• Get out together in Escape Simulator, a game with 'highly interactive' escape rooms | GamingOnLinux

  Playable in solo or online in co-op, Pine Studio (Faraway: Director's Cut, SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell) have announced their escape room game Escape Simulator is releasing on October 19.

  "Think you have what it takes to escape? Face ingenuous locks in ancient Egypt. Hack the system in an adrift space shuttle. Decipher mysterious notes in the oddball Victorian library of Edgewood Mansion. Play online with pals for double the fun. Or brave the mysteries alone, with nothing but your smarts to aid you."

  [...]

  The developer has confirmed that it will have full Linux support at release.

• Grand Cathay gets a big introduction for Total War: WARHAMMER III | GamingOnLinux

  While it may be sad that Total War: WARHAMMER III has been delayed until 2022 so we've got a while to wait, we're at least getting more info on what will be included like the new Grand Cathay nation.

  This is the first time for the franchise to see Grand Cathay realised in full. Originally mentioned in the second edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles and a few random mentions, Creative Assembly teamed up with Games Workshop to pull together everything to create a full army and empire for Total War: WARHAMMER III including their own characters, units, magic, history, and much more.

• Kingdom Two Crowns will expand again with Norse Lands coming soon | GamingOnLinux

  Kingdom Two Crowns: Norse Lands is the latest announced expansion for the side-scrolling kingdom builder and it sounds like it's going to be quite an exciting addition.

  Bringing with it a setting inspired by Norse Viking culture, it's a whole new campaign that gives you a new setting to build, defend, explore and conquer. "In Norse Lands, players can look forward to unleashing abilities drawn upon from Norse gods, commanding mighty units, building Viking- inspired armaments, solving challenging puzzles, and facing a new enemy Greed.".

• Check out the first hour of a point and click thriller in Slender Threads: Prologue | GamingOnLinux

  Slender Threads: Prologue gives you a small slice of what to expect from the full point and click thriller and it's out now with a Linux version.

• City-builder Nebuchadnezzar gets another huge upgrade with fire, crime and diseases | GamingOnLinux

  A game that at release was pretty good but clearly lacking in many areas, Nebuchadnezzar has expanded yet again with more major new game mechanics. If you bounced off it at release, it's really time to give it another look.

  "Nebuchadnezzar is a classic isometric city builder game inviting players to experience the mysterious history and culture of ancient Mesopotamia. In the campaign, players get to rule over influential historical cities filled with magnificent monuments."

• SkateBIRD does a fancy kickflip onto Steam and itch.io as it's out now | GamingOnLinux

  Combining tiny little fancy birds with skateboarding is highly unusual but it continues to show how indie developers will try things AAA won't. SkateBIRD is exactly that and it's out now.

  Of course since you're only tiny, so are the skateparks which are all made from random everyday objects. You get to customize your bird too, as the developer points out that "Skateboarding is all about self-expression, and style is important no matter how small the skater. From cowboy hats, to colorful scarves and backpacks, SkateBIRD’s accessories let each skater’s personality shine. Look fresh while tracking down hidden mixtapes to unlock new songs or have a solo session with low-fi bird-hop beats in the background".

• Valheim update Hearth & Home is out now with lots new | GamingOnLinux

  The big Hearth & Home update for the co-op survival game Valheim is out now and it's a big one. Touching on many aspects of the game to make it feel quite different overall.

  Valheim is still mostly the same game but there's so many tweaks that you're going to need a fresh world to experience it all. Thankfully characters can move between worlds so it's not a big issue. However, once you use a character on a new world or play a new world you can't play it with an older version.

• Boiling Steam: Powered By Gitea… and Much More!

  How does Boiling Steam work behind the scenes? What’s Gitea? There is not much point in talking about the CMS (Content Management System) we use (WordPress), because that would be a rather boring topic in itself… Rather, how does the small team behind our publication actually organize itself? And what tools do we use and how does Gitea fit into it?

  [...]

  Doing Peer Review also works well because we all have different backgrounds, tastes and experiences. If we were all from the same mold, it would not be nearly as helpful, nor let us reach beyond an audience we know individually.

  Peer Review should not be considered a silver bullet. It will not magically make all errors disappear or render every article perfect. But the more we have feedback, the more we can fix our individual blind spots, so the articles you end up reading are much more robust than their very first draft.

  There is no set period for Peer Review: it can take a few days to a few weeks, in case the article demands it. I would say that on average it takes 4-5 days between several rows of feedbacks and a final version. It’s definitely taking more time to follow such a process rather than just writing and pushing articles as soon as we have a draft ready.

  How do we deal with the fact that articles may take longer to finalize because of them? Well, we ensure we have a constant stream of new potential articles that we are working on: as long as we work on parallel on several of them, we will be able to release a few articles every week, statistically.

• Linux Gaming Guide: How To Easily Install And Update Proton GE

  If you’re a PC gamer, or you’ve been tracking the news around Valve’s Steam Deck, you’ve probably heard about Proton, a "compatibility layer" built into Steam that makes Windows-only games playable on Linux. Valve and Codeweavers (the company behind WINE) are responsible for this wizardry that makes Linux gaming surprisingly awesome.

  Perhaps you've also heard rumblings about Proton-GE, or you've seen YouTube videos with references to "Glorious Eggroll." Glorious Eggroll is also known as Thomas Crider, a senior engineer at Red Hat. And he creates a custom version of Proton that is immensely useful.

• Many players report that Splitgate is crashing for them on Linux

  Splitgate is one of the latest titles that gained massive popularity after its recent release on the Xbox and PlayStation. Built using Unreal Engine 4, it is a combination of Portal and Halo.

  The developers, 1047 Games, soon grew from a team of just 4 people and managed to raise $10 million in a recent funding round. While the developers welcomed the sudden influx of money, it also resulted in the game being pushed to an August release date.

• Intellectual Pinball

  Hey there, Ernie here with a piece from Michael Bentley, who knows a ton about the intersection between trivia and technology. The two avenues crossed paths in a big way in the mid ’80s.

• Bringing a Ruined Game Boy Cart Back To Life with Tons of Soldering

  The cartridge was badly corroded, with many of the traces eaten through, rendering the game inoperable. First, all the components were removed, and the board was cleaned. This allowed easy access to the traces across the whole board. Then, the job was to delicately remove some solder mask from the parts of the traces still remaining, and bridge the gaps with fine copper wire. Even worse, several vias were damaged, which [Taylor] tackled by feeding jumper wires through the board and executing a repair on each side.

  It’s a simple enough repair for the experienced hand, but virtually magic to a retro gaming fan that doesn’t know how to solder. [Taylor] has given us a great example of how to deal with corroded carts properly, with enough detail to be quite educational to the beginner.

• Following the footsteps on Fallout and Wasteland, ATOM RPG Trudograd is out now | GamingOnLinux

  ATOM RPG Trudograd is the standalone expansion / sequel to the original hit ATOM RPG, inspired by the likes of Fallout and Wasteland it's a top-down turn-based post-apocalyptic roleplaying game. While it is a standalone and so you don't need the first game, the developer does recommend you play it first since it is a continuation.

• Steam Deck dev-kits are on the move Valve say, as some already have it | GamingOnLinux

  Valve has given a short update on the dev-kits for the upcoming Linux powered handheld Steam Deck, with more developers being able to get their hands on it soon.

  Writing on Steam the team said "All packaged up and ready for devs! This is one of the limited batches of Steam Deck dev-kits heading out today for partners to test their games. These engineering verification test builds allow us to connect developers with units that are functionally identical to what will ship to you.

  Since we are still in the final stages of development, the dev-kit program gives us the chance to guide game developers through the process of getting their games on Steam Deck while also continuing to gather their feedback as we prepare for the official launch at the end of the year.

• The new work on futex2 from Collabora to improve Linux gaming and Proton has third attempt | GamingOnLinux

  It seems the ongoing saga of getting the futex2 work into the Linux Kernel, which is supposed to help Linux gaming and Steam Play Proton, has another attempt up. This is a continuation of the cut-down and more focused code that was submitted back in early August, as Collabora hope to finally get it accepted into the Kernel.

• Single-player arena-styled FPS Cathedral 3-D arrives on Linux | GamingOnLinux

  With the latest update to the single-player arena-styled first-person shooter Cathedral 3-D has now been released officially for Linux.

  "Cathedral 3-D is a fast-paced, arcade, single-player, endless arena inspired by the early 3-D shooters of the 90s. You are the Monster, a powerful and incredibly agile beast armed with fiery breath. Your lair – a cathedral floating in the sky – hides a chest containing your heart. The humans want you dead, and they are coming in endless hordes to destroy you and your chest."

• GameMaker Studio 2 update released to bring forth the Ubuntu Linux editor Beta | GamingOnLinux

  Back in early August we wrote about how YoYo Games were introducing the GameMaker Studio 2 editor for Linux, well as of the latest official update the Beta is actually out.

  Okay, so it was "out" before but tucked away in a forum post. As of version 2.3.4.580, it's officially noted in the changelog. Interestingly though, YoYo Games have always gone pretty hard on the "we only support Ubuntu" for their exported games and it seemed that would stick for the editor. In the release notes though, it states "that this is the only Linux distro we offer official support for in this Beta" which alludes to it possibly opening up to more. Either way, it's a big step for game development on Linux to see it more official now.

This is a series that offers a gentle introduction to Linux for newcomers.

“Can I game on it” is a frequently asked question we hear from Windows users toying with the idea of trying Linux for the first time. Well, the simple answer is yes!

In the eyes of many computer users, Linux is perceived as largely functional, mostly restricted to running servers, office tasks and web browsing. However, a wide and ever growing range of native Linux games are available, but given the range, there are a number of locations where you pick them up. Whatever type of game you like, there’s lots to choose from including the latest games as well as classics and remastered titles.