I'm quite happy with the round-up as it stands.

Meanwhile, sharing my latest gaming pursuits. Over the last few days, I've been playing:

Nimbatus - The Space Drone Constructor - It's a pretty cool game. In it you have a very customisable spaceship editor and can build all manner of ships, and automation of those ships. One of my favourite bits of the game is creating a fully-automated ship, and then fighting with other people's creations in the Sumo game. You equip your ship with sensors, logic circuits, thrusters, and set it up so that it stays in the ring longer than the competing ship.

Kingdom Rush - After the recent article mentioning that Kingdom Rush: Origins was on the way to Linux, I notice that I had no Steam achievements on the original game. So, decided to go back to it and play it again. About 3 hours of play, on Normal difficulty, and managed to complete the main campaign. But, once you do that a big bunch of additional missions are unlocked so you have numerous hours of further play to enjoy. A very nice (and difficult) Tower Defence game.

Slay The Spire - This turn-based strategy card game is really well balanced and addictive. I've been playing this in short sessions, ever since the start of the year. Finally reached Ascension mode 6, yesterday. So hard to get there. This game has tonnes of replayability. And so easy to pick it up and play, whenever you need a short gaming fix.

Killing Floor 2 (Proton) - Tried this Windows game for a few hours using Steam's Proton. It was playing fine for me. It was more of a test, than getting into the game properly. Maybe when my Nvidia graphics drivers update to a later version, I'll give games like this (Proton, First Person Shooter) more attention.

Rust - In my latest chunk of play, I loaded up to find that my character had been killed and my base attacked. Starting from scratch, I scavenged the landscape, got kitted up and travelled back to where my base had been. Thinking that it might be recoverable, I was semi-correct. The attacker had added their own tool cupboard and was attempting to lock-down and take it over. I was able to destroy their tool cupboard, regain control of the building, and fill the holes in the structure. Most of the internals (furnace, workbenches, etc) were then back in my possession. Probably be playing more of this, later today.

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Cool - I already owned the Special Edition version of Mark of the Ninja, and magically the Remastered version has turned up in my Steam Account. Happy days!

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Having had a think about the Humble Discovery Pack bundle, I have a suggestion that might appeal to some prospective buyers of that bundle:

I'm interested in the Windows (Proton) Early Access (not complete yet) game "Osiris: New Dawn". If anyone is getting that bundle, and doesn't want that game, then maybe I can trade something else (in my spare steam keys) for it?

[Unfortunately, I own all the other games in that bundle which appeal to me, so it would be a waste to grab it just for that game. And then someone else possibly would like those other titles, but not be interested in a Windows title ;) ]

Also note that I've done a number of successful key trades with other Gaming On Linux regulars before. PM me if you can help.

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Quoting: KimyrielleFunnily enough, games are -cheaper- now than then were 20-25 years ago. As in absolutely cheaper, not just relatively. Also, back in the days, there were no "Steam sales" where you could pick up last year's games for half the price or less. If you don't insist on getting the newest game RIGHT NOW(TM), you are guaranteed to spend a lot less on games than back in the days.

I guess it comes down to a long hiatus between my original PC gaming (Doom, Ultima Underworld, Dune 2, Heretic, Quake, etc) and then I dabbled in some console (e.g. Dreamcast), and it is only recently (the last 4 or so years) that I've got back into PC gaming properly again.

For interest, I have just examined two older computer magazines, PC Format from 1994 and PC Zone from 2007, and had a look at the PC game prices listed in them.

1994 examples for our amusement:

Myst £29.99
Day of the Tentacle £19.99
Gabriel Knight £30.24
Rebel Assault £19.99
Theme Park £25.99
Dune 2 £22.99
Monkey Island 2 £21.99
Space Hulk £30.99

Factoring in inflation and cost of living since 1994, then your comment is accurate. I would still stick with my point that AAA titles are often ridiculously expensive, brand new.

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One thing that irritates me these days is the cost of "AAA" games. I'm not completely put off by a brand new AAA title costing $30 ( £20 ) , and then subsequent, brand new DLC costing half of that $15 ( £10 ). But for a game to cost $65+ ( £50+ ) new, and the DLC to cost $45 ( £35 ) new - Typical pricing. The world's gone mad!

This "War of the Chosen" DLC is $45 ( £35 ) - For that same money, I could have 20 good games titles, from bundles.

Humble Overwhelmingly Positive Bundle 2 =

1. Wuppo
2. Simulacra
3. Subsurface Circular
4. Nuclear Throne
5. Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight
6. LISA
7. SOMA
8. Opus Magnum

That's 8 titles for $15 (and potential to gain a $2 voucher, offsetting the cost).

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I think my least favourite acquisition by Microsoft so far was that of Nokia. They didn't outright acquire it, just take it over for a few (7 ?) years. Nokia had just been putting out super Linux mobiles - The N900 and then the N9. Marvellous phones for their generation.

Microsoft's plan seemed to be to demolish the existing phone tech, push Windows mobile onto all new devices, and when things went down the toilet (competing against Apple and Google failed), then they pulled out leaving Nokia with a much worse company to rebuild.

Meanwhile, during the take-over, there was a splinter-group of irked ex-Nokia employees who went to form the Jolla mobile company running their own SailfishOS Linux operating system. Jolla is still running but unfortunately isn't doing as well as it had hoped. Meanwhile, I wish Nokia would resurrect those Linux operating systems (Maemo and Meego) and re-release updated versions on new phones.

Meanwhile, it is perfectly possible that a bunch of Obsidian staff (e.g. More than just the Linux devs) will not be happy with such an acquisition, and will leave Obsidian/Microsoft and form their own new indie splinter-company ;) [And I've seen the same happen before, not just with Nokia / Jolla - "Personal experience."]

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The new bundle - If I didn't already own War for the Overworld (inc. dlc), Tricky Towers and Kentucky Route Zero, it'd certainly be more appealing. Hehe, gawd.

This new format of only 1 tier is interesting: It'll probably upset some people. Guessing they are trying it out and seeing what the response will be.

Amused that Osiris: New Dawn was covered by Gaming On Linux back in 2016, as looking like it was coming to Linux, but it isn't out of early access or on Linux yet.

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Love the Kingdom Rush games. Own most of them on Linux and Android so far. Yes, it's good to get another for native Linux play <3

The graphics and play are great. Like others have said, they are not easy games (to get to the end). The first few levels I find are of the right sort of difficulty, but then the difficulty ramps up a lot and it gets to be too hard for me, too.

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: scaineCan't wait! I love these games - they're the best TD games out there!

They're quite good.
But the best would have to go to Dungeon Warfare I and II (latter is not natively on linux, but runs fine via Steam Play). No other TD game reaches that level of depth and possibility, especially of the second part with its leveling up mechanics.

Ah yes, Dungeon Warfare is a wonderful TD game and runs natively on Linux, and I've played hours of it. One aspect of the game that helps keep it from going stale is the fact that you can change your load-up completely, and take out the mobs in completely different ways. It has a good upgrade system and great balancing.

Personally, I'm disappointed that DW2 hasn't had a Linux release, considering DW1 did. I expect that it's the usual story - Not enough Linux players (i.e. profit) to sacrifice resource effort away from the more popular platforms. I have been holding off from buying Dungeon Warfare II, until there is a Linux release *or* the price is very low, e.g. discounted on sale. Good that it works okay on Proton.

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Quoting: scaineAs someone else noted, it's worth trying the proper driver - Proton requires 396.54 now - that might fix your graphical headaches. Certainly, the game looked and performed brilliantly when I tried it.

I'm a long term Debian user, and I use it properly... i.e. I install the packages from the regular repositories so that my system doesn't get messed up. I have tried backports and all sorts of things in the past, but generally find that forcing a later graphics driver onto the system ends up borking it.

Any suggestions about installing Nvidia graphics drivers onto Debian which don't mess it up?

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Quoting: GuestHave you tried Killing Floor 2 yet? Eager to know how that runs since I dual-boot to play that game ALOT, would be great having it run flawlessly on Linux seeing as how Tripwire never gave us that native port they promised.

In-fact I feel Tripwire should work with Valve to help KF2 work good under proton, feel like it's the least they could do after failing to keep their promise of a native linux port

I'm having a go trying Killing Floor 2 on Proton right now. Note that there is every possibility that if it works for me then it won't work for you, and vice versa. Anyone else want a try - It is a 23GB download (tsk).

Okay, well GOOD NEWS. Off the bat, no tweaking, it worked okay on my Debian Buster, Ryzen 5, GTX 1080ti, Nvidia driver 390.87 system. I try to run all my games at 4K resolution (3860x2160) and it was working at that res, but it seemed the frame-rate or responsiveness was a bit off, so I did get fiddling around with command-lines and graphics settings.

First minor surprise was that changing resolution barely affected the responsiveness of the game. In games where I have had slow-downs in the past, I've dropped resolution and BAM, loads more FPS and the game feels more perky. Certainly I have resorted to doing that while playing SCUM on Proton (and it helped a lot).

So, instead of dropping resolution, I adjusted the anti-aliasing, lens bloom, DOF, and other effects (while keeping the textures on Ultra - my graphics card should be okay with that). With a fair bit of tweaking it did improve the responsiveness during game-play.

Also I had a go with some command-line settings, to see what they would do:

PROTON_USE_WINED3D11=1 %command%
- this worked and seemed a teeny bit quicker but introduced graphical artefacts.

PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 %command%
- this worked and might have slightly improved performance, no graphical issues.

Noting that the Killing Floor 2 "Proton" Window on startup mentions that it is running in 64 bit with Direct X 11. As such I expect the graphical beauty isn't as great as if it were using Direct X 12. Still, even so, it does look pretty decent as it is.

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