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The Cheapskate's Corner 11 (Jul 26th-31st) (UPDATED)

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Welcome to a rather late The Cheapskate's Corner edition. We won't be wasting your time with lengthy introductions, so let's get to the point: what have you missed if you didn't read our last column?





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· First and foremost, the Steam Summer Getaway Sale ended last weekend, just like many other parallel sales such as Indie Gala's or many developers offering their games at the same discounts via the Humble Store. You've had your chance to get many Linux games at discount rates rarely paralleled throughout the year, so we hope you made the most of it!


· The last Humble Weekly Sale featuring 11 music albums by Jim Guthrie and friends ended yesterday night. If you bought it beating the average, you also got a digital copy of Indie Game: The Movie and the game Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. Many people complained about it for including only one game -and one already bundled twice!- but we think they were missing the point, as this sale was mostly a musical one to promote Jim Guthrie's work; the game and the movie were only extras. The new weekly sale is more criticizable, though (see the Brand New Deals section below for more info).


· The Pixeljam Octology bundle also ended last night, and with it also ended your chance to pay whatever you wanted to get Potatoman Seeks the Troof, Dino Run SE, Dino Run: Marathon of Doom, Planeteri, Bitku Beta and Snowball!, as well as the Potatoman OST and Pixeljam's Volume 1 music album. But fans of Pixeljam don't despair, as there's a new Pixeljam-related deal to bite. See below for more info.


· Finally, the usual recap of IndieGameStand deals, which continues to feature Linux games. Last week's deals included Private Infiltrator on one hand, and Pitman + TRI alpha on the other. Both deals came with interesting beat-the-average bonuses. As you would expect, their current deal is also a Linux game! See below as well to find more about it.










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Charlie's Games Mega Bundle Pack is going on and on, just as if it were a Duracell Bunny. This deal's been here for so long you all must know it well, but there's news about it: the minimum payment to get Scoregasm has dropped from $9.99 to $5! If you happen to pay less than that, you'll only get Irukandji, Bullet Candy (the 2013 update) and Bullet Candy Perfect. As usual, contact Charlie for any Steam or Desura key you want.








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The two remaining Indiebundle.org's bundles are still live, although one of them is ending soon. Let's review them once more:


· The Deadly Dungeons Bundle will only be available until Sunday 23:59:59 CEST. So hurry up if you're interested in any of its contents: Dungeon Fray (already available for Linux), Knytt Underground (its Linux version currently in beta state) and Dwarf Quest (could be coming to Linux someday), all of them for $5. The usual disclaimer applies: buy it at your own risk since right now it only contains one Linux game which can be bought separately for less than the bundle price.

UPDATE: This bundle expired.


· The Kids & Charity Bundle doesn't include anything playable on Linux right now, but many of its games could be ported someday. In the $1-$4 level you can find 3 Teddy Floppy Ear games made with Unity: The Race, Mountain Adventure and Kayaking. The $5-$7 level offers Wimp: Who Stole My Pants? (allegedly being ported to Linux) and Woodle Tree (Linux version coming in a future release). Bold type with capital letters disclaimer: get this bundle only if you like to gamble, as you can end up empty-handed.








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ShinyLoot's Summer Platformer Sale carries on, but only until the end of the weekend. There you can find 4 Linux games at 50% off: Bridge Crosser, Grimind On The Shoulders Of Ancestors (includes a Desura key) and Ostrich Island (with a Desura key coming soon):


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As we told you last week, everyday one of the games is additionally discounted up to 80% off and our spider-sense tells us tomorrow's (Saturday) selected game will be On The Shoulders Of Ancestors. If you're interested in that particular game, you may want to wait a few hours to get it even cheaper.

UPDATE: This deal is already over, sorry.










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Certainly life didn't end with the Steam summer sale and here's the proof: lots of new bundles and deals!







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The Humble Weekly Sales have gone back to normal with an all-games sale. The only problem is that out of the four Positech Games featured titles, only one of them is compatible with Linux. Pay what you want ($1 min to get a Steam key) to get Gratuitous Space Battles:


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At least there's a Linux game, and all of them are DRM-free, but it seems like the recent happy days of weekly sales with an all-Linux game cast are over. Let's hope they come back soon.









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As we said before, IndieGameStand is currently featuring yet another Linux game. This time around it's King Arthur's Gold brand new beta edition:


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Pay what you want ($0.25 min, and $1 at least for a Desura key) to get it, or beat the current $1.35 average to also get a 189-page digital art booklet. Be quick as this deal has less than 24 hours remaining!

UPDATE: This sale is over, but there's a highly exciting new deal. Go to the bottom of the article for more details.









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The Pixeljam Octology Bundle is over as we reported in the What Happened? section, but there's more Pixeljam material on sale that we weren't aware of. It's the DinoRubbish MegaBundle, where you can get Pixeljam's Dino Run SE and Slakinov's Super Space Rubbish, along with their OSTs:


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Pay $5 to get the two games and the two soundtracks.









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This is an efimerous Steam bundle, but a bundle in its own right: the Puppy Games Ultra Bundle. The bundle is 75% off, but if you don't count the Revenge of the Titans: Sandbox Mode and the Revenge of the Titans Soundtrack the effective discount is lowered at about 70% off, what's still an excellent deal. So pay £5.74/$7.49/6.99€ and get Droid Assault, Revenge of the Titans, Titan Attacks! and Ultratron:


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If you already own one of these games or are only interested in some of them, you can also buy them separately 75% off. But be quick, since the sale will be ending in a little more than 24h!

UPDATE: We warned you this deal was not going to last for long and so it's already over.









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The Indie Gala has recently launched The Summertide Bundle, which includes a pair of Linux games. Pay at least $1 and get a Desura key for Oniken:


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Paying more than $3.89 will unlock a Steam key for Space Pirates and Zombies:


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Aside from those two titles there are two more games in the base tier that will be coming to Linux, although not in the inmediate future. The developers of Miner Warfare and Doom & Destiny confirmed to us that they've got plans for porting their games to Linux, but it's not one of their top priorities right now.

Plus, there's still three Steam games to be unlocked next week. Do you think any of them will be a Linux title?









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There's a new Groupees game bundle going on, the Adventure - Role Playing Groupee. Strictly speaking it's got no Linux games in it although there's at least one that can be played natively on Linux. We're referring to Ben There, Dan That! which can be played using the AGS Linux port, as reported by avarisclari on Desura:


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You can get it by paying at least $1.50, although it can also be bought in PWYW mode on the game website. So if you're only interested in this game you should probably buy it directly from its developers. But wait, this bundle may be holding some surprises since there are at least three more games that could eventually be released for Linux. They are Aztaka, whose Linux version is apparently almost done (although they were already saying the same last November); Vox, whose developers confirmed to us there'll be a Linux version soon-ish; and They Breathe, which will possibly be ported to Linux if its creators receive more requests (i.e. contact them and ask for a Linux port!). All in all, the Linux game count could be upped to 4 if we get extremely lucky. And we're not even counting the still-to-come bonus games. We'll keep you informed about any future development in regards of this bundle.

UPDATE: We weren't aware that this bundle is actually a "build-a-bundle" in disguise, so you can choose how many games you get (from 2 upwards) and how much you pay for them (at least $0.75 per game).








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And finally, Indie Royale has released The Indie Gamer Chick Bundle which doesn't include any Linux game either. But again, there are a couple of games in it which could possibly have Linux versions some day. In this case they are Little Racers STREET, which will be ported to Linux if/when it gets Greenlit, and SpyLeaks, a Linux port of which is in its developers plans although not on top of their priorities list. Under this circumstances, you know the drill: buy this bundle at your own risk since there's no guarantee these games are going to be released on Linux anytime soon.

UPDATE: Two more games have been unlocked since we published the article, but none of them is available for Linux. On the other hand, Antipole's developer has told us he's looking into a Mac build for the game and that a Linux version should be easy in case it works. So you can increase by one this bundle's potential Linux games counter.











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What could be coming? Well, the only one of the usual suspects not having a bundle going on is Humble Bundle, so we wouldn't matter a new Humble Indie Bundle at all. :P  Wishful thinking aside, and getting to more probable events, we must look again to IndieGameStand: in the pool of possible new deals we can find Scoregasm, DROD RPG: Tendry's Tale, Pandora: Purge of Pride and SickBrick. So far these were games already available on Linux, but if we extend our scope to also include potential Linux games then it could also be Party of Sin, a game allegedly coming to Linux. We'll find out in a few hours.



That was all for today, cheapskates. Stay tuned for any update, as there's always some, and remember to check our sales page to keep up to date with the newest Linux games sales. See you next week! ;)






$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $   UPDATE   $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $





We just realized we forgot to mention a bundle! It's no big deal though, since it's an IndieBundle.org bundle which will be around for a while:





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The Rugged Rogues Bundle went live last Friday and includes Tales of Maj'Eyal and Voyage to Farland for $5:


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Paying two more bucks ($7 total) will also get you a copy of Dungeon Prospector:


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All these games come with Desura keys.








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As we said in the What Happened? section, there's a new IndieGameStand deal. Ths time around it's not simply a Linux-compatible game, nor even a mini-bundle of Linux games: it's a mini-bundle of 3 games debuting on Linux, fresh outta flibitijibibo's magical porting workshop. So pay a minimum of $0.25 (or $1 min for a Desura key) to get Soulcaster II:


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If you beat the unusually high $3.50 average you'll also obtain a copy of the original Soulcaster, a copy of Escape Goat, as well as their OSTs and some remixes:


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Like in the previous deal all games come with a Desura key, although there are no Linux versions of these games available there yet. Like all IndieGameStand deals lasts only 4 days and will end in little over 48h.








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And finally, we're glad to present a new game-bundling website called GamesRage. Their first ever bundle is called Polandball Can Into Games and features 5 indie games made by Polish studios. Although they seem committed with DRM-free games and at least concerned with multiplatform titles, there's only one Linux game in this bundle, the recently featured on IndieGameStand King Arthur's Gold:


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Pay what you want ($1 min) and get it DRM-free and a Desura key. The deal will be live for 12 more days so we'll talk about it again in our next column. In fact we're sure we'll talk again about GamesRage, and we hope that this next time the bundle contains more than one Linux game.



. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
A Linux user for more than 15 years, I've just recently rediscovered the passion for gaming. Couldn't have chosen a better time than now: the [second](http://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/linux-techdemo-available-for-race-the-sun-.1752#4850) Golden Age of Linux gaming.
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7 comments

Mike Frett Jul 26, 2013
Even if there was some good sales going on, I'm waiting for some more cash-flow after spending gratuitous amounts buying nearly all of the Games from the Steam Summer Sale :P. I was the submitter of the 'DinoRubbish MegaBundle' sale which I found by accident from clicking through links from the Dino Run game, fun game by the way.

Incidentally, I wonder if there's any word of 'gratuitous tank battles' getting a native Linux port?. Thanks for the article, love reading these. ;)
Liam Dawe Jul 26, 2013
I would have major doubts we will ever see GTB get Linux support, the developer didn't even do the space battles port and doesn't seem to want to update the Linux version himself to get the DLC to work properly sadly.
pizzadude Jul 26, 2013
A quote from Oniken Desura page:
"Mac and Linux version uses wrappers. They're not a port, however in almost every machine that we tested the game it runs without any problem. However if you had a problem please e-mail us!"

So it looks like it's just a wine wrapper.
s_d Jul 28, 2013
Yeah, beware Oniken.  The developer makes awesome, retro-styled games (for example, they're running an IndieGoGo campaign for their next project, Odallus: The Dark Call, which looks amazing... but there will be no Linux version), but they were perfectly content to sell a Wine game as a native port.

To them, there's really no difference as long as you can play the game.  In fact, the statement you're quoting wasn't even there until people complained.  Of course, there *is* a difference, even if you can play a game (XDG savegame locations amongst other concerns), but frequently, something goes wrong and my previously playable configuration breaks for various reasons.

Often, I need to use bottles or PlayOnLinux to manage multiple Wine versions, and have a fair bit of Windows knowledge to get things working properly.  This is an annoyance and a hassle to me personally, but others swear by it.
Liam Dawe Jul 28, 2013
I personally will not support people being lazy and bottling their games with a winelib and calling it done.

Wine is good for old games yes and for massive AAA developers who are bound by publishers to not publishing to extra platforms (so we will never see a port).

Indie developers aren't bound by that, they may have limited resources yes fair enough I fully get that but a good % of them you can guarantee haven't even attempted to look into Linux support. That or they are just too uptight to learn how to do cross platform code as they don't want to let go of precious Windows only stuff.
s_d Jul 28, 2013
Well stated, Liam.

Also, I just noticed... the Groupees has Rune :><:  Damnit, it makes me so furious that good old ports are rendered dead on the vine.  That would be a prime candidate for GOG games for Linux.  They could totally launch with lightly-massaged and updated versions of the Loki catalog, the Runesoft catalog, and about two-dozen other cool odds-and-ends.

I don't suppose the Linux client is somehow "silently" bundled with the default Rune installer, is it?
avarisclari Jul 29, 2013
Thanks for the mention :D :P
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