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Veeery nice! I remember when on a lan-party (anyone remember fiddling with the 10BaseT Coaxial cable madness and those forsaken windows drivers back then? Blessed those who had the original 3com ethernet card) someone gave us "copies" of the pre-release of Unreal Tournament and we all were totally hooked. It was so smooth, the music was awesome, the announcer epic. But even back then i hardly could keep up with the two older guys that were completely stoned all the time, but their aim was perfect. After remembering this i spun up UT3 from my library, and it ran perfectly without issues. Good times!

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I got to check it yesterday, and i had to use Proton Experimental to start it on EndeavourOs (Ryzen/Nvidia mix). After that i had no more issues.
The Tutorial has no real save points, so make sure to have an hour or so to play with it.
My first impression of the demo is really good. It got the vibes right, has a decent tutorial and seems to have at least some depth. So if you like to shoot some toasters, this might entertain you.

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Quoting: Jarmerhaha it's so funny how our inside voices are so different. I pronounce it exffice!

Thank you for using your inside voice. 🤓📚

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Quoting: gbudnyThe commercial games helped many of us keep using this system, and I wish it were a much bigger community. You can see huge communities of retro users constantly talking about games for Windows, Mac, Amiga, and Atari. etc. So many incredible companies sacrifice their time and risk their money to help Linux users play commercial games.

The main issue is that Linux has never really had any exclusives. For most of our history we have been a very small fish in a large pond, so the majority of our commercial titles have been ports or developed cross-platform. Meanwhile, our independent games have largely been free and open source (Tux Racer, SuperTux, Tux games in general), which is objectively great, but it does mean that most of these also saw releases on Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, and your toaster.

The only ones that didn't were either games that were never popular enough to begin with (and so were forgotten regardless), or titles that were directly tied to Linux/Unix only libraries such as the early X11 games (which were mostly clones of arcade games anyway). Simply put, there has never been a reason by and large where you HAD to run Linux in order to experience a given game.

Meanwhile, Mac OS had a shareware scene even during the darkest of times for that platform, through the likes of Ambrosia Software and similar (most notably early Bungie), not to mention all the amateur games made in Hypercard. The Amiga meanwhile had developers that adopted it when it was genuinely a leading game platform (and had many releases where the Amiga version was considered the superior version to the DOS release), and even in its twilight its attempts to keep up with the PC were still unique, such as Doom-clones like Gloom and Alien Breed 3D.

Loki's Sam Latinga even touched upon this when he admitted that if he were to do it all over again he would have developed original Linux games instead of ports. Maybe he was right.

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the art direction... even the things that look bad look good! (i mean, they help sell the uncanny feeling, i saw some bad backgrounds in the past due to the games being made by amateours or lack of tech, but this emulated the asthetic and im pretty sure it was on purpose)
there are also many different art styles, and looks like they know how to tell an scary story by the trailer

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Tried out the demo and really liked what I've seen. The art style requires some getting used to, but it is definitively an interesting game.

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FAITH is excellent. Tip top horror experience.

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Quoting: VerglasSo is that the reason they completely pulled the other BSG game from Steam a few months ago?

Either way, as a huge BSG nerd I will definitely check this one out. So say we all.

Pretty sure the other one had a 10 year license expire and that's what got it pulled from the store. I may have the amount of years wrong, but it didn't seem to be anything due to any kind of upcoming game.

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So is that the reason they completely pulled the other BSG game from Steam a few months ago?

Either way, as a huge BSG nerd I will definitely check this one out. So say we all.

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Quoting: Lofty

Quoting: Cyba.Cowboy

Quoting: Lofty

Quoting: Cyba.CowboyThe logical choice is ARM-based processors

And then after that the Ultra logical choice is RISC-V opensource license free architecture.

But do they have the maximum power / minimal power usage benefits of ARM? Anything partially or completely "open" is always a benefit; but it'd be a step backwards if they couldn't offer the power of ARM, whilst using minimal power like ARM...

it was more of a joke , but also with some optimism & idealism thrown in.

who knows, in the future it might become an alternative even if it's not class leading.

Woosh! 🤣

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So like a first-person mashup of Magicka and Noita, huh? Sounds hilarious. I'm just not a big fan of the art style.

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Back then I wrecked my parents XP PC with all the good early 2000s malware.

Now I'm a IT specialist and SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!11!

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Ah...
Love this beautiful and simulated universe 😊

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indie team Siege Wizard Interactive

Not my kind of game but I like the dev's cool choice for their name.

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The clay dudes abides!

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Quoting: suchPiranha failed to adapt - they just kept going as if the market wasn't ever going to change, and as if fans of their games pleaded undying loyalty to the studio itself regardless of whether the games that studio developed were any good. Sad to see them go, but after Gothic 2 there was a sharp decline in quality. At best, their output was uneven, and that's putting it very kindly. Riding out that Gothic 1-2 "fame" could've only taken them so far. I'm amazed they lasted that long, frankly.

I mostly agree. Elex 1 was awesome, I really loved it, but then Elex 2 came out and it was kinda just average. It was like they didn't learn from any of the elex 1 mistakes, and had a lot of the same clunkiness that absolutely should have been ironed out. It was like they just coasted from one game to another.

There was still the Piranha magic there, you could feel it, but by that time, I agree with you: that wasn't enough anymore. Still (and I agree again lol) sad to see them go.

I hope that new game you linked to with the demo can take the feedback and make some positive changes!

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Had Iron Lung on the radar for quite some time, but don't know any of the others. Will check out this bundle!

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I wonder how well this works in online multi. The desynchronized input must add a fair bit to the difficulty. Looks fun, though!

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The Type O Negative bundle 🤘🏻

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Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: Jarmer^ agree. Absolutely loved them as a studio. Was a sad day when the closure announcement came along 😫

😲

This is the first I've heard of the closure. Apparently it happened quietly in June 2024. However, according to Wikipedia, two indie developers have spun out of the closure, founded by former employees of Piranha Bytes.

One of those has a demo out. Predictably, it's a rough experience:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4293720/Cralon_Demo/

Piranha failed to adapt - they just kept going as if the market wasn't ever going to change, and as if fans of their games pleaded undying loyalty to the studio itself regardless of whether the games that studio developed were any good. Sad to see them go, but after Gothic 2 there was a sharp decline in quality. At best, their output was uneven, and that's putting it very kindly. Riding out that Gothic 1-2 "fame" could've only taken them so far. I'm amazed they lasted that long, frankly.

On the controls: I tried the modern/modded gamepad controls and cannot fathom why someone would play the games that way. It's extremely, needlessly confusing. The original keyboard controls are idiosyncratic, but they do follow an internal logic. Once you get used to those controls it's all incredibly simple. You can control Gothic with one hand, no mouse required (which is a bizarre condition to design your ARPG control scheme around if compared to modern standards, but there you go). Not to be that guy, but... it's really not bad if you just invest a few minutes into it. Interact button plus direction, attacks have more then one direction available. That's it, that's all the alleged complexity. So, looting a corpse or picking something up is ctrl+forward. Opening a chest is standing in front of it and pressing ctrl+forward... twice to account for the chest opening motion. Which feels very cool as chests aren't that common in the game. It makes it into a thing, and these days it's increasingly common for games to utilise player input in exactly this way. Talking to people is also standing in front of them and pressing ctrl+forward while not in combat mode (weapon holstered). Attacking people is drawing your weapon... and then also pressing ctrl+forward while in range to hit them (also left & right that you can chain). Inventory button, draw/holster weapon button, jump button. Inventory management isn't terribly convenient, but in terms of controls if your inventory is on the left and you're selling or moving stuff to a vendor/container to the right... you press ctrl+right on the item you want to sell/move, ctrl+left on the item you want to buy/move. Use item in inventory? Ctrl+forward. Cook meat? Ctrl+forward. Drop item from inventory? This is where things get really tough: it's ctrl+back.

There's some additional nuance to switching weapons when drawn or moving more items faster.

I highly recommend just rolling with it. If nothing else you'll earn bragging rights for "mastering" those "ridiculous" Gothic controls. Aka ctrl+direction ;)

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Based. I'm so happy that Steam Deck is even mentioned. There's been a lot of gacha games moving to Steam now - as a Cygames slave I'm happy to see that they've never restricted Linux. But outright Steam Deck mention is another step! Thank god for Valve having Steam Deck as the Linux trojan horse.

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The first game was awesome, really loved it! So I'll for sure check this out ... the shift to idle-ish is interesting.

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Quoting: Cyba.Cowboy

Quoting: Lofty

Quoting: Cyba.CowboyThe logical choice is ARM-based processors

And then after that the Ultra logical choice is RISC-V opensource license free architecture.

But do they have the maximum power / minimal power usage benefits of ARM? Anything partially or completely "open" is always a benefit; but it'd be a step backwards if they couldn't offer the power of ARM, whilst using minimal power like ARM...

it was more of a joke , but also with some optimism & idealism thrown in.

who knows, in the future it might become an alternative even if it's not class leading.

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“It's VOY, man!”

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Quoting: Lofty

Quoting: Cyba.CowboyThe logical choice is ARM-based processors

And then after that the Ultra logical choice is RISC-V opensource license free architecture.

But do they have the maximum power / minimal power usage benefits of ARM? Anything partially or completely "open" is always a benefit; but it'd be a step backwards if they couldn't offer the power of ARM, whilst using minimal power like ARM...

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I just tried the installer out of curiosity and it was the easiest and fastest I've ever remembered installing that game. Just ran it on my 2021 laptops onboard graphics and it worked great, not that I should be surprised considering the games age. Not ideal trying to play with a touchpad though.

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Quoting: Lofty

Quoting: suchDRM in fn Dino Crisis? Just install Duckstation, problem solved.

And using the right combo of setting it probably looks better. There are also texture packs for the PS1 game that will run via duckstation..

However.. Look into the drama surrounding duckstation and the main Dev. He is literally blacklisting certain Linux Distro's in the source code ( Which by the way is not fully FOSS & has a strict license )
Not to mention not supporting AUR or Flatpak. At some point i would not be surprised if he entirely stopped supporting Linux altogether. Fortunately before it was locked behind a restrictive license the code was essentially all complete. So a Fork will be possible at some point, even if it takes some time to get upto Duckstation's quality.

I think is not that simple as you put it. The Flatpak it have some issues that the App Image do no have so that why he remove it. For the not supporting AUR or packaging on general the problem that people start posting issues that where directly related from the packaging in the duckstation repo instead of the packagers that made it, so it all snow ball from there. In one hand there is a guy that is working for free in a project that he have joy on doing it and in the other hand is a lot of work to maintain some thing that has grown a lot.

That say, I believe that he could handle it really more gracious and not burn all the bridges in the process. But is easy to talk from the distantance

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Quoting: Cyba.CowboyThe logical choice is ARM-based processors

And then after that the Ultra logical choice is RISC-V opensource license free architecture.

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Hamish1999 (my fifth birthday)

None of my business of course, but as I see this...

All those games and systems are not your own good olde times? What made you investigate them so deeply?

Well, Hamish answered it.

I started using Linux in 2004, which means more than a year after I got my first computer at home. Loki and many other games for Linux aren't part of my childhood, too. Hamish is really making something amazing by publishing these articles, and I can learn more about the history of games for Linux.

The commercial games helped many of us keep using this system, and I wish it were a much bigger community. You can see huge communities of retro users constantly talking about games for Windows, Mac, Amiga, and Atari. etc. So many incredible companies sacrifice their time and risk their money to help Linux users play commercial games.

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