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Thursday, April 30, 2020
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Steam hit another all-time high for concurrent users - as did Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Tags: Steam, Valve
Does this seem familiar? You would be right. In the last week, both Steam and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive hit new records for users online and they've been broken yet again today. Absolute madness.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive went from a record of 850,485 set in 2016 to a new record of 876,575 set on Saturday February 8. This was then smashed on Sunday, February 9 as CS:GO hit around 901,681 (SteamDB). Pretty damn good for a first-person shooter that's been around since 2012.
Then we have Steam itself which went from a record of 18,537,490 set in January 2018 up to 18,801,944 this month. Again, that record has been smashed with a new high of around 19,107,803 users on Sunday February 8 (SteamDB).
What do you think is driving all this sudden and repeating growth?
Shows that in the face of increasing competition, Valve is once again continuing to grow their Steam platform. Good news for us since Valve continue to try and improve Linux gaming with Proton for Steam Play, the ACO shader compiler for AMD, their new experimental Container system and also Gamescope. That's only the tip of the iceberg too—Valve do quite a lot it's just not often talked about outside Linux circles.
Article from GamingOnLinux.com
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Mess with everything in the physics sim ''Universe Sandbox'' now DRM-free on GOG
Tags: Simulation, Early Access, GOG, New Release
Originally Universe Sandbox 2, Giant Army has since stopped selling the original and the 2 was wiped from the name. A massive space simulation game about screwing with physics, creating and destroying.
Just recently, they put it up for sale on GOG so if that's your preferred store you're in luck. It's still not finished though, it's in Early Access (or rather just In Development as GOG say) so it's not perfected yet.
Watch video on YouTube.com
I'll admit that I've not followed it along for a very long time, after releasing with Linux support on STeam back in 2015 so it's one of the longer running Early Access titles. Very interesting though even back then when it had far less features than it does now.
An impressive game that lets you act like a god, as you throw planets and stars around and perhaps add a black hole in the middle just to see what happens (I might have done that a few times…). As a massive fan of everything spacey and out there, the scale of it is absolutely mind-boggling.
Find it now on GOG.com or Humble Store and Steam as before.
Article from GamingOnLinux.com
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UnderMine gains a female peasant and tons of new content in the latest update
Tags: Steam, Indie Game, Adventure, Action, Early Access, Dungeon Crawler, Update
Action, adventuring, dungeon exploration like found in The Binding of Isaac and a sprinkle of RPG mechanics makes UnderMine a lot of fun to go back to and a huge update is out.
Since it doesn't affect the story in any way, they added a female peasant avatar to play as. They say it's more than just a sprite-swap though, as they've given them "a new portrait, new sounds, new names, all custom animations, and is occasionally referred to differently by NPCs".
There's new encounters in all zones, a bunch of new NPC chatter, the Black Rabbit NPC will now buy Relics you collect that you're not a fan of and a strange Altar may appear between Goldmine 1 and Cavern 4 that might do something interesting too.
You're still given the peasant entirely at random—both their look and gender.
Additionally there's 28 new relics to find during a run, 17 new potions, 16 new blessings and curses and a ton of bug fixes as well.
UnderMine is definitely one of my current favourite Early Access titles. The developer, Thorium, are hitting the sweet spot of repetition with the dungeon crawling side of it as you travel through some of the same areas with various different encounters and enemies to gradually build up your gold and unlock more. The exploration is fun, the combat can actually be quite challenging and it looks great. Personally, I'm enjoying the setting here a lot more than Isaac.
Going by their roadmap they're going to be adding in an entirely new game mode, a new zone, new traps, hundreds of new encounters and more. A lot still to come, can't wait!
You can find UnderMine on Steam now in Early Access.
Article from GamingOnLinux.com
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Served! - an amusing looking top-down racer with a culinary theme
Tags: Steam, Indie Game, Upcoming, Racing
Enter the world of waiting tables, only this time it's a racing game. Served! is coming to Linux from developer Chromatic Room later this month.
Supporting 1-4 players in local multiplayer, there's 4 different characters to choose from all of which have their own unique attack corresponding to his cuisine to spice the game up. This will be spread across 8 locations that each have their own containing dynamic events with quick rounds.
Watch video on YouTube.com
Looks like a lot of fun, so we spoke to the developer who confirmed in a message that "Yes, Served! will have a gnu/linux release.".
You can wishlist/follow on Steam where it should release on February 27.
Article from GamingOnLinux.com
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Colourful action RPG with a satirical twist ''Underhero'' lands on Linux
Tags: Steam, Indie Game, Unity, Humble Store, Action, RPG, Itch.io, New Release
Yesterday, a new Humble Choice bundle went up and when looking over what games were supported on Linux it turns out that Underhero only just that same day released their Linux version.
A side-scrolling RPG adventure, with timing-based combat. Full of colourful visuals, silly characters full of personality, quirky dialogue and a satirical twist aimed at RPG tropes.
Watch video on YouTube.com
It actually looks and sounds awesome, with a "Very Positive" user rating on Steam it seems like another game worth picking up. Perhaps something to keep you occupied this weekend?
The update that added Linux (and macOS) support also added in cloud saves, plenty of bug fixes and they're working out some kinks in the Unity engine for a future update to support more gamepads.
Feature Highlight:
- A sidescrolling RPG adventure full of beautiful pixel art and cartoony aesthetics.
- Turn-based combat with a twist: there are no turns! Use your reflexes to evade, and your timing to attack or parry! We call it timing-based combat.
- Level ups let you choose between three options! HP, attack and stamina! Choose wisely...
- Enemies consider you their ally, so talk to them in-battles!
- Critical hits occur when you hit an enemy with the beat of the music, not randomly! Groovy~
- You want to escape a tough battle? Bribe your enemies!
- A wonderful original soundtrack composed by Stijn van Wakeren.
- Explorable worlds sprinkled with many hidden secrets.
So you can get it in the Humble Choice, itch.io or direct from Steam.
Article from GamingOnLinux.com
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As AMD launch the monster 3990X CPU, System76 offer it up with their stylish Thelio Major
Tags: Hardware, AMD
Today, AMD officially made the Ryzen Threadripper 3990X available as a seriously high-end desktop processor. Along with that, System76 jumped in right away to give it as an option on their powerful Thelio Major.
Coming with a huge amount of cores, the Threadripper 3990X certainly isn't cheap in the region of around $3,990/£3,696. For that you get a lot of everything though with 64 cores, 128 threads, PCIe 4.0 support, 32MB L2 cache with a base clock of 2.9GHz up to 4.3GHz boost. It's a monster. For gaming, quite likely serious overkill but if you play games and do plenty of content creation, compiling software and things like that all those cores will obviously come in handy. Nothing like playing a game while all your work is going on in the background eh? Find out more here.
If you're after a Linux system with it right away, Linux-focused hardware vendor System76 are coming in hot with the Thelio Major now having the option to configure it with a 3990X. System76 said they spent a lot of time on the internals to accommodate such a powerful CPU. From the press release that was sent over:
Optimizing for the heat produced by a 280 watt, 64-Core CPU was a significant engineering undertaking. We added a large 5.5" (140mm) duct that pulls cool air in from the side of the system, directs it across the heat sink, and exhaust through the rear. This has the added benefit of physically compartmentalizing GPU and CPU heat sources and the air that's pulled in to cool them.
I have some serious computer envy right now looking over the possible specifications of the Thelio Major. You can become envious too using their special landing page which shows some of the tests you can try on your current CPU. Trying out the circular motion blur test detailed on it, which the 3990X can do in around 44 seconds, my current Intel i7 i7 5960x took almost 3 and a half minutes!
You can see more about the Thelio Major from System76 on their official site.
Article from GamingOnLinux.com
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Please Follow is another short and very tense psychological horror
Tags: Indie Game, Horror, Itch.io, Short, New Release
Please Follow from developer somewhat who also made Please (which I certainly enjoyed) recently released another short psychological horror. Much like their previous, it's a mix of a walking sim with some horror elements that rely on the environment and your own imagination to disturb you along with light puzzle elements.
In the official timeline, a lone surviving soldier ventures into the tunnels dug by the opposing forces. Deep inside the bowels of the battlefield, they come into contact with a presence that will open their mind to worlds and events better left unseen.
Watch video on YouTube.com
Since I'm somewhat of a coward, I enjoy these short bursts into the weird and unnerving. It allows you to go through all the emotions and not be completely destroyed by one going on for tens of hours and I think it's great there's more like it being made.
The Linux version of Please Follow was made "based on manifest interest on past titles" but it's not been thoroughly tested.
You can find it for $1.99 on itch.io and they have a bundle of all their shorts for you to save some monies.
Article from GamingOnLinux.com
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Top down strategy and tactics returns with Door Kickers 2
Tags: Steam, Upcoming, Strategy, Action, Early Access
KillHouse Games have now re-announced Door Kickers 2: Task Force North, the sequel to their excellent 2014 tactics game.
Originally announced in 2016, with it due out cross-platform that same year. Sadly it seemed to just sort of vanish for some time—but it's back! KillHouse freshly announced it yesterday with a brand new trailer:
Watch video on YouTube.com
Feature Highlight:
- Top Down view, optimized for tactical analysis
- Real Time gameplay with pause-at-will to analyse and change plans
- No turns, no hexes, no action points - just freeform planning
- Realistic but action packed
- Non-linear levels, multiple paths and break-any*-wall kinda freedom
- Multiple units to play with, each with their distinct playing style
- Weapon customization
- Destructible environment
- Single Player & Online Cooperative Multiplayer (2 players)
- Custom-built 3D engine, allowing for increased moddability
- Mission editor
In regards to Linux support, it's still going to happen and it has not been dropped from their plans. They said that "Task Force North is planned to release on Steam Early Access (Windows) in Q2 2020, with other OS versions coming later once development stabilizes". Checking in with the developer, they clarified to us on Twitter that does mean Linux just not right away. They also mentioned this on their Steam forum post.
You can wishlist and follow Door Kickers 2: Task Force North on Steam.
Article from GamingOnLinux.com
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