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Nightside, The Awesome Traditional RTS Game Exits Early Access

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQrcou3P45Q
Nightside is a personal favourite of mine, after I did initial testing for the developer a while ago they decided Linux would be worth it. The game has now left early access!

I’m a massive fan of traditional real time strategy games, and the style of the game is what hooked me in originally.

I’ve tested it out some more since the full release, and it’s as good as I was hoping. It really does feel like the strategy games I played when I was younger, only better looking.

I love the visuals, I can’t stress this enough. The whole being in the dark idea, with your units lighting the way looks really quite stunning. Also seeing little particles fly off the energy deposits is lush, and I wish there was more light particles flying around, as that would make it truly awe-inspiring.

The single-player so far seems really quite good, with a nice variation in objectives needed. The small cutscenes are well placed, and fit in great with the theme too.

While the gameplay and style are great, I do have a few criticisms:

1) It’s not entirely obvious when you get a new objective. Text does appear, but without any real visual indicator or sound to tell you. So if you’re not looking, you may miss the new objective.
2) This links directly into the above, during the first mission you’re supposed to find a safe place to activate a beacon, but it doesn’t tell you how. It does give you a new small button on the UI, but it doesn’t tell you to use that until you realise it’s there.
3) The sounds are quite low, I would very much like to audibly hear my units shooting at the enemy, which I don’t.
4) WASD for moving the camera, at least an option to if it’s not default. I miss that in any game that doesn’t have it, I want my mouse for commands, and not just camera control.
5) This one is a bit more urgent, it seems you can't save a single-player mission, which is slightly annoying to have to play a whole mission at once.

Check out Nightside on Steam. Overall, I think it’s well worth it even with my minor niggles. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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7 comments

hummer010 Aug 6, 2015
I hope it comes to GOG.
coolbober Aug 6, 2015
The best Linux RTS together with Planetary Annihilation. Visuals are great even on medium settings. Strongly recommended to everybody.
Ilya Aug 6, 2015
QuoteI do have a few critics:
I think you mean criticisms

Quotenoun crit·ic \ˈkri-tik\
1
a : one who expresses a reasoned opinion on any matter especially involving a judgment of its value, truth, righteousness, beauty, or technique
b : one who engages often professionally in the analysis, evaluation, or appreciation of works of art or artistic performances
2
: one given to harsh or captious judgment
Liam Dawe Aug 7, 2015
Fixed, thanks. Was very tired.
moltobenny Aug 7, 2015
Enjoying this very much. However, is it just me or does it need some serious graphics optimization? I can run most games on the highest setting with great framerates, but this simple RTS, I have to downgrade to medium just to keep the framerate from dropping too low.

But like someone above said, even on medium it still looks great, so it's not a huge deal.
oldrocker99 Aug 7, 2015
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Purchased on sale, and downloading.

Yes, it's pretty aweome; I love the look (the music is less liked), and it's a bit Starcraft-ish. That is a good thing, of course...
Julius Aug 8, 2015
Quoting: moltobennyEnjoying this very much. However, is it just me or does it need some serious graphics optimization? I can run most games on the highest setting with great framerates, but this simple RTS, I have to downgrade to medium just to keep the framerate from dropping too low.

Like most RTS, this one is probably more CPU limited than the typical action game where only the GPU (and not your brain either ;) ) is really pushed.

To me this game could have benefited from more polishing... not really ready to leave early access yet. It has also graphical issues on the sandy bridge intel iGPU. Last but most least... those video cut-scene are so amateurish that it would have been probably better to remove all together...

But the ingame RTS part seems pretty solid so far.
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