Games: MineClone2, Stardew Valley, CanyonRunner, and More (UPDATED)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 18, 2023,
updated Apr 19, 2023

• MineClone2 v0.83 out now, the sandbox game for Minetest inspired by Minecraft

  Inspired might be pushing it a bit eh? MineClone2 as the name suggests really is a clone of early Minecraft, although this is free and open source powered by the Minetest game engine. A big new release is out now following the recent Minetest upgrade.

• Stardew Valley set for another update in v1.6

  One of the most popular games on Steam (and one of the most played Steam Deck games too), Stardew Valley is coming back for another update in version 1.6.

• I open sourced my HTML5 game CanyonRunner

  I built this game from start to finish in 76 days. In the course of developing it, one of the running themes I noticed on the Phaser forums was that most developers were tackling their first game and were unsure about how to implement common game features like saved games, multiple levels, different experiences for mobile and desktop, etc.

• Try out a free prologue of Shogun Showdown right now

  Shogun Showdown: Prologue is a demo of the upcoming turn-based combat game with rogue-like and deck-building elements. It will have full Native Linux support at release, with a version available in the Prologue now too. From Goblinz Publishing, Gamera Games and Roboatino, the Prologue has so far been gathering some rather positive user reviews on Steam.

• Darkest Dungeon got a free total conversion with Black Reliquary

  One I missed recently that you should check out: Black Reliquary is a free total conversion mod for the original Darkest Dungeon, and it's available now with a whole lot of content to play through. While it's completely free, it will need you to own the full game of course but it also needs the The Shieldbreaker DLC, and the Crimson Court DLC since it pulls features from them.

• Lueur blends city-building with survival from a former Ubisoft developer

  Developer Darenn Keller previously worked on the likes of Assassin's Creed and Ghost Recon, but now they're going indie with their city-building survival game Lueur.

• Valve rolls out Proton 8.0 to further improve Steam Deck and Linux gaming

  After a bit of a wait since the Wine 8.0 release, Valve has now released Proton 8.0, the latest version of their Windows translation layer for Steam Deck and Linux desktop. This is the tool that runs some of the most popular games around!

• Publisher of King under the Mountain backs out so it's re-releasing as Mountaincore

  King under the Mountain was a pretty nice colony-building game from Rocket Jump Technology, and it was going through a huge upgrade. Sadly, their publisher cancelled on them so they're having to re-release as Mountaincore.

UPDATE

More on PE:

• Steam's new Proton 8.0-1 supports Forspoken and a long list of other games

  Steam's compatibility layer, Proton, has been upgraded to version 8.0-1. This update requires your GPU to support Vulkan 1.3 but if it does then you'll have access to 18 more games.

It's FOSS:

• Valve's Proton 8.0 Release is Good News for Linux Gamers and Steam Deck Users

  Proton has been a boon for the Linux gamers out there that enables the Steam client to run games exclusive to the Windows ecosystem on Linux.

  Based on the popular Wine compatibility layer, Proton has been receiving many updates over the years thanks to Valve.

  Proton 8.0 has been released with some impressive upgrades, marking yet another major step for Linux gaming.

  Let's dig in to know more about it.

Ars:

• Proton update gets 18 more Windows games running on Linux, including Chex Quest HD

  To play Windows-compatible games in its Linux-based operating system, the Steam Deck relies on a compatibility layer called Proton. It's a collection of different technologies, including the venerable Wine software and software that translates Windows-native Direct3D API calls into Vulkan API calls that Linux can handle.

  Proton is continually updated to fix rendering bugs in specific games and to add new games to the compatibility list; version 8.0 was released yesterday and added support for 18 new games (and fixes rendering bugs in tons of others). Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais called the release "our biggest rebase to date."

  The new compatibility list includes a few of the big, recognizable titles you'd expect Valve to prioritize, including the 2023 re-release of Dead Space and Square Enix's Forspoken. But there is one oddball game that stood out to me: Chex Quest HD, the remastered version of a 1996 CD-ROM game that was included for free in boxes of Chex cereal for six weeks in the mid-'90s.

Hot Hardware:

• Valve's Proton 8.0 Update Is A Big Win For Linux And Steam Deck Gaming

  The Steam Deck doesn't run Windows. That's right: a gaming handheld based on PC-equivalent hardware, much closer to a full PC than the Xbox or PlayStation, runs Windows PC games on a non-Windows operating system. This is achieved through the herculean efforts of the developers behind myriad open-source software, most prominently Valve's own Proton compatibility layer.

  Proton is up to version 8.0 now, and the program's lead developer says that this is "the biggest rebase to date." It updates almost all of Proton's core components, including Wine, DXVK, VKD3D, and others. As a result, it does require Vulkan 1.3, but that only raises the requirements as far as AMD Polaris (RX 400), NVIDIA Maxwell (GTX 750), and Intel 7th-gen IGPs.