Is the title hyperbolic? I really don't think so. In my personal opinion, Dead Cells is easily one of the best games to come to Linux this year.
The self-described Roguevania, Dead Cells mixes in elements from all sorts of genres, but primarily Rogue-lite and Metroidvania hence the name Roguevania. It comes together to create a pretty interesting blend, one full of intense combat and epic loot. The Linux version was released on Steam recently, but they had some issues getting it onto GOG—until now!
Features:
- RogueVania: The progressive exploration of an interconnected world, with the replayability of a rogue-lite and the adrenaline pumping threat of permadeath.
- 2D Souls-lite Action: Tough but fair combat, more than fifty weapons and spells with unique gameplay, and of course, the emergency panic roll to get you out of trouble.
- Nonlinear progression: Sewers, Ossuary or Remparts? Once unlocked, special permanent abilities allow you to access new paths to reach your objective. Opt for the path that suits your current build, your play style or just your mood.
- Exploration: Secret rooms, hidden passages, charming landscapes. Take a moment to stroll the towers and breath in that fresh sea mist infused air...
I've been playing it quite a lot personally, honestly I don't think I've had a single dull moment. It's not an easy game though as death is around every corner. I wouldn't say it was outright unfair, it's just that plenty of it certainly will take you by surprise. I like a lot of games, I love a few games and there's a couple like Dead Cells which can truly take one hundred percent of my attention.
Our streamer has been taking it on recently live on our Twitch channel and it has been rather amusing. Be sure to follow us there to see games like this played live!
You can grab it now from GOG, Humble Store and Steam.
Edit: just found the solution: some libraries in the game-folder were messing with the system. Removing them helped ;-)
Last edited by Kohrias on 30 June 2018 at 7:37 am UTC
Enjoying it so far - I'd hardly know it's early access
To resolve my wireless XBOX controller not being detected, I moved libSDL2-2.0.so.0 out of the 'game' subdirectory so my system one was used.
And so far the game runs quite well on my side.
Really great news!
BUT....
Once the linux version came to GOG, I tried to install it on my SteamOS box. It launched from the desktop, but it would not launch properly from the main SteamOS console. After messing with it for a couple hours, I decided to myself "know what? I made what was essentially a Windows purchase in the first place, I'll go ahead and just buy the game on Steam as well and that way it'll count as a linux purchase." Not that I'm such a "no tux no bux" hardcase, but it is actually a very, very good game and well worth the money.
Imagine my surprise when the Steam version has the exact same issue. It "launches", but I just see the Steam "loading" icon. I made a post on the bug forum, but then I decided to look into it a little more. First issue, no appid.txt file, easy enough. Once I got it launching from the terminal, I tried again from the SteamOS "BPM", same deal. I also noticed something else, this game was built using Haxe. There is another awesome game that was built with Haxe that shows the exact same behavior on SteamOS, Northgard. That game also launches, but never launches.
After recalling all the crap I went through trying to get Northgard to launch on SteamOS (never did, by the way), I just decided to refund the Steam version of Dead Cells. I reinstalled the GOG windows version using WINE, and it obviously runs fine. I don't know why games built using Haxe don't play well with SteamOS, but I'm not trying to spend valuable gaming time troubleshooting that.
Just a cautionary tale, I don't think other distros have this issue, but SteamOS buyers, beware.
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