Indies running via Steam on Linux

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VintAge68

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Edited By VintAge68

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GameSpot's website looks like GiantBomb now, but this not the only "new" environment I am about trying out these days: I've also been installing Linux's OpenSUSE 13.1 beta (http://software.opensuse.org/developer/en) as alternate system on my Windows 7 PC, as well as Steam (ever so well supported: http://software.opensuse.org/package/steam) and finally downloaded a couple of Linux-able games I bought recently with the Humble Indie Bundle 9 http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/60946676059/introducing-humble-indie-bundle-9 (in fact, I bought the bundle also to this purpose):

Needless to say that all these games are as good running a Linux system than on Windows or Mac:

  • Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken (Ratloop Asia), Genre: Strategy, Indie, Simulation

You play as Hardboiled Chicken set out on a mission to assassinate the evil leader of a totalitarian penguin regime in a cinematic platforming adventure game in either solo or co-op campaign.

  • A Virus Named TOM (Misfits Attic), Genre: Action, Indie, Strategy

You take control of TOM, a virus created for the purpose of infiltrating Dr. X's futuristic city in an "infectious" action puzzle game.

  • FTL: Faster than Light (Subset Games), Genre: Strategy, Indie, Simulation

You experience the atmosphere of running a spaceship for the humble task of saving the galaxy with multiple solutions for every encounter.

  • FEZ (Polytron Corporation), Genre: Strategy, Indie, Simulation

You play as Gomez in an Escherian journey using your ability to navigate a mysterious 3rd dimension from four different classic 2D perspectives.

  • Trine 2: Complete Story (Frozenbyte), Genre: Strategy, Indie, Simulation

You join Amadeus the Wizard, Pontius the Knight, and Zoya the Thief as one of Three Heroes in an animated action-puzzle-platforming adventure set in a fairy tale world.

Well, while I didn' t finish either of those games yet all seem to be working well so far except some problems I have with in-game sound, but which seems to be due to the hardware configuration (I'm using various devices) rather than Steam.

So let's see, there'll be more Linux games be available in 2014, I guess, but for now: any comments welcome!

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Snail

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Linux gaming has been on my mind lately too. Since the only PC I have at my disposal now is a netbook with an Intel Atom (1.66Ghz) and 1GB of RAM (which I'll upgrade to 2GB), I've decided to migrate to Ubuntu, which is certainly a better OS than Windows 7 Starter, at least in that it performs better and actually allows me to change my desktop background.

Hopefully those specs will be enough to run lighter games of the indie ilk, such as FTL and the like.

I'll check out OpenSUSE though. I had never heard of this before. What made you choose this distro? I just went with Ubuntu because it seems to be the most popular version of Linux, and is therefore likely to be well supported by Steam.

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VintAge68

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@snail:

Thanks for your interest: Ubuntu is certainly a "lighter" system than OpenSUSE which is more complex, and it does most likely run on your laptop, too, as well as Steam which has Ubuntu as the most supported of Linux's systems. However, whether the Steam games will be running well depends largely on the graphic chip and its memory. For instance, I have MINT installed on my laptop (2.44GHz, 1GB RAM max) which I prefer to XP on this old machine, but running games via Steam is not too extraordinary due to the insufficient video RAM.

OpenSUSE (w/ KDE desktop) which I know from previous installments (11.4, 12.3) I prefer though it might not be the easiest Linux OS to begin with, and I installed it now parallelly on my well-resourced Windows 7 PC to be used as alternate system on boot (easy thing provided giving it an unpartitioned disk drive, and until you want to uninstall it again which usually ruins the booting routine...).

The good in all those Linux OS is that you can also be running them in Live mode or as demo before installing, and MINT even from inside Windows, so you can get an idea how it will look like.