I've never once, ever, in over 1100 games, experienced a launcher which improved a game experience. I don't even read the text they inevitable try to force down your throat - there's a "Play" button and I press it, rolling my eyes.

All launcher adds to the gaming experience is:
1. Longer load time
2. One extra button to press before you're playing (at least, since they often try to get you to create an account for additional milking)
3. Increased likelihood that the game will break entirely, especially for Linux players, or Big Picture players.

Absolutely trash. And for a company to pass a launcher off as a quality of life improvement is disingenuous bullshit.

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: DoomedpaladinNah. I prefer Wanderbots' name for the genre, "Bullet Heaven." If you controlled a horde then "Horde" would work, but games like Pikmin and Overlord 1&2 would work better for that.

There are Twin Stick shooters (games where you move around on a map, chased by things, but you can aim with a secondary stick, so you can constantly move away from the enemies while shooting them) and then there are 'Flick Stick' shooters, which is what these are. You have to flick the stick in the direction they're coming from to be able to hit them, at least with some/most weapons, as it doesn't aim with the second stick.

Both Spellbook Demonslayers and Nomad Survival allow for second-stick aiming, but there's only a tiny handful of weapons where that's an issue, since most weapons are auto-target, or AOE around you, or a random spot. Some always target in front, or behind, so the aiming weapons occasionally give you some tactical advantages.

To that end, I still think the fourth criteria that really matters is the auto-shoot mechanic.

I love that Nomad Survival even plays on the Twitch runs that VS saw where you're not allowed to move. There's a whole character class that just stands still for the entire run. Quite hard to unlock too, but a fun and extremely tactical way to play these games.

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It's been mentioned in the comments already, but I think a fourth characteristic of the Horde games (Vampslikes) is that your weapons auto-shoot on a timer, which rules out quite a few games that feel loosely similar, but are actually fairly typical twin-stick shooters, like Enter the Gungeon, Tesla vs Lovecraft, or Neurovoider.

Just one more thing - while I love Nomad Survival and agree it's one of the best, I actually think Spellbook Demonslayers will be the better game! I'm just gutted that we have to wait another month before it releases - but the prologue is free [External Link] and I've spent quite a few hours with it already.

Liam also covered a rare space-themed Horde game called Gunlocked. I haven't tried it yet, but Space Crusaders [External Link] was bad enough (despite being native) that it's put me off space-themed games for a while! :grin:

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If you don't think the price hike is justified, you don't buy it. I don't get the hate (like comparing Paradox to the likes of EA or Blizzard). This isn't an insidious gambling ploy, like loot boxes. It's definable content you get to play for a price, which extends the value you get from the original game.

Sure, argue about the price (or value), but we can't compare this to gouging.

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I think I've mentioned in previous posts about DLC - I actually think Paradox gets this mostly okay. Sure, there's TONS of DLC content for their previous games - hundreds of pounds worth in fact (although only about 5 so far for this title). But no-one is forcing you to buy these, and the model allows you to buy only the bits you think you'd love.

Paradox surely isn't expecting anyone to download every pack. So provided that the packs you ARE buying are good value, then I think that's a pretty nice way to get more play time from a game you obviously love.

Maybe I'm just used to the board game model. These DLC packs are about giving you extended value from the initial investment, rather than making you wait years and then fork out for Crusader Kings 4.

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The visuals remind me of Beyond Good and Evil. And now that I've mentioned that masterpiece, I want to play it again! I think I owned a physical copy of that game... I wonder what the options are for replay now.

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Quoting: EgonautThe Amazon integration doesn't work properly yet. The only thing which works, is connecting your account and load the list of games. None of the games can be installed, it just fails with an error on the terminal.

For the time being, I can suggest using the CLI tool Nile [External Link], it works great.

I just tried Rogue Heroes and it gives:
2022-08-29 17:56:46,410: Unable to get games from API: HTTP Error 405: Method Not Allowed
2022-08-29 17:56:48,035: Failed http request https://sds.amazon.com/amazon/
2022-08-29 17:56:48,036: There was an error getting patches: 1ebe8dd8-ca72-cc12-ab87-8683f149801e
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/lutris/gui/application.py", line 628, in on_game_install
    game_id = service.install(db_game)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/lutris/services/base.py", line 252, in install
    installer = self.generate_installer(db_game)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/lutris/services/amazon.py", line 605, in generate_installer
    file_dict, directories = self.get_game_files(details["id"])
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/lutris/services/amazon.py", line 544, in get_game_files
    game_patches = self.get_game_patches(game_id, manifest_info["versionId"], hashpairs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/lutris/services/amazon.py", line 504, in get_game_patches
    raise UnavailableGame(
lutris.exceptions.UnavailableGame: ('Unable to get the patches of game, please check your Amazon credentials and internet connectivity', '1ebe8dd8-ca72-cc12-ab87-8683f149801e')

Meanwhile, A Knight's Tale seems to work:



It's downloading now - looks like it creates an "amazon" directory in your default Lutris folder.

EDIT Hmmm, ah well. After downloading, I hit "Launch":



EDIT2 After stopping/starting Lutris, it recognises it's installed! But still doesn't run. Logs show it trying, but it doesn't take.

2022-08-29 18:15:58,395: Unable to load libGLX_nvidia.so.0
2022-08-29 18:15:58,395: Unable to locate libGLX_nvidia
Started initial process 68085 from gamemoderun /home/scaine/.local/share/lutris/runners/wine/lutris-7.2-2-x86_64/bin/wine /home/scaine/Games/Lutris/amazon/a-knights-quest/drive_c/game/AKnightsQuest.exe
Start monitoring process.
ERROR: ld.so: object 'libgamemodeauto.so.0' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object 'libgamemodeauto.so.0' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64): ignored.
fsync: up and running.
Initial process has exited (return code: 13568)
Monitored process exited.
Exit with return code 13568
2022-08-29 18:16:06,450: Game still running (state: running)
2022-08-29 18:16:06,450: Stopping A Knight's Quest (wine)

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Ext4 is the way to go. Don't use NTFS for anything, under Linux. At all. Ever. It's utter horseshit, honestly.

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I'd been claiming these games for months, but rarely used them... who needs yet another launcher, right?

But still, seeing them all like this was a hell of a shock!

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Quoting: clatterfordslimThe only problem with Proton, is the games need to be on the same drive as the OS.

That's not the case for me. My 2Tb NVME is mounted in /mnt/scaine and I symlink it with ~/Games. I don't think there's anything unusual about my rig and this has worked for the past three years on Mint, Pop_OS and now Endeavour.

I wonder what it is about your build that causes you Proton issues?

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