This always happens. Whenever I haven't been playing much and one of these threads pops up, I say what I have been playing, then go off and start playing something else entirely. So I've had one of my periodic returns to Minecraft this weekend. When did it get so complicated? There's a ton of stuff in the in-game recipe book that I've never heard of and don't know what it does. Liking the bees in the development snapshot, though...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I haven't had much gaming time recently, but I've been grabbing an hour or so occasionally for a quick blast on Project Cars. Very therapeutic.

Not exactly Linux-related, but I've also been trying to learn the ins and outs of z88dk [External Link] with the vague intention of developing something on the Sinclair Spectrum. Maybe. Someday. Don't hold your breath. My C skills were never particularly good, and they're now as rusty as a 1970s car, but it's still easier than Z80 assembler. :)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: slaapliedjeJust as an aside to this, I've been working on seeing how many things I can pipe through my Roland SC-88 Pro or Roland MT-32 (I have the older model that lacks headphone jacks). ScummVM sounds wonderful using them (depending of course if the game supports MIDI output).

I highly recommend one, though I think I like the SC88-pro better. Also works with DosBox, though I haven't tried that many through Boxtron, I will say Doom + MIDI sounds AMAZING!

I don't have anything like that myself, but my brother has a collection of hardware synths (which he normally sequences on an Amiga 1200, believe it or not*), and I've often been tempted to try out some DOS games with it. With some tweaking of patches and routing through his effects boxes, it could probably sound absolutely insane.

*And I really need to get around to helping him with some sort of backup solution, because he's still running it off my old 2.5" hard drive from 20 years ago. Yes, I know, believe me. It gives me nightmares.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: rustybroomhandlePeople call racists racist. They call sexists sexist. That's it.

Oh, if only it were that simple.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: fnordianslipI remember struggling to use the Lenslok device with a 28 inch black and white TV (used as a monitor) in order to get Elite working on my speccy. I had to stand half-way across the room from the TV and squint through the bit of plastic crap to try and read the mangled symbols on the screen!

Funny you should say that. I noticed just the other day that my copy has one of the write-protect holes taped over, and it all came back to me: first of all, the original 48K release didn't work on 128K machines (there was nothing added to the 128K “version”; it was just patched to work, and I was buggered if I was going to pay all over again for that), and they also removed the Lenslok. So I just borrowed a mate's 128K version and copied it on to my original tape. :whistle:

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: 1xokI played Elite for the first time in the 80s. Back then on the C64. It was my absolute favorite game. An incredible job that Braben and Bell had done. Elite: Dangerous captures the spirit of the original Elite perfectly. I am very grateful for that. But even more grateful for Proton and Valves efforts around Linux.

Yep. I played the Spectrum version first (I still have my original boxed copy, and remember buying it as if it was last week), but I played it on a friend's C64 a lot too. And on the school BBCs when the teachers weren't looking. The Commodore's framerate wasn't as good (then again, these things are relative :) ), but I did always envy the Dodec stations. I think it was the first version to have them. And Trumbles, but I wasn't so bothered about missing out on those. ;)

I said before that I think Dangerous spoils the spirit of Elite by being always-online, since part of the genius of the original (and Frontier) was that you had a whole galaxy on one disk (or tape), but that's a minor niggle. It really is the Elite we all imagined in our heads back in the '80s. I still maintain that the original is the Best Game Ever Made. Open-world, open-ended 3D space combat and trading back in 1984 on an 8-bit machine with 32K of RAM? There's no contest.

[Edit: Oh, and I'm CMDR Gripebucket. I have no idea where that came from; it seemed funny at the time. I don't play Open very often, though.]

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: BrisseHow well does it work with an Xbone-controller or mouse and keyboard? Is it still worth getting into even without all that HOTAS gear?

It works brilliantly well with a 360 controller and the settings option is actually labelled for XBone, so it should be fine. Remember there are console ports, so the controller bindings are designed to do everything. I started playing (a couple of months ago) with my 360 controller just because it happened to be plugged in at the time, but I'm at the point now where it would feel weird with anything else.

Quoting: ironheadVery nice. Does ED now work out of the box with Proton? The last time I tried I needed a custom patched Proton version.

More or less. As Marc says, you still have to install dotnet40 with winetricks/protontricks, but it doesn't need a patched Proton any more. I found setting up an account to be a bit of a pain (I had to reboot before it would accept that I had done so), but if you already have one that shouldn't be a problem.

By the way, I've mentioned my framerate issues a couple of times. Rather than resurrecting old threads, I'll take this opportunity to say that the suggestion someone made of turning down the shadow detail seems to have worked. I haven't had much chance to play it recently so I can't say it's eliminated the problem completely, but it's definitely an improvement (and it doesn't look as bad as I expected; I can hardly tell the difference :) ).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Well, that's [External Link] interesting. Turns out Star Theory, the new developer behind Kerbal Space Program 2 (just announced, don't know if it's coming to Linux), was formed out of the ruins of original PA developer Uber Entertainment.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: MblackwellI don't take offense necessarily, just pointing out that old tech doesn't mean easy development.

Quoting: liamdaweI honestly don't understand how anyone can grumble at the price. This was a professionally made game, just like any other. The tech behind it is mostly meaningless against what the game itself is worth.

I did try to emphasize that it would be my only “niggle”, that I thought it was maybe a “little” steep, and that I think that's a result of being spoiled by so much free content for older engines. I'm certainly not grumbling, and I'm glad Mblackwell didn't take offence, because none was intended. As I also said, you do seem to get a lot of game for your money.

It does look amazing, and it's certainly on my list.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

The sole global arbiter of all things Build Engine gave it a thumbs up [External Link], so it must be pretty good.

Seriously though, it does look awesome. And since it's based on eDuke32, I'm not surprised there's a Linux version. My only niggle would be that the price is maybe a little steep for something based on 20-year-old tech (we're so used to getting new levels for old engines and remakes in newer engines [External Link] for free these days), but you certainly seem to get a lot of game for your money.

View this comment - View article - View full comments