Penny Arcade game to be release on 21st

[Aradreth]

The game the guys over at Penny Arcade has just got it's release date set for the 21st of may (8 days). So that's another game being released for linux. Now if only I finished my exams two days earlier it would have been perfect. :D


http://www.playgreenhouse.com/

[Aradreth]

The game is out and you can find the linux demo here. (http://www.playgreenhouse.com/featuredGame) :D

[Max Spain]

DL'ing now, but it's going slooowww

[Aradreth]

DL'ing now, but it's going slooowww
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4198602 I got it at around 250KB/s. The official servers are being hammered. :p

[Svartalf]

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4198602 I got it at around 250KB/s. The official servers are being hammered. :p

Heh... Figured as much. Everybody and his dog wants this one. :D

[Aradreth]

Heh... Figured as much. Everybody and his dog wants this one. :D
Seeing as Tycho and Gabe have to power to bring down medium sized websites by just linking to them in a blog post I'm not all that surprised either.

[Melcar]

Downloading the demo right now.

[Thetargos]

It may be indeed a good thing I waited until now to download the Demo, I'm getting stable 220-250Kbps :P

What I seriously see as a bonus is the availability of the Windows, Mac and Linux simultaneously, I think this is a first for the three major operating systems. UT2003/4 had included the Linux and Windows installers on the same disk (disk set), but all three major OSes... This has got to be a first. Especially of a highly anticipated game like this! I'll most likely buy it, but first I want to see the Demo :D

[Aradreth]

It may be indeed a good thing I waited until now to download the Demo, I'm getting stable 220-250Kbps :P

What I seriously see as a bonus is the availability of the Windows, Mac and Linux simultaneously, I think this is a first for the three major operating systems. UT2003/4 had included the Linux and Windows installers on the same disk (disk set), but all three major OSes... This has got to be a first. Especially of a highly anticipated game like this! I'll most likely buy it, but first I want to see the Demo :D
I bought it purely because they release here at the same price as in America. Generally we pay in pounds what Americans pay in dollars and currently it's almost $2 to the pound (lets not go in to Rock Band... (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/uk-rock-band-release-set-for-may-23))

[Thetargos]

Just played the demo for a bit... Can you say quality? I'm amazed how this game plays on my system, with all and Compiz running, and on x86_64, without a hitch. Linux people should buy this one in hordes (Ok, not in hordes, but seriously, excellent game!)

[Thetargos]

I bought it purely because they release here at the same price as in America. Generally we pay in pounds what Americans pay in dollars and currently it's almost $2 to the pound (lets not go in to Rock Band... (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/uk-rock-band-release-set-for-may-23))

From the look of it, it seems as if downloading the Demo you actually get the whole game, which you can unlock with a code which you purchase... I'll purchase the license as soon as I can, this game really deserves it!

[Aradreth]

From the look of it, it seems as if downloading the Demo you actually get the whole game, which you can unlock with a code which you purchase... I'll purchase the license as soon as I can, this game really deserves it!
Yeah it's the full game with limits imposed until you unlock it. A lot of indie developers do that as it saves bandwidth and probably cost.

Just played the demo for a bit... Can you say quality? I'm amazed how this game plays on my system, with all and Compiz running, and on x86_64, without a hitch. Linux people should buy this one in hordes (Ok, not in hordes, but seriously, excellent game!) There are a couple of bugs I've seen but nothing serious. All in all an awesome release.

[Thetargos]

Indeed. Kudos to Greenhouse (for not being afraid of the 800 pound Gorilla!)

[Marox]

Very funny game.. The demo runs well, even on older hardware
Think i have found a birthday present for me :)

[Licaon]

i'll just post what i've said elsewhere (www.rpgcodex.net):

"not that fun when after fighting some stupid fruitfackers, meeting the guys, you're told to go meet some lady, you go to the main menu to see if you can save...well you can't...demo restriction?... but upon resuming the game you'll find out that your mouse cursor is not onscreen...back to menu...cursor in ok...back in game...no cursor... keyboard control? not available... exit game.... SegFault... rm -fr rainslick

more QA on the Linux version, kthxbye!"

and the demo seems to end there actually:

"what? for real? that sux then, if that's a demo what should i expect in the full version? more fruitfackers? bigger ones? more 30sec runs and combat, rince, and repeat?

where's the RPG part? the cat? :( "

[Svartalf]

i'll just post what i've said elsewhere (www.rpgcodex.net):


It's a casual game, based on the $20 pricetag- and it's more of an RPG, though it's a light one, as you go along in the game. By the by, if you're not a Penny Arcade fan, you probably wouldn't enjoy the game quite so much as it's more of an interactive version of the cartoon strip than anything else.

Let's face it, liacon... You're just not happy with much of anything and you seem to go a bit further than you need to in your comments, even apparently with new titles. If this isn't the case, you sure come across this way on much more than you ought to. You might want to stop and think about this one.

[ivanovic]

I just bought the game. It is really nice, works as expected, is *really* funny, and even more important: it has a native linux version.

Regarding saving: In the full version you can save any time and you get autosaves when leaving a screen level. So far I had no problems like crashes or graphic corruptions, no matter if playing in 1920x1200 fullscreen or 1024x768 windowed, both work fine. I am using a radeon 3850 with the latest catalyst 8.5 on a gentoo x86 unstable series.

Short version: well done game, thanks. So far really worth the 13.10€, lets see how long the game is...

[Aradreth]

i'll just post what i've said elsewhere (www.rpgcodex.net):

"not that fun when after fighting some stupid fruitfackers, meeting the guys, you're told to go meet some lady, you go to the main menu to see if you can save...well you can't...demo restriction?... but upon resuming the game you'll find out that your mouse cursor is not onscreen...back to menu...cursor in ok...back in game...no cursor... keyboard control? not available... exit game.... SegFault... rm -fr rainslick

more QA on the Linux version, kthxbye!"

and the demo seems to end there actually:

"what? for real? that sux then, if that's a demo what should i expect in the full version? more fruitfackers? bigger ones? more 30sec runs and combat, rince, and repeat?

where's the RPG part? the cat? :( "

Firstly all games/programs have bugs when they are first released on the PC there is just no way developers can test everything and I've not experienced any of the bugs you've mentioned and if you have problems ask in their tech support forums, they are there for a reason. As for the game play being bad? I like it, I think they've captured the spirit of the comic which is what they set out to do.
Oh by the by it's more of an adventure game than a RPG.

[faemir]

I just played the demo, or rather part of it. I had no bugs, it ran smoothly (on a geforce fx 5200).

Nice. Time to get my wallet :)

[Licaon]

Let's face it, liacon... You're just not happy with much of anything and you seem to go a bit further than you need to in your comments, even apparently with new titles. If this isn't the case, you sure come across this way on much more than you ought to. You might want to stop and think about this one.dude you're taking things way too serious, on the gaming section of the forum :)

if I don't like it, it doesn't mean anything at all ( except maybe the nocursor/segfault part anyway ) :)
if you and others like the game, have fun :)

[ivanovic]

Okay, now that I have played through the game and almost seen everything (I only lack two of the images and thus the "extra comic"), here is a (very short) comprehension:

The game is really well done. It worked without any problems at all on my ATI 3850 based system using fglrx 8.05 (on Gentoo x86 unstable). I had no single crash or anything like this. Gameplay is very linear but really funny at many places. It took me about 7 hours to get through completely and to see almost everything. I am only lacking two of the concept artworks. If I had seen those, too, I would be able to unlock some extra comic strip.

But the game is not really perfect, here comes the (not so good) stuff:
* Pathfinding is not done perfectly, sometimes the player character hangs at corners. But since there are no random encounters with enemies, this is no real problem.
* Combats are something like "semi turnbased" comparable to what you got eg in Final Fantasy VII and VIII. The problem with this is, that it sometimes gets rather hectical and it is really problematic to use the items in a perfect fashion.
* The game is completely linear. Where you think you got some choice of what to do, about two minutes later you realize that you have to take the other way...
* It is too short. Took me 7h to get through, not too much. But if you compare it with the price, it was really worth the 13.10€ I paid.
* Just one difficulty level. The game is rather easy though. I had no real problem getting through it and I am not a hardcore gamer anymore...
* Most dialogs are "read only". Only the narrator has voice over.

And to sum up the good about it:
* Native (!!!) Linux binary.
* Great humor.
* Good price (13.10€ / 19.99$ at the time of writing this).
* IMO well done graphics, they just work.
* Good choice for the voice of the narrator.

So in short: if you like the humor of penny arcade (really great comics!) and japanese style rpg games, you should consider having a look at least at the demo of this game. You might enjoy it.

[Aradreth]

Okay, now that I have played through the game and almost seen everything (I only lack two of the images and thus the "extra comic"), here is a (very short) comprehension:
I just finished it but was missing 3 images and two spare parts (I couldn't for the life of me find them, oh well)
It took me about 7 hours to get through completely and to see almost everything.
Took about 6 or 7 hours here which isn't bad considering the length of games released theses days tend to be 10-15 hours but cost 3 times as much.
* Combats are something like "semi turnbased" comparable to what you got eg in Final Fantasy VII and VIII. The problem with this is, that it sometimes gets rather hectical and it is really problematic to use the items in a perfect fashion.
I did find it became quite hectic as well with the blocking+using items+attacking although it only really showed on the final encounter.
* The game is completely linear. Where you think you got some choice of what to do, about two minutes later you realize that you have to take the other way...
Adventure games tend to be quite linear, but yeah I would have liked a bit of choice...
* Most dialogs are "read only". Only the narrator has voice over.
I saw that as a plus as I don't think they would have been able to find anyone that could voice act Tycho and Gabe in a way that would please all the fans.

So in short: if you like the humor of penny arcade (really great comics!)
They really did capture the spirit of the comic in the game which is awesome.

[ivanovic]

* It is too short. Took me 7h to get through, not too much. But if you compare it with the price, it was really worth the 13.10€ I paid.


Since a friend misunderstood me, too, here a little more clearer version:

"It is too short" is meant as in "Hey, I want more of this stuff, why was it over this fast?!?". I really enjoyed the game and am looking forward to Episode 2.

[M1AU]

I just finished the game and need to say it's absolutely awesome! :D

I of course will buy the next episode.

[stan.distortion]

Definitely getting this, really well made and very funny :) Had to copy 2 supplied libs into /usr/lib and run ldconfig as root but that's probably just my system. Ran perfectly on a dual core 2160 and 8600GT. DL'ing it again to give it a try on a PIII 1ghz laptop with i810 graphics. For 13 euro it's faultless.

[Svartalf]

Definitely getting this, really well made and very funny :) Had to copy 2 supplied libs into /usr/lib and run ldconfig as root but that's probably just my system. Ran perfectly on a dual core 2160 and 8600GT. DL'ing it again to give it a try on a PIII 1ghz laptop with i810 graphics. For 13 euro it's faultless.

(Keeping in mind, I'm not speaking for LGP here, only myself...)

You DO realize they have DRM in it, don't you? If your hardware profile changes, it seems to detect it
(it said I wasn't properly registered right on the change from a PIV to a Core Duo with the only thing
being the motherboard and CPU changing..) and that it needed to re-authenticate. It did so quickly, but
I don't know if they check this via online or not. But, boys and girls, that IS DRM.

This is not to tell you this to keep you from doing this. By all means, if you want to buy it, do so.
But, if you do choose that, what makes this any different than what LGP has done?

[stan.distortion]

Ah s**t, that ruins everything. But at $20 for such a well made game why would anyone bother copying it ;)

[Svartalf]

Ah s**t, that ruins everything. But at $20 for such a well made game why would anyone bother copying it ;)

Didn't want you buying without making that informed decision. :D

Just keep in mind, though, without them selling enough, though, they may have poor sales figures which will make getting games on Linux that much harder. Again, I don't want to dissuade people- I want them making informed decisions on this stuff.

As for anyone copying it... If the LGP games are such crap, why are they being copied, hm? Why does anyone copy anything in the first place? Ah, but that's off topic... All I will say right now on the matter so I don't pollute the thread. It IS a great game and we shouldn't detract from the discussion on it's subject with this stuff.

[Aradreth]

The DRM is REALLY easy to get around it. I know I did. (change of hardware and a couple days without net on that PC...)

[stan.distortion]

Does anyone know off the top of their heads if either the 'intel' or 'i810' modules can support shaders? As to the DRM, there is a 20 page long thread to bash this one out in but as far as the postal demo is concerned it is unobtrusive, not sure if the full game will run without an internet connection to verify the password though, I'll have to wait for the end of the month to give that one a try :(
EDIT: Answered by next poster, full game runs without a connection. Neither the 'intel' or 'i810' xorg drivers seem to have shader support, the demo complains about it and wont start. I'm being over optimistic even trying it on this hardware anyway, was looking for an accurate 'minimum requirements' but the graphics detail is well above the abilities of this chip.

[M1AU]

(Keeping in mind, I'm not speaking for LGP here, only myself...)

You DO realize they have DRM in it, don't you? If your hardware profile changes, it seems to detect it
(it said I wasn't properly registered right on the change from a PIV to a Core Duo with the only thing
being the motherboard and CPU changing..) and that it needed to re-authenticate. It did so quickly, but
I don't know if they check this via online or not. But, boys and girls, that IS DRM.

This is not to tell you this to keep you from doing this. By all means, if you want to buy it, do so.
But, if you do choose that, what makes this any different than what LGP has done?

Pfrrtt, I don't care that much. Anyways for that price and quality it was of course worth playing, at least that DRM thingy doesn't want me to be online to play it, even when I bought it online.

Well, we'll see how LGPs online DRM stuff turns out when it's out. If it's really that bad compared to a simple CD-Key authentication or something similar, I don't need to buy there games, if it's not, we'll see ;)