jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

The Witcher 2 Comes to Linux/SteamOS

The Witcher 2 was just ported to Linux and SteamOS and they are celebrating by having an awesome 80% off sale. If you were wanting to build up your catalog of native SteamOS games or simply wanted to pickup The Witcher 2, $3.99 isn't a bad price!

Been impressed with the third party SteamOS support i've been seeing lately. I hope more developers join the trend to port to SteamOS. *cough* Bethesda *cough* 2K *cough* iD!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/20920/

Travis Admin wrote on 05/23/2014 at 07:35pm

It's worth noting that there are some *major* problems with this port right now. They apparently wrapped it instead of doing a full port, and the wrapper they used is causing problems on certain hardware. I guess a better way to say it is, it's only working properly on certain hardware.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY5ODM

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/23/2014 at 08:22pm

Hopefully this eon thing gets better OR they release a native port. I picked it up but plan on playing it when I get my steam machine. Hopefully it's sorted by then. I sort of dot care about the HOW porting happens as long as it isn't shit.

That said, native seem like the best approach even if it may be the most technically complicated in certain cases.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/23/2014 at 08:46pm

Yeah exactly. I don't care if it's native as long as it works as you would expect. But single threading, and only working on certain models of a certain vendor's cards is not good.

They've got a good track record of fixing problems though. Hopefully they get to it soon.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/23/2014 at 10:09pm

Fair enough, and I went to the steam community thread where a developer of the company that provided the wrapper tech responded. I kind of don't blame people for being so upset, that said it says in the fine print that it doesnt work with AMD or Intel cards. No one really reads that and maybe Steam should pop up depending if the hardware they are buying it on doesn't pass the spec.

That said, people should be civil BUT maybe this is all kind of a good case for a sane 1-2 day refund policy or something based on it working like shit on your system(if it passes spec and crashes or something). Anyways, lot's of edge cases but I bet Valve is thinking about it because getting an unfortunate port isn't awesome.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/23/2014 at 10:32pm

You can't expect civility from the Steam community forums. :)

But damn, I didn't realize they had said it doesn't work with AMD and Intel. That's a big chunk of the market. But even top of the line nvidia cards are underperfoming significantly. That's something I bet they can fix though.

Apparently Wine does just fine with the game, even on AMD. So it's a bit of a surprise they went with a proprietary vendor for their wrapper.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/24/2014 at 05:23pm

It was my understanding that SteamOS, as a whole, doesn't support AMD and Intel graphics at the moment.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/24/2014 at 05:44pm

Well, they released it for Linux as a whole, not just Steam OS.

BUT, there is support for AMD and Intel in Steam OS now. There wasn't initially, and the page for it still says it's "coming soon," but support is now in there as of January.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/24/2014 at 06:10pm

Thanks for clarifying :). I see that they've pulled the whole Witcher 2 store page down on Steam. They'll get it sorted. Valve has magic faeries on retainer.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/24/2014 at 11:43pm

Yeah, I guess so many people complained that they pulled it. I hope it gets updated because I bought it before it was pulled

Travis Admin wrote on 05/25/2014 at 03:02am

It will, I'm sure. How does it work with your new video card in Linux? Just curious if your nvidia is one of the ones it has issues with.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/25/2014 at 03:19pm

I haven't tried it yet. I want to wait until they sort out most of the issues first.

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Cheerful Ghost At OMSI After Dark

https://www.omsi.edu/sites/default/files/OAD_MAY_SB.jpg

Do you like eating and drinking? Do you also enjoy video games? Do you live in the greater Portland area? If you are experiencing an intersection of values with facts in what I noted above, I recommend you come to OMSI after dark. Not only can you try some great local food and drink but also do things for FOR SCIENCE! Yeah, science, I mean it's in the OMSI title and everything. You know, the S in OMSI... it's for science.

To make the offer even more interesting, Cheerful Ghost will have a booth you should check out. We will be showing next to some great local Indie developers as well.

OMSI After Dark will be this Wednesday from 6p-10p. Check the events link below for pricing and more.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/events/57/come-to-the-cheerful-ghost-booth-omsi-after-dark

Travis Admin wrote on 05/23/2014 at 01:19am

Geez, I need to move to portland.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/23/2014 at 02:08am

Yes you do. When you figure out the details let me know and i'll help you unpack at your new place.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/24/2014 at 05:42pm

This sounds awesome! Sorry I can't make it. I mean, I guess it's ONLY a 16 hour drive assuming I make no stops except for gas...

Travis Admin wrote on 05/24/2014 at 05:46pm

It's so weird, it took us 15 hours, not counting stops, to get from VA to Kansas City, but it takes 16 hours for you to go two states. We divided up this land mass in a very odd way.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/24/2014 at 07:19pm

California is a very long state.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/24/2014 at 11:43pm

It is at that.

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Cheerful Ghost Roundtable: S2 E8 Indie Games II The Revenge

In this episode of the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable we re-boot a topic we covered in detail in our first Roundtable episode, Indie Games. What do Indie Games mean in 2014, does it make sense to call them Indie Games at all? Featuring special guest, Will Lewis the founder of the Portland Indie Game Squad we navigate the seas of Indie, stopping along the way to make fun of people with no friends as well as pixel art. But, as with all things, we kid what we love the most.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/22/2014 at 10:27pm

That thumbnail is just way too happy. How dare you!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/23/2014 at 12:41am

Pharrell liked it.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/25/2014 at 02:32am

Listened to the RT while cooking dinner tonight. Great episode everyone!

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/25/2014 at 05:14am

It was a fun romp. Nice to sit in with Cap again. You were missed!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/25/2014 at 03:18pm

Yeah, this was a fun one. Can't wait for the next episode.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/26/2014 at 05:25pm

I was just on another game site (for shame...) watching a dev diary for Valiant Hearts, a new game in the UbiArt pipeline coming out next month. One of the comments under the post said "Ubisoft are doing indie better than the indies." This is a ridiculous statement, and is exactly what I'm talking about. When did "indie" become an aesthetic? No wonder people want to dump the monicker. It's been misappropriated to the point of falling under vague urban definition. Next step: games that are solely created in the state of Indiana = Indie games.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/26/2014 at 06:41pm

If Ubi can't produce a game more polished that a few people working for free then we have a problem. And yes, I agree, that statement is very ignorant and i'd hazard a guess the comment was from someone that doesn't play many Independently developed games OR doesn't like them. Too bad too, lots to love.

That said, Ubi, like many huge companies are realizing that making many smaller games can be a better way to go. Blizzard is too and Hearthstone is one such game. Doesn't mean they are Indie though.

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The Mayhem Game Jam Games 2014 [ Part II ]

Mothership of Mayhem

http://stuff.mboffin.net/games/unity/mom/

Mothership of Mayhem is a missile command style base defense game. As objects fall from the sky you must shoot them down to protect your base. As things fall you need to time your shots properly so you can hit the falling debris. This sounds a lot easier than it is and I found myself frantically clicking to clear the ever increasing waves of spaceward refuse. You get a limited amount of ammo so you must keep that in mind as you blast away, making each bit of the game more intense.

Giant Rampaging Monster

http://stuff.mboffin.net/games/pigsquad/GiantRampagingMonster.zip (Windows)

Giant Rampaging Monster is a game that delivers on the promise of it’s title. You take control of a Giant Rampaging Monster as you walk around town demolishing everything in your path. As I played this game I realized how much I miss Rampage and how badly more of these games need to be made. Giant Rampaging Monster not only allows you to destroy buildings with ease but it also puts a faux Twitter feed at the top of the screen. As you bring carnage and destruction to the city you can see how the city responds on Twitter. Many of the tweets are funny as people wonder about the monster in “How can it’s bone structure support it’s mass” and other Tweets feature the local news that note a local “Tornado warning upgraded to Giant Monster.”

Parenthood Simulator

http://transwave.tumblr.com/post/85851218016/parenthood-simulator

Parenthood Simulator is a game that is fun and disturbing all at once that features two player head to head gameplay. One player takes the role of the grocery shopping Mother trying to stay on budget. The other player is the child who needs to throw items into the cart to make Mom go over budget. I found myself really enjoying the mechanics of playing as the child, running around tossing food into the cart. I played this game with Lucas, one of the games creators as he was the Mother frantically swinging her arms to keep food out of the cart. If there is an open question about times where children are pitted against parents, Parenthood Simulator is a game that takes the affirmative.

Pyxis

http://stuff.mboffin.net/games/pigsquad/Pyxis.zip (Windows)

“...And she opened the box containing all the evils in the world” is the opening line to Pyxis, a dark breakout style game where you allow hope to escape while containing evil. In Pyxis hope is represented by a blue orb and evil are a bunch of grey orbs. Stopping the orbs from escaping are a few flat lines you can control with your mouse. Moving side to side moves the lines and moving the mouse up or down increases or decreases how far they are from each other. The simple premise and controls really make for a great game that can last quite a long time. Pyxis has a really good tone conveyed well through it’s gameplay art, writing and music. The game runs great on the PC but I could see it working just as well on phones or tablets.

Please check out the first part of our coverage of The PIGSquad Mayhem Game Jam 2014:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/2047/the-mayhem-game-jam-games-2014-part-i

The Mayhem Game Jam Games 2014 [ Part I ]

Cheerful Ghost was a sponsor of this years PIGSquad Mayhem Game Jam. The Mayhem Jam gave game makers of all experience levels, skills, and backgrounds a 48 hour opportunity to develop a new game amongst friends. I was able to make it for a bit of the Jam and was pretty impressed how people quickly met up and worked together to create interesting stuff. Will Lewis, founder of PIGSquad collected all the games and you are about to read a mini-review of each of the games.

http://pigsquad.com/

There were 8 games made at this years Jam and we decided to split them up into two posts. If you are interested in any of the games from the jam, feel free to click the link for each game, give it a try and drop your thoughts in the comments.

Mother of Mayhem

http://www.kongregate.com/games/IncredibleJams/mother-of-mayhem

Mother of Mayhem is a fun top down shooter where you are a frog on a quest to save your people from the slime overlords. Gameplay is in the 2D top down perspective and you can shoot in any direction you can move. Your shots are bound to your energy level such that you need to decide the right time to shoot carefully. As your progress through the game more slimes spawn as the game quickly ramps up in difficulty. Mother of Mayhem is a really challenging game but who said saving your people from the slime overlords would be be easy?

Starventure

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44618/StarVenture/StarVenture.html

Starventure is a beautifully challenging spaceship Shoot Em’ Up. You use the mouse to control the spaceship and the firing is done automagically. At first I thought the auto-fire mechanic would bother me as most shooter games let you do the shooting. As I played the game the challenge wasn’t in landing the shots, it was in navigating the level to stay alive. Since I am an avid completionist I wanted to kill each and every enemy I encountered. This seemed like a bad strategy as I died. A lot. Eventually I landed the winning formula of simply navigating around the bad guys to avoid taking direct damage. As I came to the final boss my strategy for beating it was to kite it while avoiding the shots. I eventually beat the boss but it was a bare knuckle fight to the end. I’d love to see more of Starventure and hope someday I can.

Kuzi Mayhem

http://transfixed.itch.io/kuzi-mayhem

Kuzi Mayhem is a very charming game where you play Domovoi as he helps his host make her concoction. As you take control of Domovoi, you can move side to side on a shelf loaded with bottles. You use Domovoi to catch the bottles from falling as you allow the purple ones to make your hosts concoction. I laud Kuzi Mayhem for using the music, art and gameplay to craft a very simple and fun experience. Where the introduction sequence was hard for me to understand, the experience of quickly moving to collect bottles was so great I was lost in it.

Brave Little Wrecking Ball

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brave-little-wrecking-ball/id879314402

Brave Little Wrecking Ball shows off how unique game mechanics should be explored in game jams. Brave Little Wrecking Ball uses touch mechanics to move the wrecking ball around the screen. The tail of the ball is used to hit and kill enemies on the screen which when dispatched drop power-ups. The different power-ups can increase your ball size, give you a shield, increase your chain length and get you a speed up. Brave Little Wrecking Ball was another of the Jam games I found very challenging. At one point I was whipping the ball around to kill an enemy and it bounced back to deal me a death blow. It was such a great way to die I laughed and kept playing.

Check out the thrilling conclusion in Part II:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/2048/the-mayhem-game-jam-games-2014-part-ii

Valve Launches Steam in Home Streaming

"When you log into Steam on two computers on the same network, they automatically connect, allowing you to remotely install, launch, and play games as though you were sitting at the remote PC.

When you play a game using In-Home Streaming, video and audio are sent through your home network from your high-end gaming PC to another device in your home."

In home streaming is a great idea for solving the problem of not having all your Steam Windows games playable on SteamOS. Can't wait to try this out because i'd love to play some Wolfenstein: New Order on my TV through my Mac laptop.

Drop your thoughts and experiments with in home streaming in the comments!

http://store.steampowered.com/streaming/

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/21/2014 at 09:35pm

This is interesting, although I'm not sure it's something I will use. However, if I could stream my Steam games to my PS3, that would be awesome! I would then be able to use my big screen TV instead of this smaller monitor. Then I could lie in bed and play all the Steam I want. I don't think the PS3 is included, but it would be really cool if it worked!

Streaming is a new-to-me feature I'm still learning about and getting used to. When I got the new PC, I did not hook it up to my TV, like I did the old one. This is because I finally started using a PS3 media server on my PC to watch videos I have on here via the PS3. I love that I can do that, it seems to simplify what I'm trying to do by removing the need for me to attach the PC to the TV as a second desktop and configure video and audio settings for use and reconfigure them when I'm done with what I'm watching. Setting up the PS3 server on the PC is incredibly simple and effective.

JaBo wrote on 05/21/2014 at 11:40pm

Oh, I'll be trying this! I generally play games in the living room on my laptop and neglect my desktop. Now I can finally play some of the higher end games on my laptop while in the living room with the wife. Hello Civ5, looking at you!

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/22/2014 at 02:56am

This is really exciting, and the thing I've been looking forward to the most out of the whole SteamOS environment, even though I've recently downsized to one computer. The future looks promising :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/22/2014 at 05:46am

Ok, I just took in home streaming for a more extensive ride and WOW is it already pretty awesome. I tried a few games: Risk of Rain, Wolfenstein: New Order, Borderlands, Borderlands 2 and Skyrim.

Risk of Rain worked amazingly well EXCEPT it requires you to use a mouse in selecting something to start a game. Everything else is controller only and it streams beautifully.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is the game that suffered a bit during steam play. It's so much more smooth on the PC with a mouse. The game was fine with a controller, but I just do SO much better with a mouse and keyboard. That said I notice some network lag with it, nothing major but I notice a bit.

Borderlands: The game is smooth and VERY responsive and works right out of the box with the 360 controller. A seriously epic upgrade to 1080p from the 720p on the PS3.

Borderlands 2: Just as smooth as Borderlands if not more so. Again, 1080p looks incredible and the game works flawlessly over streaming.

Skyrim: You need to use the keyboard to put it into the 360 controller mode but after that things are as smooth as the PC experience. The game suffers from some noticeable video artifacts with streaming, but it wasn't too horrible.

Overall this is a SOLID launch of in home streaming to my Mac laptop. If steaming is this amazing to SteamOS most people should have a great experience with their games library that won't run SteamOS native.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/22/2014 at 05:07pm

I tried this a bit earlier on in the beta and I dig it. Some games didn't work well with it. Assassin's Creed 4 was unplayable, but Skyrim and Borderlands 2 were great. The awesome thing is, non-Steam games that you have in your Steam library work too. I was able to stream Diablo 3 with no problems.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/22/2014 at 05:15pm

Too bad Blizz won't add controller support to the PC version. That would be awesome to play in the living room without re-buying it.

Then again, I guess I could always just get out the keyboard and mouse to go big screen..... Hmmm.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/22/2014 at 05:51pm

I've tried keyboard and mouse in the living room, and for me it just feels weird. Like, I still need to be at a desk, in the living room, to have the right feel. Am I the only one? What about the new Steam controller? Does that still support key-mapping?

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/23/2014 at 12:42am

You can remap the Steam Controller any way it's capable of to my knowledge.

That said, I think I could see where I might want to play D3 on a big TV in the living room and, yeah, i'd prefer a controller BUT a keyboard and mouse might be fine enough to try. I'd need something that worked well in that context though.

JaBo wrote on 05/28/2014 at 08:12pm

Wait, you can stream non-steam games?? Holy balls... my wife isn't much of a gamer...in fact, fairly anti gamer lol. But there are some games she likes. Zoo Tycoon for instance. If I can stream that to her non-gaming laptop so she can play it in the living room...that'd make all happy =]

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League of Legends Gets The "Fantasy Football" Treatment

http://fantasy.eslgaming.com/img/landing_features_trade.png

I was talking to a friend today that mentioned something pretty interesting. League of Legends is getting the "fantasy league" treatment. If you enjoy playing fantasy football with your friends and want to spread out to League of Legends, now you can. I sort of see this as the normalization of video game culture coming full circle. I really hope that DoTA 2 & Starcraft 2 eventually get a fantasy league draft!

http://fantasy.eslgaming.com/

Chowda wrote on 05/20/2014 at 02:34am

Oh yeah! Made my team earlier today - http://fantasy.eslgaming.com/teams/34126 . Too bad Meteos and Bjergsen are so expensive. I had to sacrifice jungle and top picks to make it under cap.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/20/2014 at 05:15pm

This is really cool! I'm still relatively new to the competitive names in esports, but I love this idea and hope it's wildly successful. Is it possible to make a private league? Would be cool to compete with other CGers!

Sungorth wrote on 05/20/2014 at 10:23pm

Are the seasons and players in LOL stable enough for this to work? When I follow SC2 the tournaments and players were really volatile

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/20/2014 at 10:45pm

There's a Dota 2 Fantasy League as well! http://blog.dota2.com/2014/05/introducing-fantasy-league-season-one/

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/21/2014 at 12:09am

Good question, @Sungorth. The rosters seem to be fairly consistent, without much interruption to the seasons. I'm not that deep into it, though, so that could just be my perception.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 10/02/2015 at 05:22pm

Oh man, I totally forgot about this post! I was going to write up a post about how Draft Kings offers LoL fantasy betting. The reason I feel this is significant is that Draft Kings is a MAJOR football and baseball daily fantasy site (paying out one billion dollars this season for NFL fantasy). I think having LoL in such a public spot (listed along with NFL, MLB, MMA, Soccer, etc) really could help legitimize esports even more (more than the millions of viewers and prize dollars already involved in it, this could open it up to people who have no clue what esports are).

What is League of Legends? - DraftKings Playbook
playbook.draftkings.com/news/what-is-league-of-legends
Here's a cool introduction someone on the site would see if they're interested in what LoL is. It's a pretty good summary of what a MOBA is and done without mocking gamers like one might expect from a site catering to more tradional sports fans.

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Bowser Wants a Gun

Hilarious, but extremely violent.

Makes sense though, I always could dodge those bullets pretty well.

The Banner Saga, Mixed Reviews Leave Me Confused

I love the turn based game mechanic. So much so that I am really interested in picking up The Banner Saga. Since it's not a "must buy" for me I was thinking of picking it up as some kind of bundle or sale. That said, I recently watched the latest episode of the Red Letter Media "Pre-Rec" game review show and I was left a bit confused.

http://blip.tv/redlettermedia/pre-rec-the-banner-saga-6883636

Jack and Rich Evans really don't seem to like the game and their criticism of it seems pretty valid, if not a bit cynical. One one hand, the criticism seemed fune but then I remembered that The Banner Saga has received some pretty positive acclaim. The game currently holds a strong 4 review on Steam and an 80% Metascore.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/237990/
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-banner-saga

Often times critic reviews don't stack up to what the overall public. Recently I watched the sci-fi film Oblivion and thought it was quite good. It's not a perfect film, but what is? That said I thought it was so much better than the critic hate it seemed to garner.

It's often hard to wade through the morass of game critique to find the simple truth. "Is this game going to be fun for me?" Reviews & critics are helpful but in times such as these, it's confusing.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/18/2014 at 09:38pm

I kickstarted Banner Saga. I played the hell out of Factions (the free-to-play multiplayer combat "probe" that they put out before releasing the game). I was impressed with the art, and I love the combat mechanics. That said, I have yet to step into the actual game. I have no idea why. I think because I played so much of factions, I was a little spent with it when the game finally released, which was much later than originally intended. Jack and Rich, I feel, are being a bit cynical, but that seems to be their MO. After watching their PreRec of Risk of Rain, I actually bought it and started playing. I found that I liked it much more than they did, based on their review. In fact, in retrospect, I was slightly disappointed with the review because I feel like they, at points, "didn't get it". This is why I love/hate reviews. It's hard to find someone that likes what you like, but also for the same reasons. When you do, you can establish a buffer of trust, but until then you take it with a grain of salt.

You should give Banner Saga: Factions a try, since it's free. You'll at least be exposed to the combat mechanics, and can make a more clear decision.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/20/2014 at 12:51am

Yeah, that seems to be what I hearing from people. Seems like it's a good game that wasn't perfect. I think i'll pick it up in a sale or bundle, I mean, why not?

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Bungie COO Pete Parsons Talks About The Design Of Destiny

One of the questions i've had since I heard about Destiny has been "what kind of shooter is it?" I mean, I always knew it was a shooter, but what made Destiny different? Clearly the people at Bungie had something unique in store and after watching this latest interview video with Pete Parsons, I have a much better idea. Destiny seems to take many ideas from Borderlands but seems to do things a bit differently with it's social hub play.

Oh yeah and the game just looks incredible too.

jdodson1

2753 Posts

The Witcher 2 Comes to Linux/SteamOS

Cheerful Ghost At OMSI After Dark

Cheerful Ghost Roundtable: S2 E8 Indie Games II The Revenge

The Mayhem Game Jam Games 2014 [ Part II ]

The Mayhem Game Jam Games 2014 [ Part I ]

Valve Launches Steam in Home Streaming

League of Legends Gets The "Fantasy Football" Treatment

Bowser Wants a Gun

The Banner Saga, Mixed Reviews Leave Me Confused

Bungie COO Pete Parsons Talks About The Design Of Destiny