We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Radio General, a strategy game that puts you in a tent with a radio and a map and has you direct troops around released recently with Linux support. Highlighted briefly here on GOL previously, it had a promising idea. Using a microphone, you would issue commands to troops and have it correctly detect what you're saying. Just like a real radio operator back during WWII.

You can see the trailer below (actual gameplay at 2:05):

YouTube Thumbnail
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

As it turns out, the original release didn't have the voice command support on Linux. However, developer Foolish Mortals kept tinkering with the code and it now does have full Linux support for that side of the game. Note: Speech recognition only available in English. After testing it out thanks to the developer providing a key, I'm absolutely hooked on it.

It's one thing to play a strategy game, it's another to bark orders down a microphone as if you know what you're doing. Getting strange looks from people aside, it's genuinely good fun and it adds a new layer of entertainment to such a strategy game.

Not quite perfect yet, if you speak too quickly it might not quite catch the end of what you say but it's very impressive. The developer allows you to send them voice clip data to help improve it too, if you don't mind doing that (entirely opt-in—I donated mine).

If you can speak fluent and clear English, have a microphone and enjoy war games that requires plenty of tactical thinking, you absolutely need to try this. You might even learn something too with the addition of historical footage, pictures and facts it's quite an experience.

While it's a full game, they're still planning to expand it. They've already added in a new Challenge Mode, which adjusts each mission to make them a little more complex. This isn't just making enemies tougher, they've hand-crafted in the extra difficulty to each on this mode. On June 6, the anniversary of D-Day, they also have another free content update planned for Radio General.

You can find Radio General on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
4 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
7 comments

Purple Library Guy May 13, 2020
Wishlisted. Such a cool concept . . . and the trailer has a Canadian general! I have to get this, subject to availability of $$$.
Cyril May 13, 2020
QuoteOne day you'll be a sergeant major
Oh you'll be so proud
Screaming out your bloody orders
Hey but not too loud
Polish all your shiny buttons
Dressed as lamb instead of mutton
But you never had to try
To stand out from the crowd

Queen, Don't Try So Hard from Innuendo (1991).
Brisse May 13, 2020
QuoteNot quite perfect yet, if you speak too quickly it might not quite catch the end of what you say

Are you sure that's not a feature?

One of the things we were told in the navy when learning radio communication was not to speak too fast. :D
elmapul May 13, 2020
"As it turns out, the original release didn't have the voice command support on Linux. However, developer Foolish Mortals kept tinkering with the code and it now does have full Linux support for that side of the game. Note: Voice recognition only available in English. After testing it out thanks to the developer providing a key, I'm absolutely hooked on it."

1)this is speach recognition, not voice recognition.
voice recognition: means recognize who said something, (this is useful for login systems where only the owner can login)
speach recognition:means what has being said.
if you combine both, you can know who said what even in the middle of an crowd.

2)as i said before, speach recognition is an platform, much like CLI and GUI create an interface between the user and the application, speach recognition creates too.
its quite usefull for personal assistants or games like this, i'm a bit disapointed with linux for not evolving the platforms in other directions than GUI options, microsoft has invested for years in speach recgonition and google too with android, but linux desktop? nope, we had it for free on chrome but now google is charging developers who want to use it as an API.

i hope mycroft can improve their system and support languages other than english with an good accuracy (that is the bigest challenge with speach rec), i dont know what this game is using as backend but i suspect its mycroft, its a shame that most of linux companies couldnt find an way to make money but to sell the technology embeded to an hardware, being able to use it on pc and interface with other programs would be much more usefull than having an "amazon echo" ish device doing a few "useless" tasks.

after you did an sucesfull capture, pasring what has being said is as easy as to do an string comparission or an CLI system, that is, if you are very specific with the commands (say exact that word sequence) but if you want to process natural language? wel good luck with that, passing the turing test is a challenge that we will never solve.


"It's one thing to play a strategy game, it's another to bark orders down a microphone as if you know what you're doing. Getting strange looks from people aside, it's genuinely good fun and it adds a new layer of entertainment to such a strategy game."

that sounds fun, i already tried to make an game like this, but got stuck when my creativity run over...
Rooster May 14, 2020
Finally an original game.
WorMzy May 14, 2020
I can see this happening a lot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNuFcIRlwdc


Last edited by WorMzy on 14 May 2020 at 12:00 pm UTC
Purple Library Guy May 19, 2020
Quoting: WorMzyI can see this happening a lot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNuFcIRlwdc
Oh, that's brilliant.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.
Buy Games
Buy games with our affiliate / partner links: