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.
i bought these games on steam, i think i paid the same. good games but i found it incredibly frustrating the lack of object highlighting as you would in some places have to scan your mouse around to find objects of interest, as, not *everything* would be interactive.
however, given a walkthrough i got to enjoy the very scary events of one of the games but i have to say that solving a puzzle is one thing, but not being able to find the pieces is quite another. i have played dreamfall, and that game is mostly
I don't think so. The help text for the option says:
If on, items will flash shortly when nearby.
...so it could be that they stop flashing after a while (and then you need to roll over), but I can't remember seeing that happen. I guess I just grabbed them before they stopped flashing.
Windows Minimum Requirements: OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista Processor: 1.5Ghz Memory: 512MB Disc Space: 2.0GB Video Card: Radeon 8500/GeForce 3 (GeForce4MX not supported)
Linux Minimum Requirements: Same hardware as Windows Kernel 2.6 or higher(2.4 untested) glibc 2.3 X11R6 with 3D acceleration For x86_64 CPU, 32-bit environment must be installed
Yea... I really wish people would wise up and knock that shit off.
It's not that the users or webmasters are really at fault - it's the programmers who write the underlying code that think such things are acceptable - the people who should know better!
the player to survive in a mine in Greenland which has been taken over by a monstrous infection/demon/cthulhu-esque thing...and the player can grab and throw pretty much anything in the environment.
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday July 17, @06:18AM (#28727719)
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.
It's called "immersion". You wouldn't believe the effect this has on simple actions like opening a door. You grab the door and slowly push it open, all the time fearing that there's something on the other side waiting to gnaw your face off. And you know what? It's still comfortable to play.
Oh come on, ain't first rule of game design to throw away "realistic" rubbish and make game comfortable to play?
Generally speaking, you're quite right, so long as you bear in mind that sometimes the physical stuff -- timing your jump and hitting the button at just the right time for instance --- is where the challenge comes from.
BUT, in a horror game, it may be quite different. Horror is usually about making people uncomfortable -- ESPECIALLY about things like how fast they should open a door, whether they should rethink the action halfway through, whether they've already made a noise and should therefore get out of the room they're currently in ASAP, etc.
My thought exactly. Think of a horror movie where you are sitting on your seat's edge because the protagonist fumbles with reload of his revolver while that zombie dog is dashing towards him. His hand shakes as he peels out the spent cartridges, he tries to load a new cartridge, he fumbles, the bullet drops into the black void below, the metal clanc as it hits the ground while you hear that unearthy bark and growl of the dog sprinting towards him, and only one more bullet in his hand... Then finally he manages to get it in, he raises the gun, tries to aim and just as the dog leaps to him he fires, blindly...
Way scarier and more suspense building than spitting out a full ammo box of machine gun ammo towards the dog and pretty much tearing it to bloody shreds that splatter down around our hero.
And if I wanted to be irritated, there are plenty of ways I can do that without spending money. For example, I could debate politics, religion, or whether 0.9999999~ = 1 on the internet.
I'm sorry, I didn't intend to offend anyone. It was a harmless joke and I apologize if you were offended. I'll even make up for it. The next international women's day I'll make sure to tell 50 random women that they're excellent drivers. Just to help end these terrible myths once and for all.
Sure they could be, it just depends on what population you take that average of! I'm sure that in the group of "woman and blind people" all woman that are not blind are far above average drivers:)
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.
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!
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!
UT3's not even worth porting, there's still countless gameplay bugs that keep any serious teams from competing; you can't even access the server browser from the game (you have to disconnect, wait 8 seconds for loading, navigate through the server browser, then connect), and they've done nothing but alienate players with "additions" like in patch 2.0 counting bots as real players in the server player count (probably so that when people took screenshots of the "new server browser improvements" it would look
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.
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...
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!).
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 graphic
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
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.
explain that to my geforce which hangs the entire pc when playing warzone 2100. oh yes it's using a closed source not Linux-approved driver, but the reality doesn't change: it hangs under Linux, and without that driver it's just a useless piece of junk.
I've the same problems even playing singularity, wesnoth and others - happens also (but less frequently) with compositing enabled. Is a shame as the same stuff on my notebook works flawlessly.
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
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
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.
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).
It's Only $5 (Score:5, Informative)
Dirt cheap compared to most games even on Steam so I'll definitely see how well it runs on my Ubuntu box.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
i bought these games on steam, i think i paid the same. good games but i found it incredibly frustrating the lack of object highlighting as you would in some places have to scan your mouse around to find objects of interest, as, not *everything* would be interactive.
however, given a walkthrough i got to enjoy the very scary events of one of the games but i have to say that solving a puzzle is one thing, but not being able to find the pieces is quite another. i have played dreamfall, and that game is mostly
Re:It's Only $5 (Score:4, Informative)
lack of object highlighting
Options -> Game -> Flashing items
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If on, items will flash shortly when nearby.
...so it could be that they stop flashing after a while (and then you need to roll over), but I can't remember seeing that happen. I guess I just grabbed them before they stopped flashing.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Voted with my pocket and bought my copy, too. I just couldn't find the system requirements on the site.
Re:It's Only $5 (Score:5, Informative)
Windows Minimum Requirements:
OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
Processor: 1.5Ghz
Memory: 512MB
Disc Space: 2.0GB
Video Card: Radeon 8500/GeForce 3
(GeForce4MX not supported)
Linux Minimum Requirements:
Same hardware as Windows
Kernel 2.6 or higher(2.4 untested)
glibc 2.3
X11R6 with 3D acceleration
For x86_64 CPU, 32-bit environment
must be installed
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
It's right on the 'Buy' page: http://www.penumbragame.com/buy.php [penumbragame.com]
Re:It's Only $5 (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:It's Only $5 (Score:4, Insightful)
Yea... I really wish people would wise up and knock that shit off.
It's not that the users or webmasters are really at fault - it's the programmers who write the underlying code that think such things are acceptable - the people who should know better!
Parent
Unstoppable (Score:4, Funny)
Great, now where was that handbag?
Holy shit, these games are scary (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Not recent ports (Score:4, Informative)
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!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not recently ported (Score:2, Interesting)
That being said, these games are pretty cool if you like survival horror / adventure games.
Just who in world though this is good idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
... 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?
Re:Just who in world though this is good idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Just who in world though this is good idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
Generally speaking, you're quite right, so long as you bear in mind that sometimes the physical stuff -- timing your jump and hitting the button at just the right time for instance --- is where the challenge comes from.
BUT, in a horror game, it may be quite different. Horror is usually about making people uncomfortable -- ESPECIALLY about things like how fast they should open a door, whether they should rethink the action halfway through, whether they've already made a noise and should therefore get out of the room they're currently in ASAP, etc.
Parent
Re:Just who in world though this is good idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
My thought exactly. Think of a horror movie where you are sitting on your seat's edge because the protagonist fumbles with reload of his revolver while that zombie dog is dashing towards him. His hand shakes as he peels out the spent cartridges, he tries to load a new cartridge, he fumbles, the bullet drops into the black void below, the metal clanc as it hits the ground while you hear that unearthy bark and growl of the dog sprinting towards him, and only one more bullet in his hand... Then finally he manages to get it in, he raises the gun, tries to aim and just as the dog leaps to him he fires, blindly...
Way scarier and more suspense building than spitting out a full ammo box of machine gun ammo towards the dog and pretty much tearing it to bloody shreds that splatter down around our hero.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
No kidding! Ever tried hitting one of those ankle biters? Lemme tell you, when you only have one bullet, you'd prefer a Great Dane coming for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Uncomfortable UIs just make me irritated.
And if I wanted to be irritated, there are plenty of ways I can do that without spending money. For example, I could debate politics, religion, or whether 0.9999999~ = 1 on the internet.
Unrealistic. (Score:5, Funny)
" 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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, I'm female. Sorry about my aim. How's that bruise now?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Just kidding around ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure they could be, it just depends on what population you take that average of! I'm sure that in the group of "woman and blind people" all woman that are not blind are far above average drivers :)
Re: (Score:2)
No, just a Slashdot poster. What's this 'outside' thing I keep hearing about?
$5 each platform? (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It is just fsck'ing $5, not $60. Spend $10 instead of $5 and get both. The price *IS* right here. Geez!
This p'sses me off! (Score:2, Interesting)
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!
Re: (Score:2)
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!
UT3's not even worth porting, there's still countless gameplay bugs that keep any serious teams from competing; you can't even access the server browser from the game (you have to disconnect, wait 8 seconds for loading, navigate through the server browser, then connect), and they've done nothing but alienate players with "additions" like in patch 2.0 counting bots as real players in the server player count (probably so that when people took screenshots of the "new server browser improvements" it would look
No 64-bit version? (Score:2)
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!
Re:No 64-bit version? (Score:5, Funny)
downloading untold megs
Yeah, it could take, like, several minutes to do that!
Parent
Re:No 64-bit version? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Performance (Score:2)
Bought it ... tried it ... aieee! Still, wow. (Score:4, Interesting)
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!).
Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)
It helps if you stop punching the monitor.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately that's an unavoidable consequence of running Linux.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
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
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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! [eveonline.com].
Maybe you should try running Linux. It's clear you aren't currently.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re: (Score:2)
A few power user corner cases is not "falling on it's ass".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What do you expect, after hammering it into the ground like that?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Lovecraft references have been a staple of geek-conversation for years, just like Monty Python and H2G2.