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Latest Comments by Fakeman_Pretendname
Sci-fi colony management sim Stardeus has hit the Kickstarter goal and then some
24 August 2021 at 2:09 pm UTC Likes: 2

I'm really looking forward to this one, and have backed it. I absolutely trust the dev (who did Bloody Rally Show) to achieve what he's aiming for.

What surprised me from the demo was how slick and well thought out almost everything was already, and as far as I could tell, bug-free. It already has good and well documented mod support, and ran perfectly happily on my slightly ageing computers.

If you play the full game Alpha at the moment, the content wears thin at 8-10 hours, and the later game colonist part is less fleshed out than the early game robots part, but that's really to be expected at this stage. I've bought finished games that lasted less than 10 hours of play time. There's some slightly clunky bits in the UI, but the dev seems completely open and welcoming of any and all feedback, so I feel it's a pretty solid one to back, if you like the whole Dwarf Fortress/Rimworld/Prison Architect/Space Haven sort of thing.

An interview with Joshua Ashton, developer on the likes of DXVK, VKD3D-Proton and more
26 July 2021 at 7:44 pm UTC Likes: 10

Quote(...)and started D9VK as a personal project while I was in sixth-form(...)

That is seriously impressive. That's an easy time of life to get very distracted by certain things. This guy must only be in his 20s, but has already contributed so much. I'm very glad he decided he liked Linux!

The Valve Steam Deck, lots of excitement and plenty to think about for Linux gaming
16 July 2021 at 5:27 pm UTC Likes: 5

I'm definitely looking at getting one of these. Pay a deposit ASAP, then spend the next five months working out how to persuade my partner that "Well, you CAN play games on it, yes - but actually I need this for work" :)

My only concern really is knowing what the build quality/repairability is like, for that eventual cracked screen, weak battery or un-centre-able thumbstick.

Project Zomboid has recently seen a nice surge in players on Steam
26 April 2021 at 4:13 pm UTC

I think I bought this originally before Steam was on Linux - and at some point I've re-bought it for Steam or maybe activated the key there perhaps, but like others, I played it back with the "Kate and Baldspot" story stuff in there, almost ten years ago. They've added a lot of great stuff to it since, but I feel like I've been waiting for years and years for them to put the NPCs (back?) in, or continue with any sense of narrative to it.

I know a lot of people really go for the multiplayer stuff, but I feel it's a bit of a shame it's still at the expense of finishing the original single-player game. There's been NPC mods of varying success over the years, and I've got some good hours of fun with it, but it's always felt a bit pointless after a while. Despite that I'd say it's definitely worth a play, especially if you like Cataclysm DDA and the like. I'm glad it's still being developed.

Building and management sim Voxel Tycoon arrives on Steam and it's fantastic
17 April 2021 at 1:47 pm UTC

I picked it up today, but I'm getting stuck on the purple screen after the Unity logo (On Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu Gnome). Looking at their bugtracker, there's at least a handful of other people with the same problem. No clue how to fix it yet, and the logs are fairly unenlightening. I'm looking forward to playing it whenever it works, though :)

[Edit] Seems to run completely fine on my laptop though (Mint 20).

The best Linux distros for gaming in 2021
15 December 2020 at 3:05 pm UTC Likes: 5

I've been using Ubuntu since 7.04 - but my next, imminent upgrade will be Mint - and I'd probably recommend the same to anyone else looking for ease of use. Though I accept it is somewhat personal taste, to me it's a combination of things, but it's mostly UI changes and pushing towards things like Snaps.

If only considering gaming, if I'm honest, it does pretty much all work immediately, and I've had very few problems (still running 18.04 LTS) - but when you're trying to do other work on the machine as well, I feel like I'm increasingly fighting against the OS instead of working with it.

I casually support some older people in my town with "having a working computer", who have now been using Ubuntu for 4 or 5 years (which did cut my "help, I think it's broken" phone calls and visits down to 2 a year each, instead of 2 a week on Windows), but things with disappearing options, strange defaults and Snaps - "special versions of programs that can't, by default, see your fonts, printer, camera, external/network drives or USB sticks" have begun to make it a lot more of a problem.

I'd done an install of Mint for a friend a few months ago and it seemed to have all the positives without the negatives. It was a joy to set up and use - and running the Live USB on both my computers, appeared to work perfectly with my existing machines and equipment. I don't doubt I'll uncover some issues once I'm using it full time, but it looks a very strong contender for what I'll be recommending for the next few years.

Extreme top-down racing game 'Bloody Rally Show' is out now and it's good
25 February 2020 at 7:55 pm UTC

Instabuy for me. Absolutely great. Reminds me of Supercars II on the Amiga. It's surprisingly well formed and polished for an Indie title - campaign, leaderboards, car editor, map editor etc. Very low system requirements as well, it seems.

Hello Games continue fixing up Linux issues for No Man's Sky in Steam Play
13 September 2019 at 1:00 pm UTC

I've chucked about 60 hours into it (somehow) in the last few month. It was definitely worth getting as a Steam Play purchase, which previously I've been very hesitant to do - but this is fully "click play and it works" for me. The fact they're actively trying to support Linux via Steam Play is very reassuring.

I'm tempted to try the experimental update and see if it improves performance further - but I also noted:

QuoteFixed an issue that caused incorrect unit costs to be used when purchasing Exosuit slot upgrades.

So I might go and upgrade my backpack slots a bit more whilst they're accidentally free...

Hello Games appear to be keeping an eye on Steam Play with No Man's Sky, temp fix needed for NVIDIA
22 August 2019 at 8:44 pm UTC

I've had this running fine on my Nvidia/Ubuntu based laptop without any tweaks (install>press play>it works). I only bought it a couple of days ago, but I've not had any issues in ~7 hours of playing. I'm getting a constant >30fps, which is all I'd really expect from my laptop - though is 30fps what people count as bad these days?

In case relevant:
Ubuntu 18.04.3
i5-4210H
16GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 960M
Nvidia Driver 430.40

Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! HD confirmed for release this month
16 May 2019 at 7:43 pm UTC

You're right - my mistake. I just had a look and I have it my downloads as an exe (I'm guessing from their website), so I must have run it through Wine/Playonlinux or something like that. I played it after playing the Fowl Fleet, so perhaps it felt a bit clunky in comparison, therefore I remembered it as "probably flash or something". Anyway, I'm still going to get the HD remake :)