Confusion was a theme—over language, games, the questions—with highlights including one MP asking if Epic can close down text messages. He meant chat, but for a moment Epic's representatives struggled to explain that they don't have control over SMS. Later, Fortnite gets compared to a casino.

In Linux, typically, when there's a solution to a problem, there are seven other solutions to the same problem. But not so when it comes to Linux gaming. Here, we only have several incomplete solutions to a rather big problem. Steam did massively improve the situation, and it looks like the most mature and likely technology slash software to bring parity to the Linux gaming scene. Still, it's not a perfect fix.

There are many Linux games that don't quite fit the Steam category [sic]. You have old games, indie games with their distribution channels, Windows games that need WINE, and so forth. If you want to have all these under a single umbrella, there isn't really a solution. Well. Maybe. A challenger appears: Lutris. Let's have a review.

Update: Canonical are now saying 32bit libraries will be "frozen" and not entirely dropped.

Typing a command in the Linux terminal is one of the exciting things. We are like a king who is giving orders to his soldiers to do certain things. Terminal on Linux has many benefits when you understand the commands that exist. In addition to executing a command, we can play games at the terminal.

Playing games on the Linux terminal is one of entertainment. There are many Terminal-based games that you can play on the Linux terminal, one of which is Ascii Patroll. This game is inspired by the classic game "Moon Patrol", and we can run it on the CLI.

The planned dropping of 32-bit support on Ubuntu saga continues... Well known Valve Linux developer Pierre-Loup Griffais has said they plan to officially stop supporting Ubuntu for Steam on Linux.

Things are starting to get messy, after Canonical announced the end of 32bit support from Ubuntu 19.10 onwards, Valve have now responded.

[...]

I can't say I am surprised by Valve's response here. Canonical pretty clearly didn't think it through enough on how it would affect the desktop. It certainly seems like Canonical also didn't speak to enough developers first.

Perhaps this will give Valve a renewed focus on SteamOS? Interestingly, Valve are now funding some work on KWin (part of KDE).

Let's lighten the mood a bit shall we? It's question time here on GamingOnLinux! Let's have a talk about what you've been playing recently.

I will of course go first: Dota Underlords. I have quite the sweet spot for it already, even though I'm absolutely terrible at it. This might be the game to finally get me to kick my unhealthy Rocket League obsession, which is amazing considering how radically different they are. I adore strategy games though and unlike normal Dota, I don't need to think ridiculously quickly. Since you don't need any kind of reflexes for it, sitting back and relaxing with the Steam Controller is another reason I quite like Dota Underlords. In the evenings on weekends especially, I can be quite the lazy-gamer, so anything that allows me to kick back with it is likely to get my vote.

After only being out for a few days, it's already annihilated the player record for Artifact. Artifact's all-time high was only just over 60K whereas Underlords has sailed past 190K, although that shouldn't be too surprising since Underlords is free and isn't rammed full of micro-transactions (yet?) and it helps being on mobile as well of course (According to one of the SteamDB folk, the mobile players are being counted too).

It takes something a little different to get me interested in a Visual Novel since it's not my usual preference and Vengeful Heart is one such game. It's a tale of capitalism, companionship and cyberpunk with a focus around revenge.

Built with Ren'Py, Vengeful Heart has a seriously good style going for it based on the classics from the PC-98, a retro line-up of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC.

If you are planning to enjoy some Linux gaming this week via Steam, you may want to think twice about upgrading to the latest Linux kernel Git code or even the newest stable point releases.

A number of Steam Linux users are reporting of connection troubles when upgrading to the latest Linux kernel releases, including the likes of Linux 5.0.0-17 on Ubuntu or 5.1.12-arch1-1-ARCH on Arch Linux, among other kernel combinations and distributions. A number of users are reporting issues with connecting to Steam following a kernel upgrade in recent days.

As a freelancer I am contracted by Valve to work on certain gaming-related XServer projects and improve KWin in this regard and for general desktop usage.

In the XServer there are two main projects at the moment. The technical details of one of them are currently discussed on a work-in-progress patch series on Gitlab but I want to write accessible articles about both projects here on the blog as well in the near future.

In KWin I have several large projects I will look into, which would benefit KWin on X11 and Wayland alike. The most relevant one is reworking the compositing pipeline. You can expect more info about this project and the other ones in KWin in future blog posts too.

After a promising demo way back in 2017, Failed State has finally entered Early Access on Steam with same-day Linux support.

After the success of the peaceful platformer Himno, David Moralejo Sánchez and GrabTheGames have now formally announced the next game Himno - The Silent Melody.

I was very impressed with the atmosphere in the original, but I couldn't help wanting to fight something so it sounds like Himno - The Silent Melody is exactly what I want from a sequel.

Pavel Zinchenko's new game Event Horizon - Frontier looks like a pretty sweet mix of 2D space action, with base defence and it's releasing soon with Linux support. It's set in the same universe as the previous game, Event Horizon, which was released late last year which also has Linux support.

Developer Triple Eh (previously made Lumo), are now working on an 8-bit inspired twin-stick shooter called Cecconoid. It's soaked in retro and it looks awesome!

This is really exciting news, as a huge fan of such RTS games, Daedalic Entertainment's "A Year Of Rain" looks really good and it turns out they're going to support Linux.

Interestingly, back when it was first announced in March I did email Daedalic to ask about Linux support. They told me then, that they didn't really have any answer on it. However, it seems things have changed and they've decided Linux will be supported. On Steam, the developer said it's planned and it seems it may even happen during the Early Access period.

Evan's Remains from Matías Schmied and Whitethorn Digital is a new one to capture my interest. Blending a rather atmospheric puzzle platformer, with a little visual novel flair and it's planned for Linux.

Valve are doing some really impressive work with Dota Underlords, their new strategy game that everyone can now try.

As a quick reminder on the gameplay: you go through rounds, picking heroes and placing them on the board, then you fight against the choices of other players and neutral enemies for loot. The actual battles are done by AI, with the tactical part based on your choices and positioning. You lose health based on the amount of enemy heroes left if they beat you and it's the last player standing to win.

It's free and will remain free to play, with some sort of optional Battle Pass likely to come for cosmetic items in future. They have a lot more planned for it including: daily challenges, a level up system, a tournament system, seasonal rotation for heroes and more. They said that during the Open Beta Season, it will regularly see new features and updates.

I don't think I've hit the buy button on Steam that quickly in a while, as ISLANDERS, a colourful city-builder is now officially out for Linux.

Developed by GrizzlyGames, ISLANDERS is a minimalist strategy game for those who don't have hours to invest in resource management. Released back in April, the Linux version arrived yesterday along with a big update that also adds in a Sandbox Mode and the ability to undo your last building placement which sounds handy.

Deck-building card-based games really are all the rage now! I'm okay with this, as I love them and I am excited to see what more developers do with it. Nowhere Prophet is one that looks great and it's out next month. Developer Sharkbomb Studios and publisher No More Robots have now confirmed the release date of July 19th. We got confirmation back in April, that Linux will be supported too.

Set on planet Soma, this science-fiction post-apocalypse game mixes in two distinct modes of play. The first is the travel system, with you facing encounters across a procedurally generated map (so the game is different each time). If you enter combat, it switches into the turn-based card game mode.

Still one of my top games, Dead Cells just got another big free update "Fear The Rampager" so it's time to jump back in for one more run.

The big addition this time is the introduction of The Rampager. A new foe to challenge you that's currently haunting a variety of biomes in Boss Stem Cell 3 and higher.

Crackshell have expanded their rogue-lite action-adventure game Heroes of Hammerwatch with a free update along with the great sounding Witch Hunter expansion.

First up, the free update available for everyone adds in a few new features including new dungeon mechanics, companions, new drinks and a new statue if you have the Pyramid of Prophecy DLC. Additionally the free update has some performance improvements, more chest room variations, enemies can now be killed by poison and plenty of other balance changes.

My Friend Pedro running through Steam play.