Quoting: KelsAh, I just noticed that the Itch front page is showing me Windows-only games again. Didn't the old client filter by what OS you were running the client in, unless told otherwise? Now I get to look at all this stuff I can't play natively.

Worse, for Itch at least: You get to look at all this stuff you can only play easily on the competitor (Steamplay!)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: DuncOddly enough, I see it as the opposite. I grew up with games whose credits could be put on the title screen: “By Matthew Smith”, or “Code by Jon Ritman, Graphics by Bernie Drummond”. I remember when games started to have rolling credits, and it was obvious they were trying to ape movies. It was the more ambitious, narrative-led (I'm trying to avoid saying “pretentious”) games

But not trying very hard, eh? ;)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: EhvisThe game has a few bugs though. Binding the comma key messes up the input configuration. Not nice for those on dvorak keyboards.

Dvorak keyboards, huh? So yeah, I guess good keybinding is a major issue.

Haven't heard anything about them for a long time, though. I feel like the technological impetus for them is gone, or at least greatly attenuated. I mean, the point of Dvorak keyboards is that if you need to type an awful lot really fast, they're more efficient. Or rather, I guess they're more efficient period, but it matters if you need to type an awful lot really fast. Now in the old days, there used to be secretaries. They'd take dictation. There would be reams of stuff originally written down with a pen, and you'd have to transcribe it with a typewriter. Lots of stuff where typing really fast was good, lots of jobs where typing already-existing text or trying to type at the speed of speech was a lot of what you did. Dvorak keyboards were a very relevant thing and it was stupid that they didn't catch on more.
But now, nothing is written down in longhand and nobody has secretaries for doing anything except looking like a big shot. You don't transcribe things, you don't take dictation, you don't in general use your fingers to reproduce stuff. You make copies by copying the friggin' file. People use typing almost entirely to compose stuff. If you're thinking really fast and you're using hunt-and-peck your typing can be the limiter on speed, but if you're even a half-assed Qwerty touch-typist you can type as fast as you can compose. So Dvorak isn't really as useful as it once was IMO. Even typing classes seem to have gotten far less common than they used to be, even though more people are using keyboards than ever.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Jewgeni Filippowitsch IwanowskiI was once assassinated for creating a socialist utopia bare of any problems but rich in personal freedom and culture.

Wow! Pretty realistic game.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

It's odd . . . one thing this says to me is that the line between "(not) emulation" and "port" is fuzzier than I would have thought. Like, both tend to rely on creating various cross-platform or Linux middleware, generally open source, to duplicate the function of closed Windows-only middleware, so if you improve that replacement middleware it makes porting easier and things like Wine and Proton more effective.
And for that matter, at least in cases where the stuff isn't obsolete, presumably that middleware would become available to future cross-platform game development, making it easier to develop cross-platform in the first place. Multiple wins.
This probably seems obvious to many, but it had never occurred to me before--this article has enlightened me.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: garpuSo, granted, there is support with DXVK coming from Valve. But if we regular users want to show the devs some appreciation, what's the best way to do it? Do they have a patreon? FOSS projects can flounder and die, when there isn't enough support (financial that is...computers and electricity cost, not to mention programmers need to eat and pay rent.)

I know WINE can be a touchy subject, but if Windows 10 does go subscription only, having an alternative for gaming that's easy, works, and runs with people's favorite games will attract a lot of people to Linux.

i guess what we can do is, keep buying games and playing then on linux.

as for MS shooting then selves in the foot, not gona happen.

Probably not in that particular way. I mean, they want to so bad they can taste it, they'd love to make themselves believe they could get away with it, but basically they know the reason they get to keep selling licenses is that for the end-user Windows seems to be "free" (as in no $$$). They know people wouldn't sit still for subscription-only.
In general, Microsoft have shot themselves in the foot repeatedly; their fundamental preinstall advantage is so great that their mistakes have so far cost them little.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: lucifertdarkChecking over at Reddit I found a link to something that could be very useful in the short term, for those times when the Linux port is less than playable compared to the original Windows version we now have Native2Proton [External Link].

edit: Actually I found the mention on Github not Reddit, so many places to look for Proton info now. :D

I just ask myself, does it count as run on Linux, or is it like using Wine?

Well, running a Windows game on Proton normally counts as running on Linux. I don't see why that would change just because an actual Linux version exists.
Anyway, most of the time you'd be doing this with something you already owned and had already played, or attempted to play, on Linux when you first got it, so it would have already counted as a Linux sale before you start with Proton shenanigans.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: GuestI enjoyed Stellaris initially but got bored with it pretty quickly, especially the end game.
I don't think I'll go back to it for a while. I did play it without any of the DLC's.

IMO the end game can still get a bit stodgy, but some of the DLCs do pep things up significantly.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I never minded the tile system that much but I also was never enthralled by it. This looks like it could be pretty good.
And really, I think it's a bit much for the conversation to be focussing on Paradox's DLCs when this is a major free update--happening how long after the game's release? Yeah, how many of your no-DLC games get that level of support? Frankly, Paradox games are just bigger than most other games. So they end up costing more; this is made more workable by splitting the cost into chunks. But your price per hour of play, your cost per amount of entertainment, on a Paradox game tends to be very competitive.
If you prefer little games that you play through once or twice in a few hours, nothing wrong with that. But that isn't a reason to diss the existence of big games that repay dozens of hours of play on the basis that they cost more than little ones; of course they do.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

So you're going to be able to send those little dweebs into space now? Oh, I'm sure that'll work out well.

View this comment - View article - View full comments