Hi everyone! So I just switched to Linux and I am a little unsure of what to play on my laptop.
It’s a presumably decent laptop, 16gb of ram and Iris Xe, but I find that it has battery issues trying to play anything fancy like Skyrim.
I’m looking into things like emulation, finally tackling my Itch.io backlog, and bringing out old classics.
I like RPGs and text-based choose your own adventure games, so if you have any recommendations I’d appreciate it!
Factorio
If you’re into automation games Factorio is perfect. I especially love the quality of life functions, everytime I think to myself ‘there has to be a easier way to do this’ I find out that there -in fact- IS a easier way to do it.
Also, shapez.io.
Factorio might get a bit rough towards the endgame, but I would recommend it as well.
All Steam Deck verified games should play just fine on that laptop. While Intel Xe graphics are not the greatest, Steam Deck is restricted to 15W and you laptop is not.
Wait, what? Is that why everyone’s recommending steam deck games? I assumed Steam Deck verified games required something like, an okay GPU. Its actually the voltage? That definitely makes my life easier, lmfao.
By the Steam Deck’s site, the verification means that:
- It plays well with the Deck’s inputs
- Can use the Deck’s native resolution or similar (1280x800 or 1280x720) without issues
- It “just works” without having to tinker with the game
- Every component of the game is supported by Proton if running a non-native game
Well, the TDP of the chip is only part of the equation; The main thing is that the Deck is limited in performance in ways that your laptop likely is not, regardless of clock-for-clock differences.
Intel Xe doesn’t seem that bad, specially compared to older Intel GPUs (UHD 630-like). Correct me if I’m wrong, but they’re basically low power versions of Intel Arc. I still don’t think they’re on level with a RDNA 2 GPU like the Deck one.
Same boat! Here are some i picked up;
- Planescape Torment - rpg & adventure,
- Darklands - old skool rpg & adventure,
- Spiritfarer - simulation & adventure,
- Papers Please - simulation & puzzle,
- The Captain - rpg & simulation,
- Shadowrun - rpg & strategy,
- Baldurs Gate II - rpg & strategy,
- Don’t Starve - action & adventure,
- Rimworld - simulation & strategy,
- FTL - strategy & simulation
Edit; formatting
Veloren is inspired by games such as Cube World, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft.
You can play single player or multi-player, standalone or use an online server, or even host your own server in a Docker container, or on a Raspberry Pi. Plenty of options!
You start by creating your character, you can collect items for your inventory, you can craft items, there are weapons and combat, you develop skills, can tame creatures, you can trade with merchants, you can socialise, and lost more. There is no single, specific goal or focus, and the idea is to keep exploring and have adventures.
The game is community driven and actually updates quite regularly.
It is clearly no clone of Minecraft. It is fun and adventure!
Oh that sounds like a lot of fun! I didn’t care too much for the building aspect of Minecraft, but I did enjoy the adventures.
Wasnt this game made a long time ago? I remember seeing BananaBread video where they played this. I dont remember it being called Veloren though.
It seems to have evolved from Cube World, so maybe you’re thinking of that game.
That’s exactly it! That’s so interesting, what happened to Cube World?
I think it’s still around, but I don’t think it is community-driven, open source, and self-hostable.
Might be a bit off topic here. I really suggest to have a check at https://www.protondb.com/
Many Win-only steam games are performing great on Linux now.
Besides, I’ve played https://vita3k.org/ for a while. There are countless decent old games which can be played via emulators on linux
If you want an old classic, I’ve been playing rollercoaster tycoon 2 recently and there is an open source engine for it (openrct2) that has native linux compatibility. The controls take some getting used to, But I think that artstyle looks totally amazing.
Or even the first RCT as it’s written in assembly. Can’t get much more efficient than that, even a potato can run it.
I’m also amazed by it. How can you write a full game that looks as good as Rollercoaster Tycoon when you’re shifting bits left and right on the stack? Some kind of wizardry, that’s what.
Even more impressive when you realize it was coded by one dude primarily, crazy stuff.
RimWorld is great and runs on my toaster
Into the breach is a pretty underrated game to try out
And FTL. Amazing games. Slay the Spire also great.
And Alina of the Arena. It’s essentially Into the Breach meets Slay the Spire
Garry’s Mod, Super Tux Kart
Mount and blade: Warband
Its on Steam
Absolutely yes, Warband is tons of fun and there’s no other game quite like it. The mods are great too, I’ve put so many hours into Floris and Prophesy of Pendor.
Don’t sleep on Gekokujo. Warring-states era Japan has a very different meta from the base game due to the firearms and lack of shields
With the blackout, I see the Gaming community will be assimilated into the LinuxGaming community and I’m here for it.
Not an answer to your question but when you say " I find that it has battery issues trying to play anything fancy like Skyrim" do you mean that the battery drains while plugged in or that you are mainly playing while not plugged in and your battery life is really short.
If it is the former then you might just need to buy a higher wattage power adapter to sustain. The power draw.
Suikoden I and II are great PSX RPGs, if you can emulate. Shadowrun (Returns, Dragonfall and Hong Kong) are great and Linux native.
Suikoden I and II are required playing for jrpg fans!
But emulation as a suggestion alone is good. You have access to so much of a field of human creativity if you’re okay copying the bits to your drive.
Edit: I feel obligated to say that I also like the other suikoden games. My rank is
II
V
I
III
IV
But I still enjoyed IV.
hotline Miami, katana zero, osu.
Hotline Miami is FOSS??? WOOOOW
EDIT: I can’t read
lmao
Katana ZERO is an all time fav.
Really looking forward to the second half of the story in the upcoming free update.
Is it coming though? I played it during the first COVID lockdown and it was already supposed to come out soon™
But yeah the first part is more than worth it in itself.
It’s been soon™ for years. The dev has been fairly quiet about it, but popped now and then on his blog or twitter with new deets.
It was initially supposed to be just a small addition to the game, but has ballooned, and will now nearly double the game’s size when it finally drops. Each time I’ve checked though, there’s been some news.
And when I did just now to get links to the new music and gameplay gifs that I found last time, I just now found out you can try out some new content in the game using a secret beta branch on steam. Its right there in the news feed if you go look at the game in your library.
“just wait for the dlc”
Small list from me: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, Caves of Qud, Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead, ADOM, Reigns, SanctuaryRPG: Black Edition, King’s Quest, Liberal Crime Squad. The old Elder Scrolls Arena and Daggerfall are also currently available for free. I see Daggerfall is playable with DosBox/Lutris, I assume Arena is as well.
Pretty sure you can play Daggerfall Unity Native - https://gist.github.com/holmraven/fa82f6106f4367f9efb36a842c9f947f
You can even install Daggerfall Unity from GOG, specially using the Heroic Launcher.
Not saying it’s true here, but I’ve run into some games where playing the Windows version with proton runs better than the native Linux client.
