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Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios)
The Blog of Helios takes
a look at the Linux port of the Frictional Games trilogy, Penumbra. "Understand, these are not games where you have an arsenal of weapons to blow bloody chunks off of Sauerbraten monsters. This is a world where you exist or perish by your own natural wit, awareness and reflexes. Think quickly and correctly or become part of the shadowworld that awaits its next victim. You physically build your own survival. You actually hand-make the barricades, the weapons, the ladders and escape routes that you will need to survive...and you do it with movements and manipulations just like in the physical world."
(Log in to post comments)
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 0:21 UTC (Sat) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
milhouse[~]> apt-cache search penumbra
milhouse[~]>
Yeah. This will go over like a lead balloon.
PS: Love the quicktime files!
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 0:39 UTC (Sat) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link] What, you're complaining that a commercial game is not in Debian/Ubuntu repository?These are not really my kind of games, but I'm somewhat interested for this reason: For this weekend only, beginning Friday the 17th, Linux Users can purchase the entire trilogy for five single dollar bills.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 7:35 UTC (Sat) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]
Actually, purchasing games (or game material, I'd prefer open source engine at least for portability etc.) via eg. gnome-app-install would be IMHO ideal.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 10:54 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Even if it was free it wouldn't be in the Debian/Ubuntu repository. It's
*892Mb*. Can you imagine what the mirrors would say about spending that much on a single package?
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 12:00 UTC (Sat) by mosfet (guest, #45339) [Link]
A medium sized point release of OS X. Without delta rpms a few days worth of rawhide updates. Does anyone really care about <1 Gig of anything? Harddisk sizes are measured in Terabytes.
If distribution is a problem create a P2P structure for "Debian Games". Works great for World of Warcraft.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 12:01 UTC (Sat) by ikm (subscriber, #493) [Link]
Actually, does Debian have some kind of policy on this? I mean, including monstrous but otherwise free chunks of data in the distribution.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 0:57 UTC (Sat) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link]
OK, I bought it - no idea how I'll like it but it's hard to go wrong for $5, and even if it turns out to be not my cuppa joe, supporting native linux games is money well spent IMNSHO.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 1:39 UTC (Sat) by mikov (subscriber, #33179) [Link]
I am planning to buy it too (for roughly the same reasons), but I am afraid it may turn out to be one of those "too dark" games (like Doom 3). At least that is the impression I got from the clip.
Is it too dark?
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 6:14 UTC (Sat) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link]
Unfortuntely for me the game is totally dark. When I start the game the monitor blanks and displays a message about the signal being out of range. I chalk that up to a crappy monitor though. The music sounds classy, and I'm curious to see what the game is like. Guess I'll be monitor shopping.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 16:49 UTC (Sat) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link]
Sounds like it's trying to go into a resolution your monitor doesn't support... Maybe mess with the default config file to use a different res that you know works with the monitor... (Eg: I see "Overture/config/default_settings.cfg" has a "<Screen ...>" setting near the end that seems to define the default res as 800x600...)
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 20:12 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
It's VERY dark (by design). Though you can increase gamma.
Also, it's much better than Doom 3.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 21:22 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Except if you like shooting things. If you like running away, it's
amazing. (As a professed coward it looks likely to be right up my street.)
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 19, 2009 0:31 UTC (Sun) by mikov (subscriber, #33179) [Link]
Damn :-( It probably is appropriate for it to be dark, considering the story, etc, but I hate games where you can't see clearly. For example if you have to use a flashlight in order to move. It is supposed to be scary and suspenseful but it ends up being annoying...
Give me Tomb Raider or Half Life 2, to name a few - they are always perfectly lit and you can see everything, even in the supposedly dark areas.
That said, this is all very subjective. I bought the game and I will give it a shot tonight (if Debian and NVidia cooperate with me, that is :-). It sounds like a game which I would probably play even if it was Windows-only or more expensive.
(But I really really hope that I don't have to to use the torch for basic movement. I remember that an hour of a certain Doom3 level put me off from gaming for a month).
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 7:59 UTC (Sat) by trusmis (guest, #47355) [Link]
I bought it also.
Played 10 minutes with my love and she found it playable and interesting. The main problem was that as usually the cursor is invisible unless you are looking right to an object were you can perform an action, sometimes is difficult to make it appear. The game features voices as well as subtitles for the story part. So far it has a feeling of old good story. Let's see how it develops...
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 20:13 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Check the 'show crosshair' option in the game settings.
No, thanks. Posted Jul 18, 2009 8:37 UTC (Sat) by bockman (guest, #3650) [Link]
It is weird : we built a whole civilization to get away from those situations, and then we recreate them for fun ... while in other parts of the world the 'civilization trick' did not work out so well ...
No, thanks. Posted Jul 18, 2009 10:16 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
It's fun because we're not *actually* in a frozen wasteland being chased
by monsters, except for those of us unlucky enough to live in Minnesota.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 8:54 UTC (Sat) by alextingle (guest, #20593) [Link]
Yeah, I bought it too. It looks like it might be my cup of tea.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 19, 2009 21:48 UTC (Sun) by Tet (subscriber, #5433) [Link]
I bought it, even though the demo didn't work for me. It was so cheap, it was silly not to. I'm sure I'll get it working eventually. If not, it's not as if I've wasted a fortune...
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 19, 2009 22:34 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
My attitude exactly. Besides, it'll be a good bugspotter for the
newly-arrived r6xx 3D support ;)
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 20, 2009 8:32 UTC (Mon) by Tet (subscriber, #5433) [Link]
I'll be happy enough with stable r4xx 2D support. At the moment, it's fine with traditional X, but trying to do KMS makes it unusable.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 20, 2009 21:38 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Um, you don't have to use KMS until it works, y'know. It's a nicer design
but all it brings to users is a fraction of a second faster VT switching. (Well, and sometimes less crashy VT switching, but it's been a long time since I had that mach64).
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 22, 2009 18:56 UTC (Wed) by Tet (subscriber, #5433) [Link] Um, you don't have to use KMS until it works, y'know.Oh, I know, and I'm running without KMS now. But it's the default on Fedora 11 for cards that nominally support it. Which mine does. Badly.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 12:04 UTC (Sat) by ikm (subscriber, #493) [Link]
Yep, metoo :)
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 13:09 UTC (Sat) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link]
Unfortunately, it seems like commercial linux games are stuck with only low profile titles like these, but they're still better than nothing!
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 16:41 UTC (Sat) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link]
I'd hardly call anything id releases "low profile", and every single id game since the original Doom has a native Linux port... (Most of them have even had their engines released as open source, and now exist as much improved open source versions... I still play ioquake3 regularly to this day!)
Sure, that's just one company and genre (first-person shooters), but still "only low profile titles" is just wrong... (There are various other high profile titles available, as well... See TuxGames.com for some examples...)
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 17:08 UTC (Sat) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link]
These "low profile" titles are nice - but not the only gaming option for linux users. For years I have been gaming on linux - doom I/II/III, quake I/II/III/IV, RtCW, ET, Unreal Tournament 2000/2003/2004, the latest open source quake 3 derivatives like openarena, alien arena, and so many more that I don't have time to even look at them all, let alone play them.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 22:44 UTC (Sat) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link]
You're right, my post was biased, because I don't particularly like that genre, so I completely forgot about them! I'm impatiently waiting for the mesa+drm+kernel(because, no matter what, I won't use the proprietary drivers!) combination to give me acceptable 3d on my HD4850, so that I can start trying to play Kotor and Total War through Wine.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 19, 2009 1:54 UTC (Sun) by wesmo (guest, #50706) [Link]
Shouldn't be too long of a wait now- r6xx-rewrite has reached the hardware gears milestone recently.
Those interested in free games coverage should look at http://freegamer.blogspot.com/ . Also, Gamasutra's Innovative Casual Game Design: A year in review (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4056/innovative_cas...) is an interesting article covering novel game mechanic.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 19, 2009 3:58 UTC (Sun) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link]
Yes, r600-r700 branch has also entered the master branch of mesa 1 or 2 days ago.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 18:14 UTC (Sat) by NinjaSeg (guest, #33460) [Link]
Also Prey finally got a native Linux port: http://icculus.org/prey/ (It's based on the Doom3 "id Tech 4" engine)
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 18, 2009 20:14 UTC (Sat) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link]
"world of goo" started as a low profile indie game, but has now turned into a hit with very positive reviews. And it is available for (X86) linux.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 20, 2009 18:35 UTC (Mon) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]
I tried this last night and it was locking up quite a bit (Ubuntu 8.04, nVidia GeForce 5500 FX): the fullscreen would switch to normal windowed mode and when that happened, the mouse no longer worked. Even C-A-D and switching to a different user account didn't help; the mouse worked there but switching back it was still frozen... I had to log out.
I found that if I disabled compiz by switching to "no effects" in the appearance menu, then it works OK.
YMMV, HTH, etc
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 21, 2009 21:01 UTC (Tue) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link]
I bought it and it seems to work....hopefully I'll actually have the time and never to play it.
Now if only Linux had a decent pinball game....never goe Emilia to work right....
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 24, 2009 12:00 UTC (Fri) by Quazatron (guest, #4368) [Link]
What about installing DOSBox and "Pinball Fantasies"? Or maybe SDLMame and "Time Scanner"?
If consider emulators, Linux actually has many games available, more than you'll be able to play in your lifetime, actually.
Are You Afraid? You Will Be... (Blog of helios) Posted Jul 24, 2009 11:53 UTC (Fri) by Quazatron (guest, #4368) [Link]
I bought the full collection (remember folks, vote with your wallets!)
It installed and worked without any problems on my system, an Intel quad core with ATI gpu running Ubuntu.
Although I prefer the "shoot-everything-with-huge-guns" type of game, I've been known to play the odd adventure game (or "interactive fiction", as they call it nowadays).
I played Overture for a while, and I'm enjoying it. I still haven't found any nasty monsters, but I keep expecting to be slaughtered at any moment.
Well worth the money, I'd say.
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