Gaming
Games: Valve, Skullgirls, Top 7 Predictions for Linux Gaming in 2021, and New Record
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Thursday 25th of February 2021 06:37:20 PM Filed under
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Valve launch a Beta for Remote Play Together - Invite Anyone, no Steam account needed
The invites work through the Steam Link app, which has one big caveat at the moment: Valve doesn't currently support a normal Linux desktop with it.
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Hadean Tactics, a realtime auto-battler with deck building, launches today | GamingOnLinux
What happens when Slay the Spire has a baby with DOTA Underlords? We're about to find out in Hadean Tactics. Ready to launch later today into Early Access, Hadean Tactics is a fascinating mash up of roguelite auto-battler, and deck builder. You take on the role of the Inquisitor, aiming to vanquish the six wings of Hell.
Core gameplay follows the DOTA Underlords mechanic of placing your units on a grid-based battlefield, then watching them choose their targets and pound away, dealing damage according to their DPS (damage per second) stat, and special abilities which are powered by mana. All very familiar so far.
What sets Hadean Tactics out from that setting is that the frenetic action is paused every 7 seconds and you’re dropped into a Slay the Spire mechanic. You’re issued with 3 energy and five cards are drawn from your deck. Most cards cost at least one energy to use, and how you play them will affect the ongoing battle when you “end turn”, having played your cards.
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Gloomy and tough arena shooter Devil Daggers gets a 5 year anniversary update | GamingOnLinux
Devil Daggers is really something else and I fear for my free time again, as the recent 5 year anniversary update is a great reminder that it begs to be played.
It's a high-score chasing arena shooter, inspired by 1990s FPS and arcade games. You get dumped into a small and dark arena to face off against never-ending waves of demons armed with only your magic dagger and quick movement. You just fight to survive as long as you can and see if you can beat your friends and the world on the leaderboards.
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Linux support for Skullgirls to continue, everyone upgraded to Skullgirls 2nd Encore free | GamingOnLinux
Quite a bit of ground to cover on the popular fighting game Skullgirls, now that the dust has settled with Lab Zero Games imploding and Hidden Variable Studios / Autumn Games taking back control.
Firstly, there's no longer a 2nd Encore Upgrade. Instead, everyone has been upgraded to that edition with all previous DLC being bundled into the main game as a free upgrade. Why?
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Top 7 Predictions for Linux Gaming in 2021 - Boiling Steam
Following yesterday’s piece about predictions for 2021 for the world of Linux Gaming, let’s have a second look by combining the predictions of all people involved in order to get a better picture. After all, if the wisdom of crowds holds true, the more often a prediction is made, the more likely it is to be correct (as long as the predictions are made independently).
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Valheim still growing with 4 million sales, hits top 5 of most played games on Steam ever | GamingOnLinux
Valheim Valheim Valheim, it's all we've been hearing lately. We're guilty of it, other websites and content creators have covered it a lot and so expectedly it's hit new highs again.
Less than one month since entering Early Access, Iron Gate AB and Coffee Stain Publishing have announced they've managed to sell 4 million copies. Not only that, Valheim managed to hit over 500,000 players online at the same time on February 21, which means more people were in game than there were actual Vikings in human history. A more modern detail is that it makes Valheim now on the top 5 of most played games on Steam — ever.
Other fun details include the game being played for "a combined total of 10,000 years" and it continues to climb the Steam Top 250 leaderboard for the best reviewed games of all time and they've hit over 92,000 reviews on Steam.
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Can Linux Run Video Games?
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Thursday 25th of February 2021 07:43:12 AM Filed under


Linux is a widely used and popular open source operating system that was first released back in 1991. It differs from operating systems like Windows and macOS in that it is open source and it is highly customizable through its use of “distributions”. Distributions or “distros” are basically different versions of Linux that can be installed along with the Linux core software so that users can customize their system to fit their specific need. Some of the more popular Linux distributions are Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora.
For many years Linux had the reputation of being a terrible gaming platform and it was believed that users wouldn’t be able to engage in this popular form of entertainment. The main reason for this is that commercially successful games just weren’t being developed for Linux. A few well known video game titles like Doom, Quake and SimCity made it to Linux but for the most part they were overlooked through the 1990’s. However, things have changed a lot since then and there is an every expanding library of popular video games you can play on Linux.
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There are plenty of Windows games you can run on Linux and no reason why you can’t play as well as you do when using Windows. If you are having trouble leveling up or winning the best loot, consider trying AskBoosters for help with your game.
Aside from native Linux games and Windows games there are a huge amount of browser based games that work on any system including Linux.
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Games: Predictions, Free Software, and Titles Developed on GNU/Linux
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 24th of February 2021 08:52:23 PM Filed under
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Thrilling Linux Gaming Predictions for 2021 - Boiling Steam
Last week we reached out to the community at large with a simple question: What do you predict will happen in the world of Linux Gaming by the end of 2021? To make things a little more fun, we asked everyone to limit their Linux Gaming predictions to 5 items, and be as specific as possible as to what they expect to occur. We also asked everyone to work on their predictions individually to avoid any potential bias.
Now, we are sharing with you all the predictions we received, from quite a few places across the world as you can see from the below map. The Linux Gaming Community knows no frontiers.
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Team Cherry upgrade the excellent Hollow Knight with Vulkan for Linux | GamingOnLinux
Team Cherry have given their excellent action-platformer metroidvania Hollow Knight a bit of an upgrade, which you can test out on Steam in a fresh Beta test.
Not played it before? You're missing out. Hollow Knight is a classically styled 2D action adventure across a vast interconnected world. Explore twisting caverns, ancient cities and deadly wastes; battle tainted creatures and befriend bizarre bugs; and solve ancient mysteries at the kingdom's heart.
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OpenLoco is a free and open source re-implementation of Chris Sawyer's Locomotion | GamingOnLinux
Just like there's the awesome OpenTTD for fans of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, there's also OpenLoco for players who want to play through the classic Locomotion. Not a project we've covered here before it seems, so we're making that right today.
Originally released back in 2004, it's actually a spiritual successor to Transport Tycoon but it was not as loved due to various problems with the original release. Perhaps though it can have a new life thanks to OpenLoco.
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VRWorkout is a free and open source VR fitness rhythm game
Well, that's certainly one way to get a bit more exercise in. Whatever helps right? No judgement here, I could probably do with a little more myself…
It's built with the free and open source game engine Godot Engine, so not only is the source code open for the game itself it's properly open for anyone to put it together from the source and will remain so. Speaking about VRWorkout to us on Twitter, the developer mentioned they actually do develop for it on Linux but they use a Quest headset not supported on Linux so they have to work with that on Windows. Perhaps though, in time, Monado might break down that barrier.
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Free and open source voxel game engine Minetest 5.4 is out, makes mods easier for users | GamingOnLinux
Minetest, the Minecraft-like voxel game engine (and a basic game that comes with it) has a big new release out with Minetest 5.4.0 and it's worth trying again.
As we covered before during the Release Candidate stage, one of the big features for users in this release is vastly easier modding with both small mod packs and entire games. Minetest had a way to browse and download them all directly in the game for a while, but now it will also actually download all the dependencies mods need - making it vastly easier to get what you want and then into a game. No more downloading one mod, then finding all the individual bits it needs.
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Games: Microsoft, Google, Sony and More
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 24th of February 2021 12:36:22 PM Filed under
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Microsoft Creating New Company, Vault, to Complete ZeniMax / Bethesda Deal
It's a different approach to Microsoft's previous acquisitions, such as Obsidian, Ninja Theory and Double Fine, which were formally made a part of Microsoft and housed under its Xbox Game Studios brand. Whether ZeniMax's studios become known as part of Vault or not, the move to create a Microsoft subsidiary to complete the merger seems to mark a level of independence compared to other acquired companies.
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Ultima VIII (or, How to Destroy a Gaming Franchise in One Easy Step)
The glossier magazines weren’t quite sure what to do about Ultima VIII. Torn between the need to serve their readerships and Origin’s advertising dollars, they equivocated like crazy, often settling on an “it’s not the game, it’s me” approach: i.e., I didn’t much enjoy Ultima VIII, but you might.
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PixelJunk Raiders is the next Stadia exclusive, will have State Share and free for Pro
While Google will no longer be doing any first-party games it seems they're still going to pull in exclusives. They've revealed PixelJunk Raiders along with the Stadia Pro line-up for March and other new games coming.
Q-Games, developer of titles like PixelJunk Shooter and PixelJunk Monsters Ultimate have teamed up with Google for PixelJunk Raiders which is an "Only on Stadia" title. It releases on March 1 and is free on Stadia Pro, otherwise normal Stadia accounts will need to buy it. PixelJunk Raiders will use the State Share feature of Stadia, which allows you to take a capture and link it to someone and they can jump into where you've captured it.
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A 3D Block Building Game in QML
Here, at KDAB, we get to spend 10% of our time on learning what we don’t know or practicing and improving what we already know. Recently, I decided to use that time to learn more about the Qt Quick Rendering Engine. The best way to do so, I found, is to use it in a way it wasn’t intended to be used: for making simple 3D graphics — creating my own little 3D paintings, as one would in Minecraft, starting with a ground plane. I’d like to take this time to share with you how to play.
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DualSense Driver to be Included with Kernel 5.12 - Boiling Steam
If you were waiting to get more extensive functionality out of your DualSense controller on Linux outside of Steam, without having to compile the kernel with the patches or resorting to Arch, I’m happy to report that kernel 5.12 will include baked-in support for Sony’s official driver.
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Games: Super Plexis, Of Mice and Moggies and 'Atari' With GNU/Linux
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 24th of February 2021 01:51:33 AM Filed under
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Super Plexis is a fresh competitive tile-matching battler with cross-platform PvP
That when turned out to be February 20, 2021 with it now in Early Access with Linux support.
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Of Mice and Moggies is an absolutely adorable puzzle game of constant cat-and-mouse
Of Mice and Moggies is a game of cat and mouse, quite literally, as you step by step chase around mice and other animals in small but very clever puzzles. The adorable setting, as well as the excellent presentation and well designed puzzles are worth a look. Note: key provided by the developer.
Hold on, I gave you the conclusion right away there didn't i? Well, sometimes it just has to be said. it really is a genuine delight to play through with such an usual but very charming setting that steadily showed me how terrible dumb I am at solving puzzles. Of Mice and Moggies plays a bit like a block-pushing puzzle game, but the blocks are other animals and they run away from you. So you have to use your moves smartly to catch them, using the limited tiles and environment.
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a new affordable ATARI embedded PC that can also do games – What was Atari?
runs Ubuntu per default
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Games: Godot 3.2.4 RC 3, Roots, Sony PlayStation DualSense Driver, A Stitch in Time
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Tuesday 23rd of February 2021 07:23:01 PM Filed under
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Release candidate: Godot 3.2.4 RC 3
Godot 3.2.4 is shaping up nicely, and a number of issues have been fixed since the second Release Candidate. A few late features have also been included because they were too good to keep waiting (such as improved Inspector subresource editing and node copy-paste support). So it's now time for a RC 3 build to give it another round of testing before the stable release!
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Stone Age co-op farming sim Roots of Pacha is live on Kickstarter
You've played plenty of farming sims by now or at least seen plenty but have you done some farming in the Stone Age? Roots of Pacha is coming to Linux and it's live on Kickstarter.
In the game you will help your clan settle down and begin to build up a thriving Stone Age civilization. According to developer Soda Den, Roots of Pacha is first and foremost a farming game but there's no shop to buy animals or seeds. Instead you need to connect with nature, do some exploring and discover what the world has to offer to discover and learn. Progression is done through the sharing of ideas like a prehistoric research tree, and it's up to you to speak to clan members and agree (or not) to their ideas.
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Sony PlayStation DualSense Driver Headlines The HID Updates For Linux 5.12 - Phoronix
The HID subsystem updates were sent in this morning for the ongoing Linux 5.12 merge window.
Most significant to the HID updates in this kernel is the introduction of the Sony PlayStation 5 DualSense controller driver. Sony published this driver back at the end of last year and is fully open-source and supporting USB and Bluetooth modes of operation and all key features from LEDs and motion sensors to battery reporting, rumble, light bar control, and more. Sony is expected to expand the hardware support handled by this driver in due course.
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Go on a journey through time in Two Point Hospital: A Stitch in Time out now
Two Point Studios and SEGA just surprise released the latest expansion for the comedy building and management sim Two Point Hospital with Two Point Hospital: A Stitch in Time out now.
Everything's getting a bit wibbly wobbly, timey wimey as the saying goes with you joining someone named Captain Yesterday who has created the Yesterizer. You'll be jumping through time across three new levels, well, one level that you play through three different time periods.
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Games: Streaming, Jupiter Hell, KUR, and Transport Fever 2
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Tuesday 23rd of February 2021 03:34:28 PM Filed under
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Google, Bungie, id Software all under fire in a new Stadia lawsuit | GamingOnLinux
One day Google might catch a break with their cloud gaming service Stadia but it's not now and perhaps rightfully so in this case. There's a new proposed class action lawsuit filed by a New York resident over the streaming quality and display resolution on Stadia.
As pick up initially by ClassAction, the lawsuit doesn't just involve Google. They're taking aim at Bungie and id Software claiming they all mislead players about the expected resolution when getting people to pay upfront for the Founder's Edition and Premier Edition bundles that came with the Stadia Controller and a Chromecast Ultra.
The lawsuit was originally filed in October 2020, with it only recently being moved from Queens County Superior Court to the New York federal court on February 12 so it's all still ongoing and these things tend to take plenty of time.
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Jupiter Hell 0.9.7 'Expanse' is out, full release planned for August 5 | GamingOnLinux
After being in Early Access for 18 months following a successful Kickstarter campaign, the brutal and brilliant roguelike Jupiter Hell will leave Early Access on August 5.
Acting as the successor to DRL (DoomRL which had to be renamed), It's certainly no secret that I'm a massive Jupiter Hell fan, with it's Doom inspired take on the roguelike genre with big moody scenes and some pretty furious action. The movement system in it is so good it almost feels real-time but it's very much turn-based.
Not only does it now have a 1.0 release date for August 5, ChaosForge have also now announced they've teamed up with Hyperstrange to help them with the publishing side of things. There's still 5 big updates due before release, and they've confirmed their intention to continue updating the game after release which is exciting.
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Jupiter Hell performs really well on Linux too...
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KUR is an upcoming retro-styled FPS where you'll be kicking flesh-wearing robots
Linux support is confirmed (we spoke to the publisher) and it's planned to launch sometime later this year.
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Transport Fever 2 gets a huge upgrade with Vulkan API support | GamingOnLinux
Urban Games are showing their dedication to Transport Fever 2, as they just today release a massive overhaul to the rendering system along with adding support for the Vulkan API. The first major update since July 2020 and along with a build for macOS it includes plenty of enhancements.
With Vulkan support now in, they didn't just remove OpenGL so thankfully anyone who has a card good enough to run Transport Fever 2 that doesn't support Vulkan isn't just left out in the cold as there's a switch to go between the APIs and it will fallback to OpenGL is the Vulkan extensions aren't around.
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RetroArch announce the Open Hardware project, plus a new fantasy console core
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Monday 22nd of February 2021 04:38:05 PM Filed under

The team behind the RetroArch application have announced the Open Hardware project, their attempt to make things easy for you and they also recently added a new fantasy console core to play with.
First up, what's this fantasy console thingy then? Well, it's called LowRes NX. In the spirit of others like PICO-8, it's a retro console with its own programming language based on BASIC. While it has standalone versions available already, which you can use to make games with, integration into RetroArch makes it easier than ever to play creations.
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Games: Steam, Aloof, Ova Magica on GNU/Linux
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Monday 22nd of February 2021 01:15:36 PM Filed under
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Steam Game Festival: Summer Edition returns on June 16 | GamingOnLinux
Ready for a bunch more demos, livestreams and more? The Steam Game Festival: Summer Edition is set to return on June 16 and Valve are looking for developers to get involved.
Just like the previous events it's a multi-day thing running from June 16 until June 22. For us players, it's a chance to try out a slice of upcoming games that might interest us, for developers it's that all important exposure that's hard to come by these days and a good way to gather feedback too.
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Puzzle-battler Aloof is launching on March 25 and it looks fab, do try the demo | GamingOnLinux
A puzzle-battler? Think like Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and Puyo Puyo Tetris but with a new and fresh spin and that's what you're going to get with Aloof on March 25.
In the world of Aloof you summon and defend small islands while you're building up combos against your opponent. Unlike other similar games, you have more control over the pieces as they move wherever you want them to and they do not start dropping by themselves. You can even flush away all your pieces to get a new set. The developer said it's not a game to kick back and relax with, instead it's about keeping up with your opponent and staying on your toes.
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With a few days left on the Kickstarter, Ova Magica has been an incredible success | GamingOnLinux
Making games is hard, marketing games and cutting through the noise is just as hard but for Claudia Gorsky they've managed to amazingly well with Ova Magica.
A blending of many genres including farming, life-sim and monster taming with a battle system - Ova Magica sounds like it's going to be a weirdly interesting game to play through. Perhaps that's why it's doing so well on Kickstarter with a campaign set to end on February 26, the €20,000 goal was smashed completely with well over €200,000 from thousands of backers helping to make the game a reality.
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New 0 A.D. Release
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Saturday 20th of February 2021 08:50:17 PM Filed under
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0 A.D. Real -Time Strategy Game Sees First Release In Nearly Three Years - Phoronix
When it comes to original, open-source computer games the 0 A.D. real-time strategy game is among the best. The game has been developed as open-source for more than a decade for this ancient warfare themed game. The prior 0 A.D. Alpha 23 release happened back in May 2018 while now it's finally been succeeded by 0 A.D. Alpha 24.
0 A.D. Alpha 24 is out today as the latest major release for this open-source RTS game. With this release are renderer improvements, a hotkey editor, balancing adjustments, lobby improvements, the in-game UI has been enhanced, new art models, and a number of other in-game improvements.
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Open source RTS 0 A.D. Alpha 24 is out now with plenty of new features | GamingOnLinux
After a few years of waiting, Wildfire Games have released a big upgrade for the free and open source real-time strategy game 0 A.D. with Alpha 24 now available. Still one of the most impressive open source games around, their attention to detail on it is impressive.
This latest version is named Xšayāršā, after Xerxes the Great, ruler of the Achaemenid Empire from 485 to 465 BC.
Quite a feature-filled upgrade with highlights including building snapping, improvements to the renderer, a hotkey editor, unit formation improvements, status effects, improvements to the online Lobby system, new models, new skirmish maps, unit behaviour improvements and more.
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