As Google continue to build up Stadia, they're gradually announcing more games coming and we have another three smaller indie titles now confirmed.
The first is Cake Bash, arriving on October 15 which is a four player party game where assorted forms of cake beat each other up. It sounds pretty amusing. The Stadia trailer gave nothing other than a release date, so here's a slightly older gameplay look:
Direct Link
It's also launching on Steam but no Linux desktop support.
Features:
- Pick your favourite cake and battle in a variety of lifelike arenas with unique goals - cover yourself in sweeties or hurl fruit into a pie, there’s plenty for everyone!
- To cool down, try an assortment of minigame treats - roast perfect marshmallows, pipe the finest frosting, or be the last flan standing in Fork Knife.
- Guide your cakes through the bakery as they dress to impress the customer in Get Tasty! Buy delicious toppings in a series of games to be the chosen one...
- You could also just play your favourite mode again and again, it’s up to you!
- Compete on the same screen, find challengers online or battle well-baked bots. It’s time to get out of the oven and into the fray!
Another title announced is PHOGS!, a pretty amusing looking physics-based single-player or co-op puzzle game about a dog with two heads that flails about. No date set other than "soon".
Direct Link
It's also coming to Steam but no Linux desktop support.
Features:
- Co-operation is key - Put your heads together to solve taxing, teamwork-based puzzles.
- An epic journey - Explore 24 fantastical levels stuffed with exciting challenges and creatures to play with.
- Play YOUR way - Supporting single-player and shared-controller gameplay, plus local and online co-op, Red and Blue are always ready to play!
- A hat for every occasion - Customize your Phoggos! Find the Golden Bones hidden throughout every level to build your collection of adorable hats.
- And more to explore - The Phoggyverse contains a wealth of hidden secrets. Search far and wide to discover them all.
The third title announced is Ary and the Secret of Seasons, an award-winning adventure game following a young girl named Aryelle, or Ary, as she journeys across the great world of Valdi. No date given other than "soon".
Direct Link
Already available on Steam with no Linux desktop support.
Features:
- Rewarding exploration - Harnessing the power of the seasons, Ary can traverse sweeping landscapes in search of new destinations, solving amazing environmental puzzles to progress.
- Captivating storytelling - Ary is recruited to help the Guardians of Seasons, an old organization caught up by rigid traditions. As she ventures through uncharted locations across Valdi, Ary will discover secrets and hidden meanings behind the Guardian of Seasons.
- Dynamic environments - Manipulate the world around Ary with her environmental powers. Leap between ecosystems to bend the world and seasons to her needs.
- Fluid combat - Ary’s skills will be put to the test as she encounters foes looking to thwart her progress – from local inhabitants to hulking behemoths, she will use all the tools at her disposal to overcome monumental obstacles.
- Alluring 3D world - A beautiful visual style combined with an enchanting soundtrack creates a lingering atmosphere that will surely become a memorable gameplay experience.
These were announced the day after Amazon showed off Luna, which is Amazon's own take on game streaming. I'm sure the timing is unrelated but Google could have used this time for perhaps something a bit bigger to get more people talking about Stadia instead. Although, they did only recently get Serious Sam 4, the Hotline Miami series and they also announced multiple games coming from their Stadia Makers program.
Stadia is getting close to 100 games now, which is actually quite surprising and there's a lot more confirmed to be on the way. By the time Amazon Luna opens up to people, Stadia will have quite a big library ready for the fight. The competition will be good though, might light a fire under Google to build up Stadia even more.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
It depends because a lot of complaints about Debian and Ubuntu (from developers) seems to be old GCC and other library versions. I wouldn't think it is hard to keep up a divergent port if it is focused on a single set of hardware with key libs being newer. That alone would break compatibility. Being on Fedora with up to date, close to upstream, versions is enough to often break compatibility for me games targeted at 4+ year old versions of Ubuntu.That would be a lot of trouble. Sure, Google no doubt do some custom stuff, but the further you diverge the more you have to maintain the thing yourself.Especially in that kind of scenario things are easier for Google if games are run on Linux.Define Linux in this context. Debian? Any of the major Linux distributions? Or Google's fork of Debian? And if it runs on Google's Stadia customized Debian, there is little to no guarantee the game will run on Linux. Google could also diverge on the path of Debian further to point that their Debian may become so different to vanilla Debian that porting games would be cumbersome.
From my perspective when people say "Linux compatible" what they really mean is Ubuntu compatible. I find that as infuriating as Liam seemingly does when people say "PC" to mean Windows only. I'm not down with Linux compatibility being synonymous with Ubuntu or Debian. To me, Linux means Linux, not an alias for a popular distro.
Last edited by randyl on 13 October 2020 at 3:49 pm UTC
That would be a lot of trouble. Sure, Google no doubt do some custom stuff, but the further you diverge the more you have to maintain the thing yourself.Especially in that kind of scenario things are easier for Google if games are run on Linux.Define Linux in this context. Debian? Any of the major Linux distributions? Or Google's fork of Debian? And if it runs on Google's Stadia customized Debian, there is little to no guarantee the game will run on Linux. Google could also diverge on the path of Debian further to point that their Debian may become so different to vanilla Debian that porting games would be cumbersome.
I would assume that they could do that if they think that libraries bundled with Debian are limiting them. Google in general is quite open source friendly company, so they will try to release things as open source or upstream the patches whenever feasible though. Search engine internals could be different thing.
Libraries is not that big of a problem anyway, using native distribution libraries could be. Having packaged set of Debian libraries in a distribution is not a new things as such. That's what less popular Linux distributions have had to deal with already long time if they want to run closed source programs.
Bigger threat is Stadia exclusives anyway. If game is developed exclusive for the Stadia feature set, getting it ported to Linux or even Windows might not be something that developer wants to do.
What helps Linux gaming in general is getting developers used to Linux. Like using Vulkan instead of DirectX. There's no guarantee that game will get native Linux desktop port, but company that didn't have any Linux experience will have already some experience after doing the first Stadia port.
They also might have been yelled at by Linus Torvals about doing stupid things. If they get past the initial shock, they might do better code in the future. Also if they plan to send kernel patches in the future, they're much better prepared
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