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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.
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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!
It helps if you stop punching the monitor.
Well, the article says the games have been RE-ported. Which makes sense: I tried playing the first one - or a demo - on my Ubuntu machine about six months ago, and it was the most unstable piece of software I've ever seen, and crashed so frequently I gave up on playing it pretty quickly.
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?
Copyrights recently expired, might have something to do with it. Chaosium has trademarked Call of Cthulhu (not sure how, would love to see someone challenge it). But the stories are copyright free (although I think someone might be fighting this).
downloading untold megs
Yeah, it could take, like, several minutes to do that!
I have a 64 bit system and I play 32 bit world of goo without any problems once you install the 32 bit libs.
On my ubuntu machine is 101mb (installed), if that is a lot of space for you then you have a reasonable complaint.
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
I just bought the linux version and started playing it and have not had any problems with performance so far. I am running kubuntu 9.04 x86_64 with an Intel core2quad 2.83G with 8G DDR1066 and dual Radeon HD 4550 in crossfirex mode using the latest ati catalyst 9.6 fglrx driver. The movement is very smooth without any hiccups with all the video options at their highest settings. I can't give you a comparison to the windows version since I have no intention on getting it, but I can tell you that it works great on my linux system.
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!"