I've tried a few.

Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood (the demo is Windows-only and has issues with Proton; the game will have a Linux version). It's The Coma 2 but without horror and with The Wizard of Oz story. The demo is very short and consists only of dialogues and a couple of puzzles.

Viscerafest. I'm disappointed. Besides bad graphics, there are boring plain levels, lack of ammo, enemies inflict too much damage on high difficulty levels. But the worst thing is having no quicksaves or at least checkpoints. Instead, there are consumable items (one or two on a level), like in WRATH. What's the deal with quicksaving in these 90s-ish shooters? Why can't modern developers just let me use good old F5 and F9? The levels are short, but still it's annoying to repeat everything after a sudden death. Nice protagonist, nice plot, but the rest is not good enough.

Alisa. Yet another game that gets games of the 90s wrong. This time it's Resident Evil 1 but with even worse graphics, animation and voice acting. It feels like the developers intentionally do everything as bad as possible, totally ignoring all things that were improved in later games, like a dedicated button for a map, displaying a character and important stuff on a map, etc. It's painful to play this game. Also, it's glitchy, has big problems with FulHD resolution and controller support. After I died, it even crashed with an error saying its Windows .exe hadn't been found (despite it's native Linux and Unity). If you want a game that gets it right, play Them and Us.

Slavania (Windows-only, but the dev promises to make a Linux version). A metroidvania with some unique elements, like tracking and hunting bosses. It's very glitchy and unfinished at this moment. I'm looking forward with hope that all defects will get fixed.

HROT (Windows-only, no Linux support planned) - this isn't a part of this demo fest, just a demo for a new game in Early Access, but I played it along with others. A worse version of Dusk and Quake 1. Its monsters and weapons are just reskinned ones from Quake. The gameplay is enjoyable, but levels are too quadratic (at least that one level available on the demo), visuals are too brown, weapon sounds are very lame, enemies love to jump high too much. Nice music though. I'll get it on a sale eventually, but definitely not at a full price. You may need WINEDLLOVERRIDES="openal32=b" launch option to get sound working.

Lamentum (the demo is Windows-only; the game will have a Linux version). A pixelated 2D Silent Hill with a limited inventory and bottomless item boxes from Resident Evil. Definitely the best of these demos. Walk around a 19th century mansion, avoid or fight Lovecraftian monsters, solve puzzles. Its UI isn't good though, hard to manage and use items, no marks on the map (but the dev says this will be improved). It's easy to get lost, only diary notes can drop a hint.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: ageres1. Promoting Linux among Windows users to lure people away from Xbox Game Pass for PC, the biggest competitor for Steam. No Windows 10, no Game Pass.

That's an interesting point.

I just don't see any other reason why would Valve prefer people to use Linux and not Windows 10 (if they even want that). Only to use their dominance on Linux. On Windows, there are Steam, Origin, EGS, etc. So many stores to choose where to spend money. On Linux, it's just Steam.

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In order to understand what Valve could intend, people should realize it's a commercial company that exists to make money, not to drive people to go FOSS. I don't believe that Valve advances Linux gaming just because good Gaben loves Linux and us, Linux users. Before suggesting an idea, try to think what benefit can Valve get and how. It should lead to a situation where more people spend more money on Steam. I see several ways:

1. Promoting Linux among Windows users to lure people away from Xbox Game Pass for PC, the biggest competitor for Steam. No Windows 10, no Game Pass.
2. Making Linux gaming a better experience for existing Steam for Linux users. That's obvious, just keep working on Proton, contributing to relevant software, making contact with AAA-developers so they make their games Proton compatible if not Linux native. Maybe they will finally make a 64-bit client. Maybe an ARM version.
3. Engaging in using Steam Linux users who don't use Steam. I don't think that anything could be done to "FOSS/DRM-free or bust" kind of people, but at least Steam could be pre-installed on all popular Linux distributions, like it already is on Manjaro. I heard China is about to switch to Linux (for real this time), and I'm pretty sure Valve will try to take an advantage of that.

What ideas I consider as bad:

1. Linux-exclusive games. Exclusivity is never good and, in this case, will result in material losses for Valve and just won't work.
2. Lesser percentage share that Valve would take for games with Linux versions. It contradicts the purpose of Proton and Steam. Also it could lead to shitty ports just to get quick money and then to disappointment in Linux for developers. Remember The Witcher 2?
3. Any hardware. It may sound promising in theory, but we all have already seen that in practise it never succeeds. Maybe years later, when ARM CPUs will replace current ones, and there will be powerful and cheap enough Nintendo Switch-like devices, then it's time to do something one more time. Have you seen GPD Win 3? It look awesome IMO, but with an Intel CPU it's too expensive and consumes too much power. There are similar projects, like AYA Neo, but all of them have these handicaps. Image a cheap handheld gaming device that is actually a PC with Linux and Steam.
4. That USB stick thing. Sorry, but it is just silly.

Well, only Gaben knows what the future holds.

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QuoteThey said they're "putting together new ways for prospective users to get into Linux gaming and experience these improvements" - which sounds pretty exciting. What do you think Valve are cooking up to further Linux gaming?

VirtualBox on Steam confirmed. Now you'll be able to get "I use Arch btw" achievement and demonstrate it in your profile. True Linux gaming.

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Oh, Shrine 1&2 are on Steam, nice. I've played Shrine 1 with GZDoom. The graphics look too MS Painty, but everything else is cool, weapons especially.

QuoteShrine, Lycanthorn and Lycanthorn II all now have Linux builds

And Shrine II as well.

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Quoting: STiATCertainly looks cool.

I'd say, looks hot.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeWhoa, what game is that?

Prehistorik 2.

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Nice! I've just tried it with few games. It works great, has controller support, quick saves, etc. It allows to select an .exe in a .zip archive in case of there are several executables. Though there is an inconvenience that functional keys (e.g. F2 and F4 for saving/loading) may be used by games.

It's available in AUR as libretro-dosbox-pure-git.

Guess what game this is.

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QuoteAny GPU and driver that supports VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline will now work with the Ray Tracing here.

But what GPUs support that? Is there a list?

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Quoting: BingoWell I remember the times when the choice was between 1280x800 and 1280x720. Those 80 pixels made quite a difference. Wouldn't surprise me if 1280x800 was the most widespread in total.

I'm not sure if 1280×800 ever was widespread on desktop PCs. AFAIR, after 5:4 1280×1024 monitors (yet another stupid ratio), 1680×1050 appeared. There were laptops with 1280×800 resolution, and I had one. So, for myself display resolutions evolved as 4:3 → 16:10 → 16:9, thus I believe 16:10 is obsolete. I still don't understand how 80-120 pixels would make a dramatic difference that outweighs black bars or cut borders with 16:9 content. It's just a line of text or two, isn't it?

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