I didn't really understand the charm of the game based on the demo. Everything felt so random that I didn't quite feel being in control at all. I have never played the original one though, so maybe I missed something.

But luckily there actually is Linux demo, so no need to buy the game blindly.

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Quoting: no_information_hereThis game looks like quite the change for them. I am very curious how they are going to make it different.

Quoting: denyasisFor some reason, I want to try zachtronics, but the hardcore reputation that seems to come with the games intimidates me a bit. Now this is the kind of game a simple minded person like me could understand!

I can understand your intimidation. I have several zachtronics games and they are all very well-made, and pretty challenging at the same time. I am embarrassed to say I don't think I have finished any of them!

Only one I have completed is Ironclad Tactics, or at least I completed the main game. Expansion was lot harder.

Rest of the games I haven't gotten all the way to the end. Maybe some day...

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Quoting: mos

Quoting: RaabenFrictional and their history of Linux support

their Linux support was always just a guy who does the porting.
The engine probably was using OpenGL from the beginning, otherwise we woudln't have seen the support at all.
They've most likely tweaked and hacked on it but haven't fleshed out the bugs yet.

There was interview (spoiler heavy, especially for the older games) where it was mentioned that engine is inherited from SOMA. It was big benefit as they could do better reviews of things they were working on. They really care about that games that they develop are scary and that's harder to prove with few solid low polygon objects.

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I guess Ark Linux desktop version getting fixes could depend on how they did the Stadia port. Sane way to do the Stadia port would be to fix the Linux version and then do some Stadia specific code on top of that.

Not that all code out there is designed in way that it's easy to maintain. Far from it.

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I played the demo and my impression was that it didn't feel fresh enough. Copying the retro design too closely has that danger and as end result game starts to feel like something that has been done so many times over the years.

Quake originally had most of its merits in the engine side. It did catch on on the multiplayer side bit later.

Single player on the other hand was nowhere near Doom, though it was still somewhat fun. Not the best game to copy as such and it really shows in Perilous Warp.

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Quoting: whizse

Quoting: Termyhm, i don't see a demo, am i missing something? O_o

I think it was time limited, part of the Steam Game Festival.

Quite annoying. I can understand releasing demos as an event during the festival, but why remove them?

Based on what demos I installed, they're not removed from your account though. So if you installed them during the event, you can keep playing them.

With previous event I had few demos where licenses expired, so installing all the interesting ones didn't help if you didn't actually have time to play them during the event.

I'm not sure if anything is mandated by the event as things vary between games.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Linuxwarper

Quoting: AnzaEspecially in that kind of scenario things are easier for Google if games are run on Linux.

Define Linux in this context. Debian? Any of the major Linux distributions? Or Google's fork of Debian? And if it runs on Google's Stadia customized Debian, there is little to no guarantee the game will run on Linux. Google could also diverge on the path of Debian further to point that their Debian may become so different to vanilla Debian that porting games would be cumbersome.

That would be a lot of trouble. Sure, Google no doubt do some custom stuff, but the further you diverge the more you have to maintain the thing yourself.

I would assume that they could do that if they think that libraries bundled with Debian are limiting them. Google in general is quite open source friendly company, so they will try to release things as open source or upstream the patches whenever feasible though. Search engine internals could be different thing.

Libraries is not that big of a problem anyway, using native distribution libraries could be. Having packaged set of Debian libraries in a distribution is not a new things as such. That's what less popular Linux distributions have had to deal with already long time if they want to run closed source programs.

Bigger threat is Stadia exclusives anyway. If game is developed exclusive for the Stadia feature set, getting it ported to Linux or even Windows might not be something that developer wants to do.

What helps Linux gaming in general is getting developers used to Linux. Like using Vulkan instead of DirectX. There's no guarantee that game will get native Linux desktop port, but company that didn't have any Linux experience will have already some experience after doing the first Stadia port.

They also might have been yelled at by Linus Torvals about doing stupid things. If they get past the initial shock, they might do better code in the future. Also if they plan to send kernel patches in the future, they're much better prepared

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Quoting: Linuxwarper

Quoting: GuestI doubt Google cares about porting games to desktop GNU/Linux. They likely wouldn't mind it too much, if it means an easier development time should the title want to arrive on Stadia one day; they're not actively against it, but aren't pushing for it either. Desktop simply isn't their market area.

There is no doubt, they don't want to port games to Linux. I am not trying to make a big point out of all this but if Google's market is streaming, why are they working on Steam support for ChromeOS? One can easily understand why, they are creating momentum for gaming on Chromebooks which at one point will be steered to strictly streaming.

What I have understood from little bit of Stadia demos that I watched is that Google trying to offer tools for developers that benefit from cloud and wouldn't necessarily even be feasible on desktop. One of the demos I saw was something that makes games work better with large number of players.

Especially in that kind of scenario things are easier for Google if games are run on Linux. They can scale things up much easier if they can strip down the operating system to essentials without having to have Internet Explorer and Solitaire installed on every instance. They don't have to negotiate with Microsoft for Windows licenses either. Microsoft is competing with Google and Amazon on the cloud side anyway, depending on competitor is bit risky business.

So in short is that Google might not see Steam as big enough threat for Stadia that they would have paid attention what ChromeOS team is doing. Besides more users playing games on Linux means developers are more interested in making native Linux ports, which in turn makes it easier for developers to port their games to Stadia and that in turn makes it more likely to developers notice the exclusive Stadia features.

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Quoting: Philadelphus

Quoting: rkfgThe demo works flawlessly on Proton, just click and play really.

Honest question, how do you get the demo to download? I click the Download Demo button and just get an error saying "An error occurred while updating Superliminal Demo (invalid platform)." I've never been able to figure out how to get Steam to let me download a non-Linux demo…

For directly downloading from store, you have to allow Proton to be used for non whitelisted games. Under Steam settings, select Steam Play from the side panel. From there check the "Enable Steam Play for all other titles" and then restart Steam.

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Quoting: jarhead_h

Quoting: Arehandoro

Quoting: Perkeleen_VittupääI like the 4th one.

Heresy!

P.S: I like the 3rd one, also a heretic for the purists I guess :D

Curse of Monkey Island is my favorite of the series.

My memory is bit hazy, but it could the be that that's the one where I started playing the Monkey Island games. I might have just seen the walkthroughs in a magazine for the first two at that point. It's kind in a sweet spot as graphics were still 2D, but there were enough pixels to really start seeing bit more details. 3D games that came after that didn't look nearly as good.

It has quite many memorable moments, like when pirates keep singing in order to avoid doing any work.

I have never played the Escape From Monkey Island. Could be that at that point I was already FreeBSD/Linux convert and wasn't really investing in Windows games.

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