Check out our Monthly Survey Page to see what our users are running.

Latest Comments

Epic Games Helps Blender By Becoming A Sponsor
By Nyamiou, 18 July 2014 at 5:34 pm UTC

Epic Games are amazing.

Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative Now On Steam For Linux
By scaine, 18 July 2014 at 5:14 pm UTC

Yeah, the comments have been hugely out of order. I'll likely pick this up in a couple of weeks - gonna try A Valley Without Wind first.

Open Source FPS/RTS Hybrid Unvanquished Alpha 29 Released
By DrMcCoy, 18 July 2014 at 4:40 pm UTC

Well, this here seems to be the public Tremulous repository, at least the only one I can find: https://github.com/darklegion/tremulous

Dunno about Tremulous work, but at least there's infrequent merge commit with the ioquake3 changes...

Get Your Dancing Shoes On, Crypt Of The Necrodancer Comes To Linux Soon
By Liam Dawe, 18 July 2014 at 3:57 pm UTC

The problem is if you start sugar coating a game like this, then the difficulty ramping up takes too long and the game gets unnecessarily drawn out.

For Necrodancer it's quite hard to begin with anyway, so it feels about right. That said I haven't played the second zone enough yet to really feel its pain.

Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative Now On Steam For Linux
By FlutterRage, 18 July 2014 at 3:56 pm UTC

Bought it on release day and I've played it for two hours so far and I have to say it's really fun and worth those few bucks I've had to spend for this "stupid mod". Actually, it's the best portal mod I've played. People should stop complaining and try it on their own.

Get Your Dancing Shoes On, Crypt Of The Necrodancer Comes To Linux Soon
By Cheeseness, 18 July 2014 at 3:54 pm UTC

Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Cheesenessthe second zone becomes a skill wall that prepares you for the rest of the game.
To me that sounds like “the second zone is suddenly way more difficult with no progression and no hints to help the player, and if it’s too hard for you then we don’t care about you”… Hopefully I’m wrong.

Hmm. I see it as an important gating mechanism that makes sure that players don't feel the way that you describe when they reach later parts of the game. It's the point at which difficulty starts ramping up, but you still feel like you're learning all the time (or at least I did). It introduces a couple of new enemy types which encourage you to hone particular play styles.

With enemy movement styles being very readable, the game gives you plenty of opportunity to learn the new stuff that's introduced. It's the emergent complexity from variations in procedural level generation and enemy placement combined with different equipment that become the challenge rather than the new enemy types.

In "normal" mode, the game only lets you play through one zone at a time. If you play zone 2 in normal mode, you'll always be playing with default equipment, meaning that you'll never end up feeling more disadvantaged than your first exposure (which makes practicing feel easier/fairer than it does in something like Spelunky when using the shortcut tunnels).

SteamOS Update 123 Pushed To Alchemist Beta
By psymin, 18 July 2014 at 3:20 pm UTC

I haven't applied the update but the multiple reboots required after updates really got to me. I was certain that I had other issues going on (hence prompting me to opt out of the beta and reinstall on my boxes)

Now that I know it wasn't just me I'll opt back in.

Thanks for the info!

SteamOS Update 123 Pushed To Alchemist Beta
By Half-Shot, 18 July 2014 at 3:17 pm UTC

Quoting: GuestAha, they have their own compositor! But could they not be arsed to make their own desktop environment from ground up? tsk, tsk, tsk. I would have wanted to see that. But time is of the essence; it is too late to start with something like that now.

For Valve's purposes, Steam Big Picture is their desktop environment.

Epic Games Helps Blender By Becoming A Sponsor
By Liam Dawe, 18 July 2014 at 3:02 pm UTC

The difference with Epic over Unity to name one example is this: How long did it take Unity to fix Linux mouse issues? Too long.

Epic has code access with subscriptions, so people can jump in and fix it themselves.

That already makes them win.

Epic Games Helps Blender By Becoming A Sponsor
By Beamboom, 18 July 2014 at 3:01 pm UTC

This is just wonderful. Luckily many of my favourite franchises are built on the Unreal engine, so Epic´s involvement in Linux is probably *the* most important Linux gaming factor for me, next after Valve.

And just like Valve, they are doing it the right way. This benefits the platform greatly, and far beyond the gaming sphere.

Lovin´it.

Torchlight & Torchlight II Look Set For Linux & Steam
By Projectile Vomit, 18 July 2014 at 2:56 pm UTC

I can not wait!

Get Your Dancing Shoes On, Crypt Of The Necrodancer Comes To Linux Soon
By Cheeseness, 18 July 2014 at 2:50 pm UTC

Quoting: GuestYeah, often rythm games are extremely difficult… For example the recent « Fredric » games on Steam, the first level of the demo is way too hard. And no way to train at a lowered pace.

Crypt of the NecroDancer has a pretty good learning curve to it, IMO. The first zone isn't too hard, and is enjoyable in its own right, the second zone becomes a skill wall that prepares you for the rest of the game.

There was also a new playable character added with the last update who doesn't have to move in time with the music (instead, all enemies move in time with his movement, creating a more "turn based" environment that might be a little easier to get the hang of).

Unlockable training stuff was added recently as well, which lets players choose a particular enemy to face off against to learn/practice against their patterns.

The developer has talked about how he sees NecroDancer as being inspired by Spelunky in terms of being an "accessible" roguelike-like. It's easy to jump in and feel like you're playing, but there are also skill walls like the second zone which Liam mentioned (that'd be the equivalent of the Jungle in Spelunky) that are there to make sure you're prepared for the challenges ahead before you can proceed.

I went into a bit more detail in my first impressions article back in May.


Quoting: DrMcCoyTo the beat of the music, with your own mp3s?
Probably not the perfect game for some Sunn O)))? :P

I haven't tried any metal, but it works OK with some original acoustic recordings. I haven't tried to get custom music running in a while, but last time I did, the beat file generator wasn't included with the game and getting my own tracks in was a bit fiddly. The developers have said that the final game should include the ability to do all that in-game on all platforms.

With the game's fantastic soundtrack, I've found it hard to justify keeping custom music in though :D

Vote For GOG To Make Galaxy Open Source
By Shmerl, 18 July 2014 at 2:27 pm UTC

Quoting: Robert
Quoting: Apopas
Quoting: BillNyeTheBlackGuyI just don't see the point. Not every program needs to be open.
No program needs to be closed source.
I disagree. You need to release privative software if you want to include DRM, back-doors and other malware. It also makes the process of achieving a vendor lock-in easier.

That's exactly the point. All those are evil purposes.

Get Your Dancing Shoes On, Crypt Of The Necrodancer Comes To Linux Soon
By Sabun, 18 July 2014 at 1:03 pm UTC

Quoting: liamdaweI was thinking of trying it with some heavy metal...see how that works out :P

Now that's an idea I can get behind! Some Trivium, Metallica or A7X for my tastes :D

Darkwood Release Date For Linux & Interactive Trailer!
By Plintslîcho, 18 July 2014 at 11:34 am UTC

Whee! Just watched some trailers of Darkwood. It definitely looks interesting; has some eerie atmosphere to it.

I'm looking forward for Halfway at the moment though.
I'll keep an eye on Darkwood for the time being.

Darkwood Release Date For Linux & Interactive Trailer!
By Happy-Ferret, 18 July 2014 at 11:28 am UTC

QuoteRemember though it will be in Early Access, so bugs are incomplete features are to be expected.

I saw nothing, I swear. Please don't hit me with that stuffed penguin ;)

Epic Games Helps Blender By Becoming A Sponsor
By godlike, 18 July 2014 at 11:26 am UTC

Actually Epic are doing some really nice and bold moves lately. Their new engine has a very friendly and open model (UE 4 licensing model is mind blowing), they have some nice ideas as a Khronos member and now this.

Get Your Dancing Shoes On, Crypt Of The Necrodancer Comes To Linux Soon
By Liam Dawe, 18 July 2014 at 11:14 am UTC Likes: 1

I was thinking of trying it with some heavy metal...see how that works out :P

Get Your Dancing Shoes On, Crypt Of The Necrodancer Comes To Linux Soon
By DrMcCoy, 18 July 2014 at 11:12 am UTC

To the beat of the music, with your own mp3s?
Probably not the perfect game for some Sunn O)))? :P

Epic Games Helps Blender By Becoming A Sponsor
By Plintslîcho, 18 July 2014 at 11:08 am UTC

Wow, that's nice!

Vote For GOG To Make Galaxy Open Source
By Mnoleg, 18 July 2014 at 8:41 am UTC

Quoting: Apopas
Quoting: BillNyeTheBlackGuyI just don't see the point. Not every program needs to be open.
No program needs to be closed source.

I disagree. You need to release privative software if you want to include DRM, back-doors and other malware. It also makes the process of achieving a vendor lock-in easier.

Don't forget people who just think free software is evil. Restricting their rights you'll be more likely to sell them a limited license to use the software.

Simple Screen Recorder Updated, Recording & Live Streaming Made Easy On Linux
By Xylemon, 18 July 2014 at 3:10 am UTC

QuoteThe only thing I wish SSR had was built-in support for more than one audio feed, as having to mess around with things like Linux's PulseAudio system to string two feeds together is a real pain, and sometimes not worth the effort when it garbles your sound up. That is one area that OBS Studio trumps it, and I hope the SSR developer looks into it.

As far as I know the guy behind SSR has been looking into for this quite a while but PulseAudio is just, well...difficult to work with in this way.

JACK on the other hand is amazing with SSR (and amazing in general). Highly recommend it.

Vote For GOG To Make Galaxy Open Source
By Apopas, 17 July 2014 at 10:18 pm UTC

Quoting: BillNyeTheBlackGuyI just don't see the point. Not every program needs to be open.
No program needs to be closed source.

Open Source Morrowind Engine OpenMW 0.31.0 Released
By SXX, 17 July 2014 at 7:05 pm UTC

Quoting: IvancilloHow many releases do you think will be until this project will be fully playable (could finish the standard game campaign)?
One of reddit users linked this developer post:
QuoteAs you probably have seen already I am working on the final bits of scripting now. There is only a small number of feature tasks for 1.0 left. We should aim to be feature complete with 0.32.0 or at most 0.33.0. Nothing more to say about OpenMW for now.
Since a significant part of my time will be bound to OpenMW for 0.32.0 I won't be able to do as much work as usual on OpenCS. Well, the old story. We really need more help here.
As usual we should aim for about two month for the 0.32.0 release, but I would happily extend that a bit, if we can get feature complete.

Open Source UFO: Alien Invasion 2.5 Released
By Mnoleg, 17 July 2014 at 6:41 pm UTC

Quoting: ImantsI only found release for windows if they want me to compile it for Linux then no I hate to do those things :(

Don't worry. The new version will be available soon in (maybe unofficial) repositories for all the mayor distributions. I suppose they'll update the build available in Desura too.

Open Source UFO: Alien Invasion 2.5 Released
By Imants, 17 July 2014 at 6:14 pm UTC

I only found release for windows if they want me to compile it for Linux then no I hate to do those things :(

Open Source Morrowind Engine OpenMW 0.31.0 Released
By Samsai, 17 July 2014 at 5:56 pm UTC

Quoting: IvancilloHello.

How many releases do you think will be until this project will be fully playable (could finish the standard game campaign)?
I think it's somewhat close to being fully playable. I've wasted a couple of hours into it and I didn't have too many problems, apart from occasional bugs, crashes and generally bad performance. I've also heard that you can complete the main quest with some glitches. Some of the side quests might not work though.

It also needs a pretty beefy machine for now, because the engine is not that optimized. My main rig (GTX 760, Intel i5 2500k @ 3.3 GHz, 8 GB of RAM) usually maintains a 30+ FPS framerate, but some of the outdoor areas are really taxing and the framerate can drop to around 10 FPS.

You can already have fun with OpenMW, but it's not exactly like Morrowind yet.

Open Source Morrowind Engine OpenMW 0.31.0 Released
By Ivancillo, 17 July 2014 at 5:24 pm UTC

Hello.

How many releases do you think will be until this project will be fully playable (could finish the standard game campaign)?

Vote For GOG To Make Galaxy Open Source
By PublicNuisance, 17 July 2014 at 4:39 pm UTC

I can't wait for GOG to go Linux. My 2 top priorities for gaming is DRM free and Linux and at the moment finding both is hard. Humble store is pretty good about doing both but I love to support GOG.

Vote For GOG To Make Galaxy Open Source
By DrMcCoy, 17 July 2014 at 4:33 pm UTC

Usually, a fork (and I'm talking about a real official fork here, where people want to take development into a different direction and not just a "fork" of the code to your own GitHub profile) is not done lightly.

It arises for example when a big enough group in the development team has different visions or opinions on how to do things (XFree86 vs X.org, or when there's personal differences between the people in the team (ffmpeg vs libav, or when there's been license changes people don't agree with (RhodeCode vs Kallithea.

Is is almost never "unnecessary", there's always a reason necessitating the fork. And often, the users benefit from this, by gaining different options and choices.