Holy indie rockstars, Batman...

For me, this is a really strong bundle.  All native ports, except one in the hands of the most trusted porting engineer in the industry!  I've never seen icculus not come through, except when his hands are tied by the client (Epic).

Also, Dear Esther is the one I care least about.  The whole "it's not a game / yes it is" argument piqued my curiosity, so I chose to do a bit of research on it, as I wished to stay current in indie gaming culture.  Since it was not on Linux at release, with no port on the horizon, I went ahead and watched the Yogscast "Let's Play" of it, and thoroughly enjoyed it as an existential cinematic experience.

I think the questions of whether it is or is not a "game" completely miss the point.  As well, it is a lesson on choosing not to whine like an idiot when one chooses not to read reviews before buying ;)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Oh yes!  In for a box :D

Spiritual Neverhood 2!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Agreed;  I have the same question, Hamish.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I only see the "Format not supported" message on Chrome/Chromium.  In Firefox it always works fine for me.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Also DRM-free on the Humble widget [External Link], apparently!

There is a caveat there, however:  "Linux version is currently in progress, but will be ready soon."

Looks pretty fun and twisted, like WoG.  I enjoyed that game & it's art style, and Inferno looks like it's cut from the same cloth (although, a completely different gameplay mechanic).  It almost looks more story-driven than WoG was, which is a good thing for me.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: MaximBIt's hard to fund free to play games.

Very much this.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: berarmaI don't like the paying model, I think it's paying for progressing in the game, that's the only downfall so far.

Well, no F2P models are really very good.  You essentially have "pay-to-win" and "pay-or-grind".  The former is distasteful to the extent of being, in my opinion, Bad For Games(TM).  The latter is the only viable one, while somewhat annoying, though I wonder about it's sustainability.  In this case, you grind for karma gems, and upon earning enough, you unlock new areas (ostensibly, advancing the story).  Alternately, you pay real currency (for gems?) and advance more quickly, but without levelling more quickly (though, buying better gear & skills may help with that as well, but with level caps, the "pay-to-win" is, I believe, totally nerfed).

The problem, which is not one for us gamers, is that the heaviest users of the service, grinding players on a tighter budget, are also contributing the least funds.  Users interested in progressing more rapidly, by dodging the grind, are the ones that actually support the studio.  There must be some kind of tricky balance here, which, if upset, makes the game a financial disaster.  I assume there will be loads of DLC's, as time goes, to entice players.

I wish that the install/play experience was more homogenous;  there's clearly a wide variety of experiences, ranging from my flawless one to Liam's great annoyance (for example).  The game is a lot of fun (in the ARPG formula of "click, click, loot, yeah!" which Torchlight nailed so well), and for my part, I'm happy to have supported it.

That said, I see myself firing up my main Gentoo rig in a month or so when my home office is ready, doing my "emerge world", only to find Akaneiro completely broken & join the grumpy camp! :P

View this comment - View article - View full comments

sigh

You've nailed it.  I have several ideas lined up, and no time as well.  I had to hand one off (who knows what will come of it).  :(

In any case, between the review, heavy maintenance of the crowd-funding wiki and two new columns, you're seriously the hero of the day, muntdefems!  :D

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Interesting results...  I had none of these issues whatsoever.  I tested on my base-level Linux game testing machine (i.e., laptop w/integrated Intel graphics, 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04LTS).  It's no speed demon by any stretch, but it is great for testing game functionality for the "average user", for the purpose of reviews and performance analysis.  Sadly, my nice workstation with a real video card is in pieces awaiting Yet Another Home Office Shuffle :)

I installed the launcher/torrent-client as instructed in the closed beta, successfully downloaded the game, and launched the downloaded game via the launcher.  There is a lag at launch with a dark screen in which I wondered whether or not I'd hung, but became used to it.  It's not nearly as long as the lag/hang launching games in Steam (I have only played TF2 and The Cave in Steam), but it is noticeable.

For me, the game plays very well, even in full-screen, without any artifacts, frame drops, crashes, or other issues.  The "register" button also does absolutely nothing for me.  I have been using the account issued to me in the closed beta.  Some direction regarding new user registration would be warranted.

Quoting: Ba7a7chywhat do I do after installation is finished ? the usual chmod and run ?

Once the game is downloaded from the client, the launcher has a "play" button in the bottom right corner.  You click it to begin the game.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Loved the first Anomaly game... can't wait to check this one out!

View this comment - View article - View full comments