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The Dark Mod, the free standalone inspired by Thief has a new release out

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The Dark Mod is an excellent free standalone game inspired by the Thief series and they just recently put out a fresh release.

While this 2.07 release isn't a major one, it's mainly a "stability release" aimed at cleaning up issues from the bigger release they put out last year.

It comes with improvements to the AI so now they react properly to flashbomb attacks while seated, they also now handle bodies obstructing door closure and they will also "properly return to seated coordinates after being interrupted from patrol routes".

There's numerous graphical updates too, including the ability to now change most graphical settings without the need for restarting the game. That's pretty sweet! A new experimental Shadow Maps feature with "contact hardening" made it in too, which should offer better performance. Lots of sound work went in too adding in missing sound effects, they enabled "HRTF by default for better positional sound" although they say that only works with headphones.

On top of all that there's performance improvements, many bug fixes, new assets for modders and so on. See their update here with the full changelog here.

Also, they've said for The Dark Mod 2.08 it's going to require at least OpenGL 3.3 as they are planning to move more of the "renderer off the CPU onto the GPU" to improve performance even more.

A very impressive project, very happy to see it so alive with new enhancements. Projects like this are why I absolutely love PC gaming!

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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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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8 comments

rapakiv Feb 5, 2019
this game deserves to be on steam
cprn Feb 5, 2019
Quoting: rapakivthis game deserves to be on steam
Well, yes. It got greenlit back in 2017 (in record time) and developers were working on releasing it for some time. Idk if that work stopped but it seems so. It might have something to do with Greenlight getting retired before they released, maybe they need to pay the Steam Direct fee now? The common feeling is it's not coming.
Shaolu Feb 5, 2019
Quoting: cprn
Quoting: rapakivthis game deserves to be on steam
Well, yes. It got greenlit back in 2017 (in record time) and developers were working on releasing it for some time. Idk if that work stopped but it seems so. It might have something to do with Greenlight getting retired before they released, maybe they need to pay the Steam Direct fee now? The common feeling is it's not coming.

Same story with SuperTuxKart.
14 Feb 6, 2019
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Wow. It looks terrific. I don't know if I ever knew about this one. I need to try it!
theghost Feb 6, 2019
Why can't we just get a graphical remake of the good old Thief 1 and 2? ;-(
cprn Feb 6, 2019
Actually...
Quoting: liamdawe@Liam
Can you reach to the project's rep (for both SuperTuxKart and The Dark Mode) and ask if they could release an official announcement about what's going on with Steam packaging? AFAIK there's no official one, just many "I think"s and "it seems"es spread by not affiliated people (guilty). It's not that I'm lazy but you obviously project more official feeling than (probably) any of us.

Old Greenlight links here and here. Relevant comments from this discussion below.

Quoting: Shaolu
Quoting: cprn
Quoting: rapakivthis game deserves to be on steam
Well, yes. It got greenlit back in 2017 (in record time) and developers were working on releasing it for some time. Idk if that work stopped but it seems so. It might have something to do with Greenlight getting retired before they released, maybe they need to pay the Steam Direct fee now? The common feeling is it's not coming.

Same story with SuperTuxKart.

Also, sorry for pinging you in this canny fashion.


Last edited by cprn on 6 February 2019 at 1:02 pm UTC
cprn Feb 6, 2019
BTW I think Steam's IT team should have one person dedicated to packaging games like this as long as they are GPL/MIT/etc. licensed and donate the money back to the project (if they choose to release it as anything else than f2p, that is).

It would be great for:
  • projects that get patches and new players sent upstream
  • Valve PR
  • Valve insights on what needs improvements to make it easier for indies
  • obviously Steam users
  • Steam Workshop as open source games are easily moddable
  • Steam Direct as open project devs will be more keen to pay that $100



Last edited by cprn on 6 February 2019 at 3:12 pm UTC
Desum Feb 7, 2019
Seems to be a bug with the RX 480 and amdgpu. No shadows or lighting effects seem to work.
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