A couple of years ago, after a long string of disappointments (including but not limited to some that I mentioned in an old news-comment ), I became disillusioned with the console space, so I sold up and then invested the funds into moving all of my gaming over to Linux. I was already a Linux user for 14 years at the time (16 years, now), and combining the two has been an interesting experience.

During the time since then, I've found that I buy and play far more games than I have for many years, and am very much enjoying the greater variety and far lower cost of games that I now have access to. It's very much like when I was a youngster just getting started with gaming with my trusty Commodore 64C back in the early 1990s, when the vast majority of games tended to cost between £2 and £5 - which also made it a whole lot easier to take a chance on things that you weren't so sure about. I never expected that to return! (Moreover, mystery key-bundles, which I admit I do enjoy taking a chance on every now and then, are almost analoguous to magazine cover-tapes from the old days - you wouldn't know what full games you might get until the new issue was out, and the price is generally about the same, too.)

It's a damn sight better than my experiences of trying to play games on Windows ever were, long ago - I never got on with Windows in any capacity (I was forced to use it out of necessity, and it was always so wonky and unintuitive that it's a wonder that I ever got anything done), and it outright put me off of PC gaming. Playing on Linux is nothing like that, thankfully - on the distros that suit me best, it's been a lot closer to console-esque "just works" play than it is to the impression of PC-gaming that Windows left me with all those years ago.

After shifting to 100% Linux-gaming, I didn't sign up at GamingOnLinux right away, but I was still a reader - I discovered the site due to trying to learn more about what Proton was (until this time two years ago, I had never heard of it, and didn't even know that Steam was available on Linux - that's how detached from PC-gaming I was!), and it was Liam's Simple Guide to Steam Play that enabled me to find GOL and told me what I wanted to know. Many thanks for that, Liam!

It was Proton that made all the difference for me, here, because the sort of stuff that I like is usually made by companies who won't consider native Linux support in the first place with things as they currently are. However, Proton lets me play what I want on my OS of choice, and thanks to the Steam Deck a number of these devs are now more open to at least getting stuff working right on Linux that way - and I'm happy to support that, and hope to see it lead to more and better in the future.

All of that said, since it's something of an anniversary, I figured that, today, I'd share my favourite titles that I've played over the course of the last two years (I'm excluding emulated retro titles from this list, though - that's a cop-out, since those get plenty of spotlight elsewhere). Not all of these are recent games, but, barring one now-delisted game, they're all currently available and they've all been new experiences for me during that time.

Ape Out (Proton) (Available on Steam, Fanatical, and Humble Store, and GOG.com

You don't see too many new maze-chase games in this day and age, so Ape Out proved to be a wonderful surprise for me, as I'm a lifelong fan of this genre, and also happen to enjoy jazz music, which is a major element in the game. You play as a captured gorilla who must escape from various scenarios, all set to a jazz soundtrack that responds to your actions. Even though your character is very powerful, the game does a great job of placing them in intimidating environments that leave them outnumbered and require thoughtful use of that power, which is a classic element of maze-chase games. The visuals are minimalist but striking, and tie in with the overall graphical theme, whereby each set of stages is treated like an "album" - complete with record-sleeve cover artwork. I enjoyed the challenge here, and in spite of its modern design sensibilities (which are no bad thing!) it has the old-fashioned one-more-go factor, which gets pushed to the limit in the incredibly-challenging final bonus stage that you unlock after completing the main game.

Bail or Jail (Obakeidoro!) (Proton) (Available on Steam and Fanatical

A ghoulish digital spin on cops-and-robbers, with a theme of humans playing against monsters and ghosts! It has a charming cute-but-spooky "chibi" art-style, and though it's an indie title it's published by Konami, so it's also gotten some free DLC based on Castlevania - rendered in Bail or Jail's art-style, of course (I always pick Alucard - he's cool ). The only drawback to this one is that it hasn't really gotten the attention that it deserves so whilst the local multiplayer is fine, the online is (perhaps ironically, given the game's spooky theming) very dead.

Doom (Proton) (Available on Steam, Fanatical, Humble Store, and GOG

First-person games make me sick. No, literally - unless they're extremely abstract (think GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64, or Minetest for Linux), I get terrible motion-sickness from them! So, when I got Doom (1993) in a mystery Steam-key bundle I had to figure out whether or not I'd actually be able to play it (YouTube is handy for stuff like this, it turns out!), and lucky for me I discovered that I can play a little at a time on a handheld without any problems. Thus, finally getting to play Doom and seeing why it's such an influential game quickly became one of my favourite experiences of the last two years.

Ex-Zodiac (Native Linux; Early Access) (Available on Steam and Itch.io

One of the reasons that I'm a Nintendo expatriate is because they stopped making some of my favourite series altogether, and Star Fox is one of those. Ex-Zodiac is one of several rail-shooter games whose creators have stepped up to provide a quality spiritual-successor to the neglected animaloid-space-opera series, and of the ones that I've tried it's my favourite by far - the devs clearly know what makes this genre fun, and it has a personality all its own, whilst also making nods to the genre's past. It's in Early Access right now, which isn't something I would usually buy into, but what's currently available is excellent, and even if it goes no further I'm very happy with what I've gotten for the price!

New Super Lucky's Tale (Proton) (Available on Steam, Humble Store, and GOG

I'm actually not a very big fan of most 3D platformers - I find far too many of them to be too ponderous and slow-paced and exploratory to be any fun for me, so they're mostly just not my sort of thing. That said, there are a literal few that I've enjoyed, and New Super Lucky's Tale is deservedly one of them - it's incredibly well-crafted and thoughtfully-designed, and I honestly think that it's a better game than those that're said to have inspired it!

Pac-Man 256 (Native Linux) (Available on Steam

I didn't even know that this was a thing until I moved my gaming over to Linux, but Pac-Man 256 is a procedurally-generated installment in that long-lived series, with a focus on consuming long-as-possible chains of dots, as well as collecting power-ups and weapons, and completing little missions that will help you to upgrade them. I'm a lifelong fan of maze-chase games (with Pac-Man and Bomberman basically being the only surviving big-name franchises in this genre, today), so I was delighted with this one - great for filling a few (or, indeed, many) free moments!

Pizza Tower (Proton) (Available on Steam

An excellent and quite challenging platformer, Pizza Tower sees the manic Peppino Spaghetti scaling the titular tower in order to prevent the destruction of his little pizzeria, which apparently serves "the best-a pizza in-a town-a". The game was influenced by the long-neglected Wario Land games, as well as French comics, and American cartoons like Courage the Cowardly Dog, which all add up to give it a surreal and energetic atmosphere and look that you won't soon forget. When I got started, I wondered how on Earth I'd ever learn to get the best out of Peppino's moves, but by the end of it I looked back on the whole adventure and was impressed by how the game guided me to master it. This is easily the best platformer with an Italian protagonist that I've played in a long, long time.

Placid Plastic Duck Simulator (Proton) (Available on Steam and Humble Store

This is a thoroughly silly little title that combines the appeal of past virtual pet games and fish-tank-style programs such as Little Computer People, Dogz, MOPy Fish, and Nintendogs with modern physics simulations and the widespread human desire to collect things. It's surprisingly engaging and relaxing for what it is, with lots of fun little interactions and neat touches to discover, and it's always nice to leave running off to one side whilst I'm getting on with other things.

Race The Sun (Native Linux) (Available on Steam, Humble Store, and GOG

The clue is in the name with this one - it's an "endless" sort of game, where you control a solar-powered spacecraft and try to clear areas without crashing or running out of time. There's also a lovely dreamy DLC mode where you're flying at night and there are no enemies and few hazards, and this is a nice counterpoint to the main game - I'm honestly not sure which mode I prefer... I was also most amused by the fact that when you unlock the credits, they're actually a playable stage! Endlessly playable for minutes or hours.

Super Bomberman R Online (Proton) (No longer available)

An excellent twist on the maze-chase genre, and the greatest free-to-play game there ever was and ever will be. Discontinued in December 2022 after only about a year-and-a-half in operation, Super Bomberman R Online was a short-lived 64-player battle-royale title which was incredibly generous with its content, didn't inflict any anti-cheat or anti-tamper rootkits on players, and which basically never tried to corral players into spending money on the pass that unlocked a collection of new characters and abilities. This game absolutely defined my first year as a full-time Linux gamer - and it turned out to have been a feature-test for parts of the soon-to-be-released Super Bomberman R 2, with all of its content ultimately confirmed to be rolled into that game, so in the end, it never really went away at all.

Tanglewood (Native Linux) (Available on Steam, GOG, and Itch.io

2018's Tanglewood is an enchanting puzzle-platformer that was originally made for the Sega Mega Drive, but it's also sold digitally in emulator-wrapped form, and this includes a native Linux release (though you're also free to extract the ROM and play it in your preferred emulator or even on real hardware if you wish). You have to guide a fox-like creature (a Djunn, in this game's lore) called Nymn to safety in a very harsh world where he's been separated from the safety of his pack. He's unable to fight on his own, so puzzles are involved in defeating monsters, and he's also able to obtain temporary special abilities that allow him to traverse and interact with the environment in different ways. It plays like a mix of Sonic The Hedgehog, Kirby, and Another World, and sounds like a cross between Another World and Ecco the Dolphin. It was the first game that I shared with one of my younger relatives, as they took an interest in it after seeing me playing it, and it's an absolutely wonderful experience, so I don't want to spoil anything here! There is only one unfortunate note about this one, and it's that the native version doesn't work out-of-the-box no matter where you buy it from - however, this can easily be fixed with these steps, or just by using Proton instead.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (Native Linux) (Available on Steam and Humble Store

When I was a kid, ninjas were subject to media-censorship in the UK, and local busybodies would scare parents with claims that video games based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise would somehow magically turn children feral and violent, so I was never allowed to get any of the TMNT games back then - only crappy homegrown alternatives. As an adult, however, I was thrilled to be able to buy this excellent beat-'em-up, and I absolutely love it! The genre is usually a product of its time and often doesn't hold up well when you revisit old titles, and what's great about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge is that it's a modern game that plays like you remember the likes of Final Fight and its kin being, even if the reality doesn't match the memory. That doesn't just apply to the gameplay, either - the graphics, animation, sound, and general vibe all bring a welcome modern coat of paint to the beat-'em-up genre. Moreover, the game had native Linux support on day one, which is always nice to see!

Vampire Survivors (Native Linux) (Available on Steam

What can be said about Vampire Survivors? It's an addictive and accessible horde game where your weapons are fired automatically, and you're only in control of movement and upgrade decisions, which frees you up to simply focus on surviving. It's packed with neat little references to the leading brand of vampire-themed video game, too, which are always humourous. There are no vampires, though, so I guess that the survivors already survived them? I discovered this one entirely due to it being mentioned on GOL, and it turned out to be appealing to me as it calls on a number of the same skills useful when playing Bomberman, so I've had a great time with it.

Yume Nikki (Proton) (Available on Steam and the Yume Nikki Wiki

Originally released and fan-translated back in 2004, with an official English version eventually hitting Steam in 2018, Yume Nikki is an odd RPG Maker game that isn't really an RPG - instead, it's one of the earliest walking-simulators, where the idea is simply to wander through the dreams of a girl called Madotsuki (Japanese for "windowed", and possibly a reference to the term "windower", meaning "daydreamer") in order to see what you can see. There is an ending that can be viewed by gathering all of the "Effects" (various abilities that you can find and use within the dream-world) and placing them in a particular location, but the point of the game isn't really about the gameplay itself - it's more about forming your own interpretations of what you witnessed during the experience. There really isn't anything else like this out there (you don't tend to see this sort of thing on consoles, as it would be viewed by some as "pointless" due to the gameplay itself not being the focus), and I'm really glad that I got to play through it.

Zool Redimensioned (Proton) (Available on Steam, Fanatical, and Humble Store

It's a remake of the 1992 platformer, Zool! I'm one of those oddballs who quite liked Zool - I even own a good chunk of the officially-released merchandise, such as the novels and the plush toy - and I found this to be an excellent, nicely-polished revisit to that game. It's based on the Mega Drive version, specifically (which is good, because that one had the best level-designs by far), and it combines the original game with modern quality-of-life niceties. It also ends with what appears to be a little hint at a Zool 3, which I really hope they'll make good on! It also recently got an update to add some new local multiplayer content and then got Steam Deck Verified, as well, so it's seen some good long-term support.

All in all, the last two years have shown me that there's far more choice and value-for-money outside of the increasingly-tightly-controlled walled-gardens, and that my enthusiasm is much better spent on Linux than it ever was on Nintendo and similar companies - after all, pouring it into Linux-gaming will likely have the knock-on effect of enabling others to also discover how good of a gaming platform Linux is, whereas placing it elsewhere is a waste.

Anyway, thankyou for reading all of that! Sorry to say that all of this basically means that you guys are stuck with me (and my cutesy robot army, too). I'm really looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Linux-gaming from here on out. Happy gaming!

Last edited by Pengling on 18 October 2023 at 5:05 pm UTC