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Latest Comments by g000h
EA's experimental Halcyon game engine has Vulkan and Linux support
29 October 2018 at 12:08 am UTC

On the one side it seems a little counter-productive. Build a game engine which then the opposition (other game companies) will use to write games. On the other side, they do get some profit out of all the other games being produced on the market (rather than relying solely on their own titles).

I'm familiar with EA building some mobile games using an external company's game engine, which subsequently went bust.

The Humble Day of the Devs Bundle 2018 is out with some good Linux games
28 October 2018 at 4:40 am UTC Likes: 2

Grabbed the bundle and... looks like GOL (deservedly) gets a nice chunk of the sum spent.

The Humble Day of the Devs Bundle 2018 is out with some good Linux games
27 October 2018 at 7:36 pm UTC Likes: 2

Thanks for sharing those keys, but you're better not to share them like this (due to bots). Use private messages instead,

Anyway, I would have been interested in HLD, but it is already gone.

The Humble Very Positive Sale is live, with some great Linux games going cheap
27 October 2018 at 4:53 pm UTC

Quoting: 14How do you guys like For the King? Would it be fun for two players, or only one?

I have played it for 5 hours, and did find it enjoyable, and plan to eventually get back to it, as a single player. But there is something about the difficulty which seems a bit off. Similar situation, I thought Darkest Dungeon was a great game, and right up my street, but the difficulty of that was similarly annoying. "One step forward, two steps back"

Meanwhile other "hard" games - FTL and Slay the Spire - adore them, and have played hundreds of hours of each.

Humble has a new RPG Maker bundle up, with some nice Linux stuff included
26 October 2018 at 7:00 pm UTC

It seems like I'm cursed with respect to the various Humble Bundles which keep coming out:

November Monthly Subscription - Already own Hitman and 7 Days To Die (but got it anyway due to not owning Hollow Knight)

A week ago, there was a bundle with a bunch of Linux games, but owned all of them already and wasn't willing to buy the bundle to gain Windows game: Osiris: New Dawn only. (Had I got it, I'd try it out with Steam's Proton. )

WB Classics Bundle - Already own all the Linux titles on it, but still interested for some of the Windows titles (which I "could" play under Steam's Proton ) .

My most recent purchase was rogue-like "Golden Krone Hotel" which is still 60% off on Steam store.

Also, while talking games, I found game "Underhand" on Android - a H.P. Lovecraft-inspired card game - It's free, no in-app purchases, and no adverts. Great art, decent game play, recommended.

Kingdom Rush Origins is a polished and fun Tower Defense game worth your time
26 October 2018 at 6:46 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: GuestI feel somewhat skeptical. While tower defense does appeal to me it needs to be well done, the last tower defense game I liked was defenders quest.

My favorite tower defense~esque game would be dungeon defenders (although it plays better on wine than native because it has some serious bugs gameplay wise, and doesn't support multiplayer between platforms)

If you haven't seen Dungeon Warfare yet, suggest checking that out.

Meanwhile, I own the full Kingdom Rush series on Android, and the first two games on Steam. Have recently restarted the first title, Kingdom Rush, on Linux and finding it hard to get beyond the campaign (After you finish the main campaign, a bunch of additional, tough missions become available).

Probably will pick up Origins in a sale.

Canonical have released some statistics from the Ubuntu installer survey
21 October 2018 at 5:54 am UTC

Quoting: scaineCurious that you got KF2 to work in Proton/Wine? I bought the game on sale to give it a shot, but ran into this bug, which resets all perks to zero at the end of earning any experience. I refunded it on the same day I bought it, with 45 minutes played.

If it weren't for that bug, I'd still be playing it right now - great performance and no visual issues at all that I could see. The game played perfectly... it just threw away all my experience at the end of each run.

Are you playing online? And if so... how?

I was only quoting how it performed (speed-wise) for me. Only played it for about 2 hours, through a number of levels, and quit playing and uninstalled. I was playing single player and wasn't checking to see if the saves worked properly. As I haven't got the more up-to-date Nvidia drivers installed yet (i.e. I just use the regular packaged drivers 390.xx ) , I've been holding back from putting too much effort into Proton gaming. I'd be well stuck into Skyrim by now, if the sound problem (in Proton) was solved.

Canonical have released some statistics from the Ubuntu installer survey
20 October 2018 at 7:01 pm UTC

Quoting: Hal_KadoThe steam survey seams to echo the findings on resolution, with around 5% of total users having > 1440p. I think the number skews a bit lower for linux primarily because hidpi support has been terrible for so long, beyond that 4k60 gaming on linux is just not feasible with current hardware, and the other portion of the population buying hi-res monitors are creatives who don't have access to the apps they need. Its a shame as I'm a huge fan of hidpi displays, and feel people don't know what they are missing out on.

Having said that, I'm sure theres a segment of gamers who use 4k TV's in their living rooms, and are not getting counted in these numbers as its not typically hooked up during these surveys.

Well, the thing about the Ubuntu stats is that they are combining virtual machines and real machines into the results, and owing to that the actual values aren't particularly representative.

However, I feel I should contend your opinion about 4K being unsuitable for Linux gaming. I have a 4K 60Hz 40 inch monitor connected to GTX1080ti graphics, and I've had no problem playing many different games at 4K with that setup.

I bought the monitor a couple of years ago, and the 1080ti about 1 year ago. My reasoning was that I wanted a lot of screen-estate (e.g. equivalent to four 20 inch HD screens) for productivity (e.g. multiple windows visible at once), photography (viewing photos at 4K), films/videos at 4K, and having a big single display for gaming (with the potential to drop down to 1080p if the game ran badly at 4K).

Well, I've been playing demanding titles like Shadow Warrior 2 (Wine), Serious Sam 3 BFE, Killing Floor 2 (Proton/Wine), RUST, Dying Light, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider (2013), Mad Max, Skyrim (Proton/Wine), 7 Days To Die, Blades of Time (Proton/Wine), Dead Island Definitive Edition, Immortal Redneck, Ziggurat, Hitman - all at 4K. Sure, I wouldn't mind a boost in framerate, but none of the above examples is so poor that I feel I need to drop resolution.

Also, finishing off with this: One reason I went with 4K rather than 2x 1080p - Two years ago (and even now) multiple native Linux games have issues handling multiple displays sensibly. And having one big display eradicates that problem.

Canonical have released some statistics from the Ubuntu installer survey
19 October 2018 at 1:01 pm UTC

I've read this article, the comments, and then wandered over to Ubuntu's Stats page and then Ubuntu's Desktop Metrics page.

My opinion is that the Ubuntu statistics are not well defined. They are using CPU and GPU to refer to the physical hardware - and it is clear from reading the GOL comments that they didn't define this well leading to misinterpretation.

I don't like their World Usage Location Charts - The chart on the stats page looks like USA hasn't got a big user base, and then the description and chart on the Metrics page suggests that the USA does have a big user base.

They split the data into Physical and Virtual installs of Ubuntu, and then they don't provide stats for each of those, but then they are suggesting conclusions about Desktop Users when their stats could easily be referring to virtual "cloud" installs. For example, one reason that USA could have lots of Ubuntu "users" - is the fact that Amazon AWS Cloud has massive USA-based Data Centres hosting Virtual Machines.

These stats could have lots of value, but as Ubuntu have provided them to website visitors - not so much.

Play It Now - PixelJunk Shooter
16 October 2018 at 2:12 pm UTC Likes: 1

Pixeljunk Shooter was one of my earliest titles to play on Steam, on Linux. (I've only been using Steam for 3 years.) And I really liked it and enjoyed playing it. Never finished it, so there's potential to return in the future.

Something to share: There are some similarities with the new game Nimbatus - The Space Drone Constructor - and Pixeljunk Shooter. Both have a similar aesthetic style and destructible planet environments. Depending on how you construct your ships in Nimbatus, you can get your ship playing just like a PJS ship. I wonder if PJS was an inspiration for Nimbatus?!?

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