Support us on Patreon
PayPalI often find it hard to hold in my excitement about certain games, Volcanoids is one of them as it looks completely awesome. A game with steampunk-like massive moving drills you build your base on, sign me up doc!
We mentioned recently their progress towards getting a Linux version was going well and now they've updated us again. Writing once again on their Steam forum topic, they said this:
Progress update 2:
We will be releasing Linux support in upcoming update 1.13
Minimum requirement is OpenGL Core 4.3
Black screen startup issue has been fixed, shader compilation has been moved into loading screen (when going from menu to game).
The game loads 30-120s slower than on Windows, because OpenGL shader binaries are HW / Driver specific and we cannot compile them during build.
We hope to address this issue by using Vulkan graphics API. Vulkan implementation is in progress, but not ready for release yet, there are rendering artifacts.
They also mentioned in another post "Sooner we finish Vulkan the better." due to shader compiling. Really great to get some insights into how development is going, I wish more developers were so open like this.
As a reminder, their trailer is blow:
Direct Link
I'm hoping to be able to take a look at this as soon as the Linux build is available, will keep you posted. I'm sure many of our readers are itching to try this one. It's just the fact that these massive drills are both your base and transportation by the looks of it, as they burrow deep into the ground and it looks so fun!
You can follow and wishlist on Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Last edited by silmeth on 8 January 2019 at 1:18 pm UTC
Last edited by DMG on 8 January 2019 at 1:29 pm UTC
Quoting: silmethThey could, if I understand it correctly, hypothetically use the ARB_gl_spirv OpenGL extension when the driver supports it, to provide pre-compiled shaders for OpenGL renderer. That would speed up loading for users with newer drivers, while those without this extension (older GPUs and driver versions) would stay on compiling GLSL shaders during loading.
Not a GL savvy but, wouldn't also help the local shaders cache? I mean, it builds once but use many, so this slow loading times may only happen on the first run (like in other games).
Last edited by x_wing on 8 January 2019 at 1:33 pm UTC
Shit.
That's gotta be the most original FPS survival game I've ever seen. I want it. I want it like a child wants his Teddy bear. His brass trimmed, steam powered, bone crushing, earth-boring Teddy bear.
isnt it easier to build a vulkan windows version and port it to linux, like ID did with doom?
UltraAltesBrot Jan 8, 2019
Quoting: x_wingIf that's the case, Steam's shader cache management could be helping too, couldn't it?Quoting: silmethThey could, if I understand it correctly, hypothetically use the ARB_gl_spirv OpenGL extension when the driver supports it, to provide pre-compiled shaders for OpenGL renderer. That would speed up loading for users with newer drivers, while those without this extension (older GPUs and driver versions) would stay on compiling GLSL shaders during loading.Not a GL savvy but, wouldn't also help the local shaders cache? I mean, it builds once but use many, so this slow loading times may only happen on the first run (like in other games).
Kimyrielle Jan 8, 2019
QuoteI'm sure many of our readers are itching to try this one.It's like I'm sitting on top of an anthill over here
Went to their discord server and someone was nice to give me a key for beta testing. Cant wait to try it out!
Quoting: KimyrielleThat's a really pretty game for an Indie! This kind of quality you rarely see outside of a big-budget production. Shame it's first person only, though. Seems to be a genre issue. Not sure why it's so much asked for to give people the option to draw their character on the screen...
Conversely, I'm not a fan of third person. I feel that it breaks the immersion. There aren't many games where I've thought that it works. I do like to see my legs in first person though, when I look down. Ever since Mirror's Edge, any first person game that doesn't give me legs irritates me irrationally.
See more from me