity settings window is used, and the custom graphic in it takes up so much space that the window doesn't fit on my laptop monitor. The first time I played the game, I had to Alt+drag the window to be able to set my resolution. On subsequent sessions though, Alt+O to accept my previous settings have sufficed, so it's not a big problem.
Time Clickers
For an alternative that is completely void of micro-transactions, Time Clickers by developer Proton Studio was also released on Steam last week, and had Linux support from the start. In this game, you eliminate targets by shooting at them with a weapon, which can be upgraded to cause more damage.
I found this game a bit more monotonous, since there doesn't appear to be a lot of variation in what you can do. In addition to the mentioned core mechanic, you can also hire AI team-mates, who help you take out targets. These keep working while you're not playing, so you can keep playing this game while you're not playing too.
Like AdVenture Capitalist, Time Clickers also runs on the Unity3D engine, and I didn't encounter any issues with this game. The developers have also made a WebGL version available on their website, so neither Steam nor Flash is required to play their game.
So, what do you think of games like these? Good casual fun or complete wastes of time? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Basically, you invest in-game money in different kinds of venues and wait for more money to trickle in, and then invest your profits in more outlets and upgrades. At first you have to trigger the revenue stream from each store, but you'll soon get enough money to hire managers that automates this process, meaning you won't have to keep a constant watch on things to earn money. You can then just quit the game and go play something else while you earn money, which is the reason the developer Hyper Hippo describes their game as "the game you play while playing other, better games".
There are several upgrades to choose from that will increase the speed at which you gather profits, and there are also bonuses tied to milestones such as owning 25 of each type of outlet. For every purchase of a specific type, the unit cost increases, so once you're past your initial investments, there isn't a lot to do in the game at a time. This makes it a nice game to pick up for a few minutes every day or so. Though if you really can't wait for the in-game money to pile up, there's the possibility of paying real money for gold bars, which lets you speed up time, among other things.
AdVenture Capitalist is powered by the Unity3D engine, and I didn't have any issues playing it, other a minor annoyance: The default Unity settings window is used, and the custom graphic in it takes up so much space that the window doesn't fit on my laptop monitor. The first time I played the game, I had to Alt+drag the window to be able to set my resolution. On subsequent sessions though, Alt+O to accept my previous settings have sufficed, so it's not a big problem.
Time Clickers
For an alternative that is completely void of micro-transactions, Time Clickers by developer Proton Studio was also released on Steam last week, and had Linux support from the start. In this game, you eliminate targets by shooting at them with a weapon, which can be upgraded to cause more damage.
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Direct Link
Direct Link
I found this game a bit more monotonous, since there doesn't appear to be a lot of variation in what you can do. In addition to the mentioned core mechanic, you can also hire AI team-mates, who help you take out targets. These keep working while you're not playing, so you can keep playing this game while you're not playing too.
Like AdVenture Capitalist, Time Clickers also runs on the Unity3D engine, and I didn't encounter any issues with this game. The developers have also made a WebGL version available on their website, so neither Steam nor Flash is required to play their game.
So, what do you think of games like these? Good casual fun or complete wastes of time? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
10 comments
chriskringel84 Aug 1, 2015
I had an issue with AdVenture Capitalist on Linux installations with other default locale than en_US (= non-en_US locale). This is a bug in unity which can corrupt savefiles or gamestate/progress files, because LC_NUMERIC in en_US uses e.g. "10.000", and in de_DE it's "10,000", so it's dot vs comma. (In fact many other games on Steam for Linux suffer from this bug, e.g. Kentucky Route Zero, Knightmare Tower, basically all other unity games, and that should be quite a huge number. Maybe Unity and Valve should take a look on that, prior to the big launch for SteamOS later this year. Because this bug occurs again and again and again and this is likely to continue.)
There is a simple solution though (once you come across it): >Right-Click on the Game in your library, select settings/properties. In the first tab select something like "start options":
1.) enter the following:
LC_ALL=C %command% (alternatively: LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 %command%)
and close with OK.
(don't worry! this will not change your in-game language settings! if so: just change it in-game for once.)
2.)
Additionally for AdVenture Capitalist I needed to have Steam Cloud for the game *enabled*.
Last edited by chriskringel84 on 1 August 2015 at 12:40 am UTC
There is a simple solution though (once you come across it): >Right-Click on the Game in your library, select settings/properties. In the first tab select something like "start options":
1.) enter the following:
LC_ALL=C %command% (alternatively: LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 %command%)
and close with OK.
(don't worry! this will not change your in-game language settings! if so: just change it in-game for once.)
2.)
Additionally for AdVenture Capitalist I needed to have Steam Cloud for the game *enabled*.
Last edited by chriskringel84 on 1 August 2015 at 12:40 am UTC
1 Likes, Who?
i closed AdVenture Capitalist by accident and now after a game restart the whole game is paused and i dont earn any money oO is this a bug or a feature?
0 Likes
@chriskringel84: Hadn't heard of that issue, but thanks for posting a workaround. :) Do you know if the bug has been reported?
Is the game paused mid-countdown or are all counters at zero? You should be making money while you're away, but if some of the outlets lack managers, you have to manually restart those outlets to earn money. If the counters have been started and haven't moved at all while you were away, that sounds like a bug.
Quoting: fishxzi closed AdVenture Capitalist by accident and now after a game restart the whole game is paused and i dont earn any money oO is this a bug or a feature?
Is the game paused mid-countdown or are all counters at zero? You should be making money while you're away, but if some of the outlets lack managers, you have to manually restart those outlets to earn money. If the counters have been started and haven't moved at all while you were away, that sounds like a bug.
0 Likes
Game crashes immediately after configbox, the workaround doesn't change anything. Deleting local savegames starts the game but freezes money to 0 (next start game crashs again). With workaround the "get money" works, but adds nothing. I have to turn SteamCloud on, so no Chance to start a new game. Anyone an idea?
0 Likes
That locale bug is a bit annoying. Especially if you messed up your cloud save with it. Then it even doesn`t work on other platforms anymore and you have to completely reset the gamestats if you want to continue playing. Or you`ll have to wait for an update from the developers.
If you want to know how to reset your stats, have a look here
If you want to know how to reset your stats, have a look here
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Had tried this, but the problem is that the game doesn't start with SteamCloud disabled. Ergo no new savegames are generated. Also tried to manipulate the savegame so it has a newer timestamp but didn't work either.
Edit: Could start it from console. Works fine. But starting in Steam causes an immediately crash. Only difference in console output is the "ld.so wrong ELF-class"-Error and that occurs with every game.
Last edited by Silver4 on 3 August 2015 at 7:57 am UTC
Edit: Could start it from console. Works fine. But starting in Steam causes an immediately crash. Only difference in console output is the "ld.so wrong ELF-class"-Error and that occurs with every game.
Last edited by Silver4 on 3 August 2015 at 7:57 am UTC
0 Likes
Please make sure you followed all steps. I had the same problem, as others. But with following all the steps it's confirmed to work:
The game works with steamcloud disabled (disabled for this game only, no need to completely turn of cloud save). But it's important to delete all the associated files, otherwise there is always a faulty gamestate the game loads. Those files may only be written to disk after exiting the Steam client.
If you have questions about a single step, let me know.
Last edited by Corben on 3 August 2015 at 9:19 am UTC
Quote- Disable cloud save for this game only
- Close Steam client (will write all files to disk)
- Delete all settings (I used Windows for this, shame on me):
Linux:
- Delete files UserGameStats_"your id"_346900.bin and UserGameStatsSchema_346900.bin in ~/.local/share/Steam/appcache/stats
- Delete folder ~/.config/unity3d/Hyper Hippo Productions Ltd.
- Delete folder ~/.local/share/Steam/userdata/"your id"/346900
- Start Steam, set launch options for Adventure Capitalist LC_ALL=C %command%
- Start the game, play a bit, close the game, restart game to check if it worked
- If it works, you`re safe to enable steam cloud save again and upload the new files. Works crossplatform then.
The game works with steamcloud disabled (disabled for this game only, no need to completely turn of cloud save). But it's important to delete all the associated files, otherwise there is always a faulty gamestate the game loads. Those files may only be written to disk after exiting the Steam client.
If you have questions about a single step, let me know.
Last edited by Corben on 3 August 2015 at 9:19 am UTC
0 Likes
Thanks for your reply. I followed your instructions with no problems (also good written ;), small mistake in the folderspath / and . are switched). After the procedure the game starts from console (cd PATH; LC_ALL=C ./adventure-capitalist.x86_64) and works fine inclusive restart, save and so on. Starting from Steam it crashes after the configbox. Even I check the SteamCloud it doesn't work. But it seems like my local savegame is now updated into SteamCloud.
So far I conclude it's not related to the game itself. Maybe some mess up with the libraries. The only point that makes me wondering is that the first start and some shuffle other starts out of Steam doesn't crash the game (only the known freeze and/or freeze of the money). But now as I said it crashes after the configbox.
So far I conclude it's not related to the game itself. Maybe some mess up with the libraries. The only point that makes me wondering is that the first start and some shuffle other starts out of Steam doesn't crash the game (only the known freeze and/or freeze of the money). But now as I said it crashes after the configbox.
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Thanks for the hint with the swapped . and / :) (fixed)
For starting the game from console, you might have to use the steam runtime. Among other stuff, it makes sure the "correct" (the ones steam provides and the game is compiled against) libraries are used.
LC_ALL=C ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/run.sh ./adventure-capitalist.x86_64 (or ./adventure-capitalist.x86)
I also have sometimes the problem, the game closes after the config box. But most of the time, it runs fine with a second try.
Last edited by Corben on 3 August 2015 at 11:50 am UTC
For starting the game from console, you might have to use the steam runtime. Among other stuff, it makes sure the "correct" (the ones steam provides and the game is compiled against) libraries are used.
LC_ALL=C ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/run.sh ./adventure-capitalist.x86_64 (or ./adventure-capitalist.x86)
I also have sometimes the problem, the game closes after the config box. But most of the time, it runs fine with a second try.
Last edited by Corben on 3 August 2015 at 11:50 am UTC
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"The" Steam console command you recommended
does also work well (whether Steam is active or not). Side note: Steam doesn't show "is in game", doesn't recognize achievements and no steam-overlay.
I tried about ten times in a row starting the game with steam running but crashes after config box.
Another problem which I don't care (I hide it because it's not a part of "get the game running" and has really low priority)
If I start the game via console it runs only if the graphic settings are lower than "good" (exclusive). Otherwise the game stucks on the start up (where the developer is shown).
LC_ALL=C ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/run.sh ./adventure-capitalist.x86_64does also work well (whether Steam is active or not). Side note: Steam doesn't show "is in game", doesn't recognize achievements and no steam-overlay.
I tried about ten times in a row starting the game with steam running but crashes after config box.
Another problem which I don't care (I hide it because it's not a part of "get the game running" and has really low priority)
Spoiler, click me
If I start the game via console it runs only if the graphic settings are lower than "good" (exclusive). Otherwise the game stucks on the start up (where the developer is shown).
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I run the Hidden Linux Gems group on Steam, where we highlight good indie games for Linux that we feel deserve more attention.
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