Need another game? How about a free copy of the colony building game Surviving Mars? You can get it free for 72 hours from Humble Bundle as of today. What's the catch? They want you to get their newsletter, so they will send you all the latest deals. A small price to pay for a free game, and nothing stops you removing yourself from it later if you don't like their emails.
Surviving Mars is a great game overall too, and now is a good time to own it since Paradox Interactive has confirmed they're going back to it to bring out new updates and expansions.
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Game Features:
- Building on a planet not fit for human life challenges you to build a smart, functional colony. Bad planning isn’t about traffic jams, it’s about survival of your colonists. You really don’t want rolling blackouts in a city constructed in a place without oxygen.
- Each colonist is a unique individual with problems and strengths that influence the needs and behavior of the other colonists. Things can get really interesting if your chief scientists develops alcoholism after one too many long nights in the lab.
- Retro-futuristic super structures housing colonists, factories and commercial buildings with their own “neighborhood personality.” Create colonies that value science over everything else, while tired workers drink their pay away at a local bar, or attempt a utopia among the stars.
- Inspired by the classic sci-fi of Asimov and Clarke, Surviving Mars holds many secrets. During each playthrough players may encounter one of Mars’ individually crafted mysteries. Uncovering these secrets might bring your colony great fortune, or terrible ruin. What is that sphere that manifested itself outside colony HUB B, and is it friendly?
- Combine static and random research through experimentation, which allows for a different experience for each journey through the game. Attain new scientific breakthroughs by exploring the uncharted terrain of Mars's surface.
- A sleek, modern take on the bright futurism of the 1960s. A time of exploration and adventure.
- Craft your own fantastic buildings, parks or even a mystery to share through Surviving Mars’s extensive and convenient modding tools. Share your finest creations with the community to build the perfect society.
Check out the freebie over on Humble Bundle. It's the Deluxe Edition too, so even if you own it you should grab it for the extra content. It requires Steam too, since it's a Steam key.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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18 comments
It seemed a little basic back when they first released it, but it's improved a lot since then. Good to hear they're going to be improving it further!
0 Likes
tuxintuxedo Jun 11, 2021
One of my favourite games, I really hope they will further improve it. It still has a lot of potential.
Note, that their latest update broke the game on anything older than Ubuntu 19.04. There was a glibc requirement change that wasn't mentioned anywhere. Though it can still work using LD_PRELOAD with the proper library.
Last edited by tuxintuxedo on 11 June 2021 at 7:08 pm UTC
Note, that their latest update broke the game on anything older than Ubuntu 19.04. There was a glibc requirement change that wasn't mentioned anywhere. Though it can still work using LD_PRELOAD with the proper library.
Last edited by tuxintuxedo on 11 June 2021 at 7:08 pm UTC
0 Likes
Note, that their latest update broke the game on anything older than Ubuntu 19.04. There was a glibc requirement change that wasn't mentioned anywhere.For reference, here's the bug report on their forum. I don't see any recent activity there or on the store page.
Though it can still work using LD_PRELOAD with the proper library.Or by installing libc6 from testing (in the case of Debian and Devuan). This will require upgrading some other packages too, notably python3 3.7 to 3.9; while I don't regard it as entirely safe, I've not seen problems.
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In addition to the newsletter thing, there's the additional catch that they require you to Link your Steam account. And while there used to be a button in your profile to unlink, when I wanted to do it a while back the button was gone and their customer service person actually demanded a "good reason" to do it. Took them about a couple of weeks to get it done. Just FYI, in case you care.
2 Likes, Who?
In addition to the newsletter thing, there's the additional catch that they require you to Link your Steam account.
So if I don't use a Steam account, should I not even bother ?
Last edited by JJNova on 11 June 2021 at 10:44 pm UTC
0 Likes
Philadelphus Jun 12, 2021
Picked it up in 2019 with the release of the Green Planet expansion, and have quite enjoyed it*. 
I also feel like it has a lot of potential for future development, so I was really glad to hear it'll be being worked on again after Haemimont Games moved on to their next project.
If you get it and are curious about DLC: Green Planet, the biggest expansion, allows you to terraform Mars, which in my opinion adds a great long-term goal the game, and also makes it a lot more interesting (both visually and for gameplay); I always get a thrill the first time I see rain, or a lake of liquid water as plants begin to spread across the Martian surface. The In-Dome Buildings Pack that was just released a few weeks ago is fantastic and cheap—it was designed by a modder who was able to put in some really quite useful buildings that fill specific niches. The rest are a little more situational: Space Race fleshes out the various sponsors more (and I think adds a few), so it's nice for repeated playthroughs but I wouldn't call it critical, and the rest are mostly cosmetic.
*Just finished getting the last and hardest achievement last week
, other than two for mysteries which seem to not be working for me—might have to try again without mods…
I also feel like it has a lot of potential for future development, so I was really glad to hear it'll be being worked on again after Haemimont Games moved on to their next project.If you get it and are curious about DLC: Green Planet, the biggest expansion, allows you to terraform Mars, which in my opinion adds a great long-term goal the game, and also makes it a lot more interesting (both visually and for gameplay); I always get a thrill the first time I see rain, or a lake of liquid water as plants begin to spread across the Martian surface. The In-Dome Buildings Pack that was just released a few weeks ago is fantastic and cheap—it was designed by a modder who was able to put in some really quite useful buildings that fill specific niches. The rest are a little more situational: Space Race fleshes out the various sponsors more (and I think adds a few), so it's nice for repeated playthroughs but I wouldn't call it critical, and the rest are mostly cosmetic.
*Just finished getting the last and hardest achievement last week
, other than two for mysteries which seem to not be working for me—might have to try again without mods…
0 Likes
Only if you want the game bad enough to start using Steam. They're not offering DRM-free downloads.In addition to the newsletter thing, there's the additional catch that they require you to Link your Steam account.
So if I don't use a Steam account, should I not even bother ?
0 Likes
Wow. It's free and there are complaints about the key being tied to the Steam store :-(
1 Likes, Who?
Wow. It's free and there are complaints about the key being tied to the Steam store :-(My complaint wasn't about that at all. It was about Humble making things unnecessarily difficult for me. I've got plenty of games on Steam.
0 Likes
I already had the base game, so I essenstially "upgraded" to Deluxe now 😅
You don't need to link you Steam account, but you need to have a Steam account in which to redeem the key.
What you do (or at least, what I did): "Get the game". Click the link to Redeem Now (either in Preview or in the email you'll get). Scroll down past the bundles, click to reveal and copy the code. Open Steam, go to the top toolbar, click Games > Activate a Product on Steam. Done :)
Edit: I take it back :) It seems my Steam and Humble account was linked 😆🤦♂️
Last edited by Appelsin on 13 June 2021 at 5:35 am UTC
In addition to the newsletter thing, there's the additional catch that they require you to Link your Steam account. And while there used to be a button in your profile to unlink, when I wanted to do it a while back the button was gone and their customer service person actually demanded a "good reason" to do it. Took them about a couple of weeks to get it done. Just FYI, in case you care.
What you do (or at least, what I did): "Get the game". Click the link to Redeem Now (either in Preview or in the email you'll get). Scroll down past the bundles, click to reveal and copy the code. Open Steam, go to the top toolbar, click Games > Activate a Product on Steam. Done :)
Edit: I take it back :) It seems my Steam and Humble account was linked 😆🤦♂️
Last edited by Appelsin on 13 June 2021 at 5:35 am UTC
0 Likes
You don't need to link you Steam account, but you need to have a Steam account in which to redeem the key.
I guess you've already got it linked.
I know how humble works. I've bought plenty of games from them over the years, Steam keys and otherwise. They only require this linking for freebies, I assume so that they get something back for giving out free games. The information they can pull from our Steam accounts is valuable data for them after all.
0 Likes
You don't need to link you Steam account, but you need to have a Steam account in which to redeem the key.
I guess you've already got it linked.
I know how humble works. I've bought plenty of games from them over the years, Steam keys and otherwise. They only require this linking for freebies, I assume so that they get something back for giving out free games. The information they can pull from our Steam accounts is valuable data for them after all.
I stand corrected. I just checked in the settings and you're right, the accounts are already linked.
It's strange why, though, as I can't really think of anything that this link "does", unlike e.g. EA and Ubisoft where you "need" it to be able to launch your Uplay or Origin account. Other than pulling data, of course.
Last edited by Appelsin on 13 June 2021 at 5:52 am UTC
1 Likes, Who?
Huh. Seems like Humble is orienting towards being a Steam . . . hmmm, not parasite. Not quite symbiont though. A Steam Remora?You don't need to link you Steam account, but you need to have a Steam account in which to redeem the key.
I guess you've already got it linked.
I know how humble works. I've bought plenty of games from them over the years, Steam keys and otherwise. They only require this linking for freebies, I assume so that they get something back for giving out free games. The information they can pull from our Steam accounts is valuable data for them after all.
I stand corrected. I just checked in the settings and you're right, the accounts are already linked.
It's strange why, though, as I can't really think of anything that this link "does", unlike e.g. EA and Ubisoft where you "need" it to be able to launch your Uplay or Origin account. Other than pulling data, of course.
0 Likes
The reason Humble will want account linking for freebies is likely to prevent them just going up on key reseller sites.
1 Likes, Who?
Uuh isn't humble also the one suing steam ? But its okay to use steams system/bandwidth for a giveaway? Could be I am wrong
0 Likes
The reason Humble will want account linking for freebies is likely to prevent them just going up on key reseller sites.The key doesn't actually have to be activated on the linked Steam account as far as I know, so I don't see how this prevents anything.
0 Likes
Philadelphus Jun 14, 2021
Huh. Seems like Humble is orienting towards being a Steam . . . hmmm, not parasite. Not quite symbiont though. A Steam Remora?A commensal symbiont (where one partner benefits without the other being affected) rather than a mutual symbiont (where both partners benefit)?
2 Likes, Who?
That's what I was looking for.Huh. Seems like Humble is orienting towards being a Steam . . . hmmm, not parasite. Not quite symbiont though. A Steam Remora?A commensal symbiont (where one partner benefits without the other being affected) rather than a mutual symbiont (where both partners benefit)?
0 Likes
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