Disolver Group.

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I got good value out of Dune: Awakening, really enjoyed my 110 or so hours.

Negatives:
- There's a bit of grind for sure
- The same-y-ness of the PvE missions starts to pale eventually
- The forced PvP mid-game is a weird design-choice even if there's almost no chance of you meeting another player
- End game is all PvP, which I have no time for.

But the positives! Beautiful game, decent choice of weapons, nice progression through meta-tree unlocks. Shai-hulud breathing down your neck as you cross the sands between the rock islands. The atmosphere, the mining, the base-building. It's all great. And the ornithopters! Hell yeah.

Really enjoyed it. Unless they change end-game, I'll never play it again, but it was so much fun while it lasted.

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The concept reminds me of Tactical Breach Wizards, which is definitely in my (completely imaginary and ever-changing) Top Ten Games Of All Time list. It allows you to do mad experimentation that you wouldn't normally do in games, especially mid-run.

Might have to give this a go, although the real-time nature of it puts me off a little.

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Yeah, it's eXtended Reality. Basically slotting in an X to mean either A (augmented) or V (virtual), since it does both.

VR terminology is baffling. Monado vs SteamVR vs OpenXR, all with their own quirks and compatibility.

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What Valve (or third-party) would need to do here is simply an easy way to make the LAN-Server reachable

I agree that this would excellent, but it won't happen, because there's no money in LAN servers. None of your friends will shell out actual money for skins/inventory tabs/hats/upgrades if they're playing local.

Maybe I'm wrong there though. Maybe there's a way to allow that monetisation, but it still works in a LAN-party, as well through Steam Networks. That would be cool.

But I doubt it'll happen.

From the sounds of it Valve aren't going to go super aggressive on the pricing. I wish they would though as it would really shake things up.

Sony, MS and Nintendon't all provide hardware as loss-leaders against their walled-garden stores. I suppose, in a sense, Steam is also a walled-garden, in so far as you need a PC to use it... but I doubt Valve will be happy burning money to create a loss-leader. Honestly, if the original Steamdeck launch is anything to go by, it's clear that Valve don't have a manufacturing capacity to create a loss-leader! If they loss-lead the price on Steam Machine and demand goes through the roof - they could find themselves with months- or each years-long supply shortage (ala PS5).

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This PC World article from the start of 2025 suggested that there were somewhere between 4 and 6 million Steamdecks sold to that point, with another 2 million expected to sell by the end of this year. So best case, 8 million steamdecks out there.

But there are 84 million PS5 consoles out there, 10 times as many decks, let alone XBOX and Switch devices. So, as a dev, I don't where the tipping point is, but I think it all adds up - Deck, Frame, Machine, they'll all contribute to applying pressure to support the idea of Linux as THE operating system to game on.

That's my optimistic hill that I'm willing to die on.

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D-pad in the wrong location. Pass.

That's the XBOX360 location, which I was quite used to... about 20 years ago. It's got the XBOX markings though, so it makes sense.

But then I got a PS2 and became sony-fied, all the way to the PS5 today. So every controller I've used since has the d-pad at the top-left. So yeah. Pass.

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I've had a pretty crazy month for games.

Elder Scrolls Online [External Link] - bought in a bundle. Deeply disappointing. Already un-installed.
Monster Train 2 [External Link] - absolutely loving this. It's taken over from Noita right now as my "fill an hour" game.
Biped [External Link] - silly two player co-op where each thumbstick on your gamepad controls your robot's leg. Quite fun. Hard.
Gloomhaven [External Link] - slow-paced adaptation of the tabletop version. Incredibly buggy, but quite fun.
Path of Exile 2 [External Link] - with the new Abyssal League starting last month, I started a new character. Amazing game.
Cataclismo [External Link] - bought it on recommendation from friends, but really isn't my cup of tea. City builder / tower defence.
Abiotic Factor [External Link] - bought in the hope my friends would buy. But didn't recommend it, not their cup of tea. Not sure what the fuss is about on this one.
Unrailed [External Link] - ancient co-op about building a railway through various biomes. Really hard, lots of fun!
Orcs Must Die: Deathtrap [External Link] - basically a remake of Dungeon Defenders. It's great, 4-player co-op. Love it.

I've also got Rage 2 [External Link] and Quake 4 [External Link] waiting in the wings from an earlier bundle I bought. And I managed to spend more time with Moonsigil Atlas Demo [External Link], but not as much as I'd like.

All of this bought on sale, and in bundles, and still spent over £100 this month. Oof.

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Looks like Luxtorpedia has already updated its references/tags to UZDoom too.

https://luxtorpeda-dev.github.io/packages [External Link]

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When I first tried this, I was hoping it would act like a kind of voice-changers. Gimme a "Darth Vader" preset, or a "Chipmunk" preset. Sadly, it's more like a graphic equaliser. It's focus is mainly in bass boosting, or maybe noise-gating your microsphone.

It's cool, but I'm already pretty happy with my mic/speakers, so I never ended up using it. If it ever grants more fun/silly effects, I'll be giving it another go. It certainly seems like it has the potential for that kind of stuff, but doesn't seem to be leaning into that in any way.

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