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DRM Games Linux

New Humble Indie Bundle Goes Live 159

Physicser writes "The latest Humble Indie Bundle has gone live, consisting of Super Meat Boy, Shank, Jamestown, Bit.Trip Runner, and NightSky. Also, if you beat the average price, you receive Cave Story+ and Gratuitous Space Battles. As always, the games are DRM-free, and this is the initial Linux release for all seven. I'm also curious to see what will be added later on, as has been the tradition of the Humble Bundles."
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New Humble Indie Bundle Goes Live

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  • One million! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @03:54AM (#38367356)

    They have already surpassed the 930,000 $ mark within the first ten hours, will probably reach 1 million within 12h. Maybe slashdot helps it catapult to 2 million? Go Indies!

    • Re:One million! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Larryish ( 1215510 ) <larryishNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @03:58AM (#38367380)

      Having bought the previous 2 bundles, I must say:

      Sorry mate, won't be buying this bundle unless every game has a .deb package available.

      Tired of buying 6 to 8 games, only to find out that only 1 or 2 of them work as advertised without hours of work configging and updating libraries.

      • Re:One million! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by lucidlyTwisted ( 2371896 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @04:17AM (#38367492)

        I've had to do the odd wee bodge to get sound to work on Ubuntu, but that's mostly because sound is still a joke on GNU/Linux.
        As for .debs everywhere, that'll keep the Fedora users happy. :)
        I'm not buying this one for no other reason that I'm still playing through all the games I bought on the others and there's simply too many Humble Bundles coming. They're ruining a great idea through over-use. Which is kind of a shame as I really like the general idea and the fact these devs are playing fair. No DRM, ports to new platforms and even the source at times. Can't say fairer than that really!
        Hmm...maybe as a stocking filler....

        • I'd check it out if you have a minute. I was starting to think the bundles were getting... less interesting. But this one has some really great games and I'm glad I got it.
          • Re:One million! (Score:4, Informative)

            by Alphathon ( 1634555 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:00AM (#38368330)
            For me it seem the "interesting" bundles are the "main"/numbered ones. Those with specific titles (like "Frozenbyte" or "Introversion") have tended to be developer specific (with some exceptions such as the "more than average price" extras) and so tend to be a little "samey" and one doesn't get as much variation from them.
        • Re:One million! (Score:5, Informative)

          by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @04:48AM (#38367638) Homepage

          As for .debs everywhere, that'll keep the Fedora users happy. :)

          They're not exactly mutually exclusive... And you think this is a small thing but fiddling with getting shit to work quickly brings the value down into the negative - you'd actually like a refund for wasting your time on it. That's not very healthy if you're looking for repeat customers, even for free some things aren't worth it.

          • by moderatorrater ( 1095745 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:57AM (#38368650)

            And you think this is a small thing but fiddling with getting shit to work quickly brings the value down into the negative - you'd actually like a refund for wasting your time on it. That's not very healthy if you're looking for repeat customers, even for free some things aren't worth it.

            Are you talking about the humble bundle or linux?

            • by Kjella ( 173770 )

              Are you talking about the humble bundle or linux?

              Not using a computer isn't really an option to me, so no it's not the same. I might compare it to Windows and OS X, but even if I find an alternative that I in total find better doesn't mean it has negative value. "I wanted to be entertained, but I was more annoyed so in total it failed to entertain me" is negative value. "The humble bundle is okay, but I really got hooked on $other_game and found that much more entertaining" just didn't give enough value compared to the alternatives. A lot of smaller tasks

            • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

              Are you talking about the humble bundle or linux?

              Sounds like Windows to me. It took me a month to figure out how to shut off my notebook's tap to click "feature". Control panel? Nope, not there. Everything about Windows wastes time, from installation to maintenance. MS's vaunted "user friendliness" is a sad joke.

              • That specific feature is something the driver is giving. Since it isn't built into Windows, I can understand it would be difficult to find.

                • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

                  In kubuntu it was right where you would expect it to be in KDE's version of Control Panel. Took less than a minute to find.

        • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

          I've had to do the odd wee bodge to get sound to work on Ubuntu, but that's mostly because sound is still a joke on GNU/Linux.

          Funny, about five years or so ago when XCP ruined my computer (they should have named it X-PC) and I reinstalled XP and couldn't find XP drivers for the on-board sound chip, the Linux side had sound working without any trouble at all. I wound up buying a USB Sound Blaster, which worked in XP but not in Mandriva.

          That was the only time I ever had sound issues in Linux, was with the USB

          • How much do you want to pay? Average price is around $5-$6. You take a look, decide what it's worth, pay that.
            You can increase your donation later on if you like.

      • Re:One million! (Score:5, Informative)

        by iviv66 ( 1146639 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @04:30AM (#38367556) Homepage

        Sorry mate, won't be buying this bundle unless every game has a .deb package available.

        Just for reference, in this bundle Super Meat Boy and Bit.Trip Runner have .deb packages available. Shank is a bin. Jamestown and Gratuitous Space Battles are .tar.gz. NightSky and Cave Story+ are .zip

        Not entirely sure what any of that means, but hope its helpful for linux users.

        • Re:One million! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @05:56AM (#38367968)

          And here I was wondering why Linux is dead on the desktop.

          • Re:One million! (Score:4, Insightful)

            by TheTurtlesMoves ( 1442727 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:43AM (#38368556)
            The package management is really crap. You can't do user space installs easily and it makes all sorts of assumptions about how you must manage the whole system. Didn't we use to criticize windows for requiring admin rights to install anything?

            And know i don't want to just type "aptget crap whatever" and end up updating a whole bunch of stuff i don't want to update, or download. Your just hiding the symptoms of dependency hell, its not fixed and any forum quickly shows. And "i have no problems, must be PEBKAC" is not how you fix it.

            BTW i have slackware at home and SuSE is what is used at work. I haven't booted or used a windows machine in years. Slackware solves the problem for me by not requiring updating 2x a day. I update once every 2 years or so. I have had one security alert that needed something updating.

            But for a game what is wrong with just a plain old archive... or do we want every installer messing with our registry?
            • Re:One million! (Score:5, Interesting)

              by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepples AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @08:51AM (#38369156) Homepage Journal

              Didn't we use to criticize windows for requiring admin rights to install anything?

              No, we used to criticize windows for requiring admin rights to run anything after it has been installed.

              And know i don't want to just type "aptget crap whatever" and end up updating a whole bunch of stuff i don't want to update, or download. Your just hiding the symptoms of dependency hell

              The only way to completely hide dependency hell is to make each game depend only on BIOS, such that each game is bootable and runs in a VM. That's the user experience you get when, say, you run homebrew NES games in FCEUX. Is 3D graphics virtualization capable of handling this yet?

            • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

              it makes all sorts of assumptions about how you must manage the whole system.

              Package management is good in kubuntu, but unfortunately I found an irritating Microsoftism in Amarok. I love the way Amarok finds lyrics to almost any song it plays, even if the song was sampled from an LP or cassette (this impresses the hell out of me, I can't figure out how they do this David Copperfieldery), but distressed that it "added some hand picked internet radio streams we're sure you'll enjoy" to my playlist, and then r

            • I don't see why package management can't be made that allows for user-specific installs. After all, we already have a system where system-wide configs are in /etc, and user-specific stuff is in ~. Why can't the package manager have two databases for installed packages, one global, and one per-user?

              • by tepples ( 727027 )

                I don't see why package management can't be made that allows for user-specific installs.

                I can see one: lack of money to pay people to implement it. I'll grant that that's pretty much the only reason.

          • by Anonymous Coward

            Funny how Windows users seem to have no problem with installers AND zipped packages. Extract to directory, run binary. But put basically the same thing in GNU/Linux and OH NO HOW DO WE DO THIS I CAN'T UNDERSTAND HELP PLEASE LINUX IS AWFUL I HATE THIS.

            It just makes me wonder how much of this GNU/Linux hate is genuine and how much of it is from people associated with Microsoft paid to keep GNU/Linux out of the hands of people so Microsoft can prop up their bloated, insecure, buggy OS.

            Anonymous because those

        • Re:One million! (Score:4, Informative)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @08:07AM (#38368748) Homepage Journal

          Out of the prior bundles, only one of which I've missed, I could not get only two games to work on Linux.

          I did not bother to go back and see if the developers fixed them, but I might someday if I am sufficiently bored.

          In the current bundle the only game I've downloaded so far was GSB, which unpacked into a directory with two clearly-named executables. I ran the 64 bit one and it worked and went fullscreen and apparently full resolution (if not, it scaled smoothly enough I didn't care) immediately and worked perfectly and had an interface which was not confusing, which was a nice change from some indie games. I don't understand anyone's insistence on a .deb. Just because it's nicely packaged that doesn't mean it will work.

      • Re:One million! (Score:5, Informative)

        by RubberMallet ( 2499906 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @04:46AM (#38367628)

        Most of the games on the previous Humble Bundles are available via Desura now, and I'd expect that the latest one will get Desura keys as well at some point (the Desura keys seem to lag behind a bit). Install Desura, grab your HB key from the HB site.. add key to Desura.. and it takes care of making your games work in whatever distro you use. I had loads of fiddly missing lib issues getting some of the games working (especially Crayon Physics) in Linux prior to doing it this way... now.. it's like using Steam... click.. install... click play... no drama.

        • As a fellow Linux user, I was tempted to try out Desura thanks to the fact that most (if not all) of the bundles so far have Desura keys for those who want 'em. Not all of the games have had Linux builds added to Desura just yet (understandable - Desura's Linux version is just an Open Beta for the time being), but getting 75% of the HIB games in a "click install and play with no hassle" format is a sight to behold, especially considering all the wrangling it took to make Crayon Physics work on Debian - in t
          • Tried out Desura. I really should write bug reports to them, but I didn't really find out where and the forums seem to be hit 'n miss. One of the things I do, as a seasoned Linux user, is install software for all users on the system. This means Desura should be installed as root under /opt. Try that, and it won't work. Sure, you can have it in your home folder, but I do not consider that a good idea. (Basically, I should be able to do my stuff with /home mounted noexec). Desura is the prime example o

            • by grumbel ( 592662 )

              Desura is the prime example of the Windows Mindset creeping into Linux (Ubuntu's PPA are the other example).

              Kind of, but Linux people have nobody else to blame for that then themselves. The lack of a cross-platform packaging format isn't exactly a new issue, it has been a major annoyance when shipping binary on Linux for over a decade and yet progress in that area has been slim to none, it's still a complete cluster fuck. It of course doesn't help that major distro specific packaging formats themselves are also lacking in features (deb can't install multiple versions of software, can't install software as user, e

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        Well if you're one of the newer generation of technically fragile Linux users who can't handle a few .run/.tar.gz files that use statically-linked libraries anyway so you don't have to worry about dependencies, be patient...

        http://twitter.com/#!/humble/status/146833629279043584 [twitter.com]

        (yes that was a troll, but at least I gave some info in it. I guess I just can't believe people using Linux can't handle non-package software, particularly since you're finally getting some decent games for a change).

        • by Anonymous Coward

          lol at linux users complaining that some of the few games they can get don't come in packages.

      • Same experience here (debian). Have bought 6 bundles so far, only remember 3 games that ran well and where worth it.
        0 (zero!) games of the frozenbyte bundle worked. And splot, which was supposed to be included, still hasn't been released.

        That said, some games did work & are great. World of Goo, Frozen Synapse, Dungeons of Dredmor.

      • The games have Desura support, no? Just install the Linux client and input your Desura key for the bundle to download them. It should work similar to Steam from there on out :)

  • hmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by justforgetme ( 1814588 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @03:57AM (#38367370) Homepage

    I think that humble bundle inc should slow down a bit..
    2 bundles in a month?

    I don't know if it's the games or just me but the last one I skipped because the games didn't intrigue me that much and this one seems about the same to me. It might also be that I'm just disenchanted because of the constant presence of some humble bundle to the point where it isn't something special anymore.

    Am I being a fart or do others think less frequency more quality would be nice?

    • by Anonymous Coward

      I would agree, but there's Super Meat Boy in there. That alone makes up for it quality-wise.

    • by bazorg ( 911295 )

      It just goes to show that "the long tail" can be reaaaally long. There's probably much more games and publishers than anyone imagined. I've spent just above the average and got more games than I have time to play.

    • by Hasney ( 980180 )
      Not for me. I can't see a reason why I would want less frequency of decent indie games that I can choose how much I want to pay.

      I have most of these games, but I'm going to pick it up for Jamestown alone.
    • Re:hmm.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by mindsofpsi ( 2297452 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @04:16AM (#38367488)
      Well, it has been five months since the the last numbered humble bundle came out, but I get what your saying.
    • Re:hmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mathinker ( 909784 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @04:17AM (#38367500) Journal

      I also skipped one of the bundles (Voxatron) because, yes, it isn't "special" anymore. I started to actually research the games to see if I am really interested enough to buy.

      However, the fact that it isn't special anymore is fascinating because it indicates:

      • It is a viable business strategy to sell DRM-less games for "pay what you want" (even if it's only after the first sales "surge" has finished)
      • Providing a Linux version has (at least some) marketing value
      • There are a lot more quality indie games out there than I was aware of
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      I actually agree, sort of. It's not that I have anything against indie developers getting their stuff out there, but the problem is that I find myself less willing to splash out on it. With the Introversion bundle and HIB4 in the same month, I spent less than $25 on both, but with the original bundle, I spent $25 for that on its own.

      By far my biggest gripe though is the "developer specific" humble bundles. Again, I don't have a problem with indie devs marketing their stuff, but the Humble Bundle was designe

      • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @05:57AM (#38367980) Homepage Journal

        Why don't you just pay the minimum needed to unlock the additional games? That way you get all the games so you can try them out, and if any of them are actually worth more scratch, you can pay more at your leisure. I think most of us can afford to pay six bucks frequently. In some bundles I've ended up paying more, in most I haven't. It's your call. I like the frequent releases. I had never heard of Darwinia, so clearly the games could use more exposure. (IMO Darwinia could use some more work in the interface, too. I found it annoying to actually play, though the concept is cool.)

    • Well, I always find at least one good game there. Although passed on the Voxatron bundle. And I haven't got into Darwinia yet, but Defcon is decent.

      • Darwinia! Was the only game of the last pack that I thought I would like. still I didn't buy it because
        a) I'm still having tons of fun with all the games from the pack I have bought (and some games I haven't even touched jet, not much free time)
        b) if it comes down to just one game I probably would prefer to go directly to the dev, shake his hand, give them some money and buy it there.

      • I quite liked Voxatron and Jasper's Journeys from the last bundle. For these two games it was worth it.

        The only downside to both of these, in my humble opinion, is the game length. Would have liked more levels. Hoping that these games are extended in the future.

        I could easily go for Jasper's Journeys 2

        Could be I'm addicted to Mario clones :-)

    • Re:hmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blahplusplus ( 757119 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @05:00AM (#38367696)

      "I think that humble bundle inc should slow down a bit.."

      Compared to what the game industry right now is, everyone should want to keep these guys in business. Sure the games aren't that great but you need money to increase the quality of your games. The first games they release aren't going to be the greatest, games take huge amounts of money and resources to develop. Modern AAA games take teams of hundreds and years of development.

      These guys can't simply spend AAA budgets on games they have to find a viable business model before they can expand and grow to higher quality games. Gamers expectations are so high because of 50 million dollar games these guys have to start somewhere. We're seeing an industry reset in a way whether they will make enough money to make more AAA like games or they will just milk it for all it's worth remains to be seen how much money they can get and whether or not they want to grow or not.

      • We should reward mediocrity and just hope that it gets better because...?

        In which part of the public school system do you work?

        • Re:hmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @06:16AM (#38368076)

          These aren't AAA titles, with the budget to match. That doesn't make them mediocre. It may make the graphics less polished, the game a little shorter but it also allows for games that would never be possible in a AAA format (throw money, people see if it sticks now days).

          "Sure the games aren't that great" - many would disagree.

        • Re:hmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by blahplusplus ( 757119 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @06:28AM (#38368138)

          "We should reward mediocrity and just hope that it gets better because...?"

          If you buy any modern games you are already rewarding rehashes and mediocrity, so gamers clearly don't have a problem with it (see call of duty, etc). So please spare me your BS. Most games today are cinematics /w little gameplay. Most PC games have been sloppy ports over the past 10 years.

          Next many of the games come with source code (so if you're a tinkerer you can modify/learn from it/update it/ make it your own, etc). Try getting that in the game industry at all these days. The whole idea that you start out producing amazing stuff with the budgets of these smalld developers is nonsensical. The game industry had decades to get to where it is at today. Your expectations have been colored by decades of advancements.

          You really need to load up some old NES games on emulators and look at all the shit games then, many indie games today out-shine most 8-bit NES and some 16-bit games from the SNES/GEN era. You don't start at the top when you're a small business, you start small and work your way up. The games are a reflection of the finances of the developers themselves, they'd rather not go out of business.

          How many AAA dev houses are in debt? What's the stock of THQ lately? Oh yeah look at that stock price!

          http://bit.ly/s9ZUIX [bit.ly]

          Making high quality games don't mean much when you don't have a viable business model to survive to make more games.

      • Re:hmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by daid303 ( 843777 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @06:15AM (#38368072)

        Actually, these are great games. Or, Super Meat Boy, Shank, CaveStory+ and Bit-Trip-Runner are. I already own those, which makes the bundle not that interesting for me. But these are not "low quality" games. I have more playtime in Super Meat Boy then in 2 big AAA combined. (new Deus Ex + Portal 2)

        These game studios don't have big bucks for big graphics, they make it up in gameplay value.

        • I'll add NightSky to the "great games" list and remove Runner, as it has a lot of copy-paste level design and insanely long levels without checkpoints.

      • a game's value is judged with the amounts of fun (yes, you can measure that in mol*kg/parsec^3 ) it provides to the person who plays it and occasionaly to the peers watching. this has nothing to do with ff13 like graphics. or elder scrolls / warcraft like lore

    • I'm only grumpy that they can't seem to notify me of new bundles. I always leave the notify me box checked, and I never get notifications. Not in my spam folder either.

      • by hldn ( 1085833 )

        this. i missed humble bundle 2 because i didn't get a notification.

        thankfully, they ended up including it in with bundle 3, which i did get.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Yes there have now been three bundles in the last couple of months. But I've noticed lots of promotions and sales going on all over the place at the moment. It's almost as if there's some massive consumer holiday that's fast approaching that sellers want to take advantage of...

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      think that humble bundle inc should slow down a bit..
      2 bundles in a month?

      I don't know if it's the games or just me but the last one I skipped because the games didn't intrigue me that much and this one seems about the same to me. It might also be that I'm just disenchanted because of the constant presence of some humble bundle to the point where it isn't something special anymore.

      Am I being a fart or do others think less frequency more quality would be nice?

      That's my same problem. I bought all the HiBs to

  • This isn't actually news and it's also about 15 hours late.

    • It was news to me, because they can't (or don't want to) send me notifications of new bundles. And yes, I checked my spam folder. And if you knew 15 hours ago, why didn't you share it with the rest of the class?

  • Don't get me wrong, I love these bundles and have picked up the last four. They provide solid entertainment at a good price, allow me to try out different types of games without breaking the wallet, it's great that most of the games work under both Linux and Windows (because I'm kinda moody when it comes to operating systems), and it's wonderful that we have some control over where our contributions go. It's also kinda cute that they have created a business model that actually makes these games move. (I

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So keep up the great work Humble Bundle salesmen and indie developers, but please find more appropriate places to advertise.

      Do you have even the slightest fucking idea where you're posting at? This is a perfectly cromulent place for mention of HiB seeing as there are nerds, computer geeks, programmers and gamers among the denizens of slashdot. It ain't just all Linux circlejerking and Windows bashing here sonny.

      And you're concerned because this thread amounts to a little free advertising? Pull that stick out of your ass.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    India has sent a bundle to the Hubble Telescope and it has be turned on.

  • by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) * on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @05:01AM (#38367700) Journal

    Most of the comments above are focussing on the "Humble Bundle" system. As I've actually got most of these already via various Steam sales, I thought I'd try to comment on the actual games.

    Super Meat Boy is the best of the bunch and is definitely worth a few dollars if you don't have it already. It's ridiculously difficult in places, but also very more-ish. You really do want a gamepad to play it properly, though - keyboard mode is not nice.

    NightSky is clever, but I found its appeal fairly short-lived. Bit.Trip Runner isn't really doing anything we haven't seen done better elsewhere. Shank and Jamestown are the two I haven't played.

    You'll get a much more interesting package if you pay above the average. Cave Story+ is really very good indeed - and I suspect that between that and Super Meat Boy, you could justify paying over the average. Gratuitous Space Battles is a really great idea, but I've found that it works far better at a level of principle than it does in practice (where it tends to be deeply frustrating and has a learning curve that annoyed even me - and I've beaten and loved Dark Souls). It's the best game in the package from a graphical perspective, if that matters to you (though still a long way behind mainstream commercial offerings).

    • by daid303 ( 843777 )

      FYI: I have Shank. And it's a quite typical button bash fight game, like Double Dragon. It's fun to play, not extremely novel, but it's fun to smack around in. It feels right, you mash buttons and stuff happens.

    • You really do want a gamepad to play it properly, though - keyboard mode is not nice.

      Um... why? I've beaten it with a keyboard without any problems, and I never really got those annoying warnings at the beginning. I can think of a lot of games where a gamepad is better than a keyboard*, but this isn't one of them.

      * Anything where you mash a lot of buttons at the same time (you don't in SMB), and where there isn't the possibility of confusion between horizontal and vertical inputs (there isn't in SMB).

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I don't want anything to do with Steam. I have no use for a game that needs an always-on connection. If I buy these games, Valve has no need to know I exist.

    • by grumbel ( 592662 ) <grumbel+slashdot@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @06:32AM (#38368156) Homepage

      The Humble Bundle doesn't need the Steam keys, they are just an optional addition, you can simply download the .bin/.exe/.tar.gz directly if you want.

    • I don't want anything to do with Steam.

      AFAIK you don't have to. Using the Steam key is optional (or at least was for the Trine bundle, but I doubt it changed for this one).

      Once purchased, you'll receive an email that tells you where to download the DRM free archives for the game.

      Alternatively, you can use the Steam key and let Steam care about the rest. I've never used mine, but I can see that it's convenient for other gamers because of automatic updates, friend lists, achievements, the "join game" fu

  • Ironically... (Score:5, Informative)

    by SomeGuyFromCA ( 197979 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @05:40AM (#38367892) Journal

    This makes me less likely to buy indie games. I paid full price for Gratuitous Space Battles not six weeks ago.

    At least the Trine 2 page warns me: "Linux and DRM free versions will be added to Humble Store purchases in 2012." (Which is why I'm waiting on it. Screw Steam-spyware.)

    • I'm not sure I understand this logic.
      It is like buying something at the store the day before they start a sale.
      Does that make you less likely to buy things in stores?

      • If I know that every couple months there is an Humble Bundle, I can expect most indie games to be available in there, and unless some title is extremely interesting I will probably wait a few months for the bundled version.

        On the other hand, if the HB comes only once or twice in a year, with some 5 titles each time, the chance to get an individual indie game in less than a year are lower, and people are encouraged to buy them directly.

        This happens also with stores, even for basic things such as groceries: i

    • by trdrstv ( 986999 )

      This makes me less likely to buy indie games. I paid full price for Gratuitous Space Battles not six weeks ago.

      I get what you're saying... What the HIB taught me is I NEVER have to pay retail for an Indie game. I'll just wait around for the next bundle throw in some $ and play what's there. At the rate they are releasing them I can't keep up with the games anyway so I'll never starve myself for new content AND I will constantly be introduced to new games.

  • Where is EFF? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ElusiveJoe ( 1716808 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @06:41AM (#38368210)

    I don't see it in the donation list. Where is EFF when it needed most? I may be an evil person, but I don't want to donate money to US and UK hospitals, I don't care.

  • Indie Royale Bundle (Score:5, Informative)

    by grumbel ( 592662 ) <grumbel+slashdot@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @06:41AM (#38368214) Homepage

    For those that have missed it: Seems like the Humble Bundle is getting a bit competitions, a few weeks ago the IndieRoyale Bundles [indieroyale.com] got launched, they follow a similar model of multiple games for an almost-pay-what-you-want price (min around $3). it however doesn't have the charity and it only sometimes has Linux versions of the games. Also their game selections seems to be not so great most of the times, however they include a gem every now and then.

    • There are only two features important to me, DRM-free and Linux support. The most awesome thing about the bundles, to me, is the total lack of lock-in. Not only do I not have to worry about DRM (hey, GOG gives me that, and many of those antique games are far more polished than the professional games of today, let alone indie titles) but I can also flip between platforms at will. The thing that keeps me on Windows at all is gaming, and having more games for Linux means I'm less tempted to reboot so that I ca

    • by grumbel ( 592662 )

      Looks like there are two more Indie Games Pack [indiegamespack.com] and Little Big Bunch [getgamesgo.com].

      • Looking at those two sites, all games will run under Windows, apparently, and a small handful on Mac, but neither site has any apparent support for Linux. "Boo hoo," some might say, but multi-platform support is one of the big draws for me with the Humble folks.

        Cheers,

  • I bought this for Super Meat Boy, and it turns out I can't configure any controls or set and settings at all, since this is all done through the steam client, and what you get in the bundle is a standalone application. I'm not too happy with only being able to play in windowed 640 x 480 with the keyboard.
    • by deek ( 22697 )

      I bought the bundle as well. You can alter the resolution of Super Meat Boy in the Help and Options section. I've got it running at 1920x1080, fullscreen. Works a charm.

      The game starts up with a picture of a game controller, so I assume there's some code in there which allows it to use one. I haven't looked much into it yet.

      Funny thing is, the game doesn't save settings, so I have to go in and change the resolution every time I start the game. Oh well, a minor niggle.

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