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Unusual Physics Engine Game Ported To Linux
christian.einfeldt writes "Halloween has come early for Linux-loving gamers in the form of the scary Penumbra game trilogy, which has just recently been ported natively to GNU-Linux by the manufacturer, Frictional Games. The Penumbra games, named Overture, Black Plague and Requiem, are first-person survival horror and physics puzzle games which challenge the player to survive in a mine in Greenland which has been taken over by a monstrous infection/demon/cthulhu-esque thing. The graphics, sounds, and plot are all admirable in a scary sort of way. The protagonist is an ordinary human with no particular powers at all, who fumbles around in the dark mine fighting zombified dogs or fleeing from infected humans. But the game is remarkable for its physics engine — rather than just bump and acquire, the player must use the mouse to physically turn knobs and open doors; and the player can grab and throw pretty much anything in the environment. The physics engine drives objects to fly and fall exactly as one would expect. The porting of a game with such a deft physics engine natively to Linux might be one of the most noteworthy events for GNU-Linux gamers since the World of Goo Linux port."
I just ordered it and am downloading the install file now (893 MB). All three games are $5 (and the site says for this weekend only) when purchased as one. Normally they are $10 each. And the site accepts Paypal if you're afraid of handing out credit card information to yet another site.
Dirt cheap compared to most games even on Steam so I'll definitely see how well it runs on my Ubuntu box.
My work here is dung.
Great, now where was that handbag?
I remember trying the Penumbra... Scariest experience in my life. No other game or movie has gotten anywhere near. (Though I am the kind of person that get scared easily.)
Sneaking in dark mines, waiting for your eyes to get used to the darkness enough that you see something, hearing that there is something else nearby and staying still... I hoped it - whatever it was - would not see me (if it hadn't already)...
And you know that though you can escape, you can't outrun anything so you should very slowly sneak towards the door, turn the knob and get yourself to the other side and close the door before anything else gets there... But then again, you have no idea what is on the other side of the door.
I still don't know what was it that killed me. Perhaps one of such zombie dogs. It was pretty early and I didn't open the game again. Would recommend it, though.
Actually, they've had the Linux version of these games available for quite some time... The only thing new is the $5 special pricing for the complete collection of all three... But, if you haven't already got them before now, then definitely go get them for $5!
This Penumbra trilogy has been on Linux for a while, the first game ran on linux somewhere in 2007 iic, so it's definitely not recently ported... the only news here is that it's perhaps cheaper now, so it's a nice slashvertisement.
That being said, these games are pretty cool if you like survival horror / adventure games.
... he player must use the mouse to physically turn knobs and open doors ...
Oh come on, ain't first rule of game design to throw away "realistic" rubbish and make game comfortable to play?
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
" The physics engine drives objects to fly and fall exactly as one would expect."
And that's what breaks the suspense of disbelief. I mean, in real life things never fall where I intend/expect them to fall as I throw them.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Probably because it's a pretty retarded post? I've not much use for Linux in my every day life, but I've used it enough on multiple hardware platforms, both stationary and mobile, and neither of them had any problems with rendering graphics. Not even with all the silly hardware accellerated effects turned on. Indeed, Penumbra series are quite good games for the money they cost. Indeed they're much better horror games than most the AAA titles that are spewed out by major companies. They just lack the graphical polish that those companies can afford. The gameplay is however just as good and the mood is better.
Poking around the checkouts I see that you buy the game individually for each operating system as opposed to buy once, run anywhere. If my main mac dies (again) I'll have to shell out again to play it on a Windows or Linux machine. Not a huge fan of this sort of arrangement, I liked Braid where I've paid for it once and have access to Windows and OSX copies.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
This company can manage a native port of this great sounding game and engine, but WTF happened to UT3 and when are Bethesda going to port Fallout 3 and DLCs to GNU eh? Never that's when!
Seems like only the little companies are preapred to dispense with the BS and try something truly original, UT2004 was ported when EPIC was still allowed to, then ATARI got in there and just like the old days of the 80's, they suits decided that they not going to support some Mickey Mouse hippy type O/S!
Ughh!
Guess what just got ported to Linux?
You admit that ultimately everything is about Windows vs Linux for you. This makes you a trolling asshole. :)
It helps if you stop punching the monitor.
Yet I have been using Linux since 1994 and I found there are hardware problems, on most systems actually. I started to see them when I stopped becoming a Linux Zealot. I use the big 3 OS's (Linux, OS X, Windows) almost on a daily basis. They all have their pluses and minuses. One of Linux's minus is it lacks quality handling of modern video cards, hence not making it good for games, heck it barely runs the Windows managers when you want some of the modern effects on your system... I am sorry but I like a semi-transparent Terminal that shows the Windows behind it. And when I am using Linux I am willing to trade off the fact my windows get messed up after a couple of hours of use, but it shows off its faults with video. I can point out faults in other OS's 2 but the topic was about a game for Linux.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Is it just me or am I noticing more cites to the Lovecraft mythos?
This article.
This one.
Then I head over to this site and see this.
Is there a sudden resurgence in Lovecraft as an Internet meme that I'm unaware of?
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purchased. Too bad I'm at work, can't wait to give it a shot on a linux box. Wonder if it will work in freebsd with linux binary compatibility.
I've not much use for Linux in my every day life, but I've used it enough on multiple hardware platforms, both stationary and mobile, and neither of them had any problems with rendering graphics.
The HDMI output on my laptop does not work at all under Linux (Quadro 2700M.) And I can't do dual-display without my system actually failing to bring up X if I don't have the external display connected.
Graphics and sound are in fact the two places where Linux falls on its ass the hardest, and if you don't acknowledge these problems, you're living in denial. Maybe YOU haven't had problems with either, but both are common. Intel boned the graphics driver for my lady's laptop, too. I thought open source intel drivers were supposed to make graphics reliable?
Linux is great in a lot of ways, but graphics are still a sore spot due to incompetent drivers from all major manufacturers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Uh, even my 8600M GT can handle most graphic effects in a stunning fashion if not amazing. I don't know what you're talking about but both Nvidia and ATI cards are handled pretty darn well on Linux nowadays.
People even use it for gaming! .
Maybe you should try running Linux. It's clear you aren't currently.
Unfortunately that's an unavoidable consequence of running Linux.
What do you expect, after hammering it into the ground like that?
Getting fustrated at /.'s constant missreporting in its headlines and articles these days, its worse than digg and thats saying something. It was ported to linux years ago, the series has always been a multiplatform game. this is just a combination of all three games into one pack. its worth the money easly but still, stop with the missleading headlines.
Well, it won't run on any of my systems then.
Unless I feel like downloading untold megs of 32-bit libraries just to run this one app, just because they won't do a recompile. FFS!
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
Can anyone give an overview of the relative performance in Windows vs Linux? I have both, and if there are going to be issues, I'd hate to have to go back and buy it again to get it running on Windows...
A few power user corner cases is not "falling on it's ass".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Windows user here, and I bought my copy. I love adventure games, and the best one I ever played was something called Realms of the Haunting (1997) which combined a creepy story, challenging puzzles, with just enough Doom-style first person action to keep you on the edge of your seat. I'ld like to see how Penumbra stacks up. Thanks for sharing this!
Now if only someone can convince Gremlin to open source ROTH, that would be great!
the open warzone 2100 i have noticed is a bit unstable anyway, I doubt you'd have such problems if you were to play say Alien Arena.
One of Linux's minus is it lacks quality handling of modern video cards, hence not making it good for games, heck it barely runs the Windows managers when you want some of the modern effects on your system...
My low-end 8300GS Nvidia card running with Ubuntu 9.04 handles full effects, HD video and anything else I throw at it perfectly. If you'd said '*some* modern video cards' you might be nearer the mark.
I maybe fall into the 'power user' band as I sometimes use dual displays, but I certainly have had sound problems with both my MBP and my Dell mini 9 when running Ubuntu. Recently some update screwed up pulseaudio on my Mini 9 (sound kept stuttering every 30 seconds or so) so I've just removed it for now. General sound playback is working fine again, but for some reason the login sound now stutters instead. I'm willing to live with that since it's only once a day, but the sound situation on Linux is still a bit of a mess. Dell Mini 9s are definitely not intended for 'power users'..
The Mac also had regular and annoying sound crackling/whining issues in the left speaker - apparently very common in MBPs - but since it's a fairly specialised case I know it's a bit much to expect devs to concentrate on solving Mac issues, especially when I could have just stuck with OSX.
The only other annoyance I have in Linux these days is that evolution occasionally crashes for no reason (usually when I go to use the search option, but sometimes it just seems to be random).
which is totally what she said
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The game is very good, but it is a sad testament to the state of Linux gaming when a game getting ported is considered "big news".
As a Windows user who has played all three games in the Penumbra series a long time ago (well... two years ago), I was kind of expecting more of a reaction to the actual gameplay from the Linux world. Penumbra took a different approach to the traditional style of first person games and decided that giving you a fighting chance was way less fun than just making you wonder if you're alone in the dark or not. Penumbra: Overture allows some meager defensive tactics, such as swinging a hammer or saw in order to... fend off whatever might be interested in you. The second game, Penumbra: Black Plague, is the shining pinnacle of this development. No defense, no weapons, nothing that protects you from the mysteries in the dark. You can run, but you certainly can't hide very well (the panic system ensures this). The puzzles are challenging and require thought, but not in the "adventure-game-click-everywhere-until-you-don't-die-and-then-reload" style ala late 80s/early 90s Sierra games. Most of the puzzles are logical ones - there's a hole in the wall and you're hearing odd noises, and the lights are flickering. It's probably going to be a good idea if you can block whatever is in the hole - look around and find a crate or a box you can push to block it. Unfortunately, Penumbra: Requiem took a step back in storyline and atmosphere and focused almost entirely on physics puzzles, sacrificing what Black Plague had as an excellent compromise for the sake of making something a bit different. I hope more game companies, Linux, Mac, or Windows, adopt newer styles of meeting a genre such as this game.
Great games, and worth the ridiculously low price. An incredibly tense blend of survival horror and adventure. Linux advocates are always complaining that they don't get good games - well, here you go. P.
... and although I run NetBSD, for $5 it's worth buying just to see if it runs under Linux emulation.
Just for the curious: the game runs on the free (as in free beer) newton physics engine.
nVidia officially supports its cards under Linux. No, I do not like that is is proprietary. (Because) Yes, it does make X slightly unstable. But the graphics card is completely supported. And fast.
As for translucent terminals: use konsole (in KDE4). Set "background transparency" to, say, 25%. Actually, do not. Any serious use of the terminal is negatively impacted by seeing text underneath your own text. KDE 4 has more eye candy than a 6-year old after Halloween. There are things to bitch about Linux, but support for standard support of nVidia graphics is not one of them.
I've used GeForces under Linux since 2002 - several card models on several successive machines. I've never had this problem.
Perhaps you should consider that you may, possibly, have a hardware problem, that is just more exposed under Linux?
Don't be so quick to blame the OS. How many systems have you had this problem on?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Pulseaudio should never have been. Don't blame Linux for Canonical's insistence that the horrible kluge called Pulseaudio is installed by default.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Fortunately, It's easier on the wallet than the results of running Windows!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Seriously.
It's so rare to see companies even show interest into porting games to Linux.
This one has done it and, hell, they deserve to be paid for it. It's not like porting to a minority platform is free.
Even if they charged extra for the Linux version, they would probably still lose money with the port.
Don't feel bad. I had the same problem until I realized I was running Linux on a ATI graphics card instead of Nvidia card. After that it was smooth sailing and the toaster I installed it on never ran better. But from observation, some people just aren't smart enough to figure it out.
These are absolutely fantastic games, which by the way, have been available for Linux for a couple of years. Frictional Games is working on a new release which should also be available for Linux. Buy these games! Especially for only five dollars. I paid full price when they were new and they're worth every penny!
--edfardos
3 games for a fiver?
For Linux even?
In this quality?
I just can't *not* buy this game, which will be my first game purchase since I fished a copy of Half-Life (1) out of a bargain bin, back when I still had Windows at home.
But My God, this game is too creepy for me! The game is so dark and moody, it's no use trying to play it in any sort of daylight. Thanks for that, yer bastards. ;-) I cherish the opportunity to run a proper 3d game, in fullscreen resolution, I do appreciate the very nice motion blur effects, and it is kind of fun to learn the somewhat different control method (which, for some reason, reminds me of Alone in the Dark).
But it's just sneak sneak sneak BOOH! and I don't think my nerves can take this. I mean, that one place within the crawling tunnels of Space Quest was quite enough for me, thank you very much. I'd much rather play something like Day of Defeat (v1.3-ish), ported to Linux.
Still: if a smallish game company can pull this off, there is just *NO BLOODY EXCUSE* for EA and the rest of 'em to not do the same. True, one might argue that Friction "needs" to do something like this because they need to make a name for themselves, they need an "edge" that the big studios just don't need to bother with, but it does not alter the fact that Linux *can* support great games. Most likely, we will see an influx soon (which is about bloody time, really).
Kudos to Friction and a friendly nod to my brothers across the strait. I wasn't aware the Copenhagen Post went back that far ;-) (hi San!).
"Good news, everyone!"
I bought Penumbra: Black Plague a long time ago for Linux. This is definitely not new news. The only new news are the sales they have now and then, and that they are making a completely new Linux game of a similar game play apparently (scary + puzzle game) currently not given a title. Here's the link.
Personally what I really miss, and sometimes what I feel Penumbra is trying to be, is basically a 3D sneaker, and fantasies of Thief 4 being awesome pop into my head. Not sure if there will be a Linux version of that though.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
Missed the weekend $5 deal, but bought it today and it was still only $10 for the 3in1 Linux collection...