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!
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
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.
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!
Well steam has proton, which can run many, many windows games at generally good speeds. I suggest looking at older games and indie games, as they will run best on your Xe. For example, the Heroes of Might and Magic series, particularly 3 and 5 are very good 4x/RPG hybrids. Find interesting games then go to protondb.com and see if its ‘gold’ or better
Tunic is a cute little old-zelda-like. It’s 3d, but very simple and has run on my steamdeck better than most things.
I second TUNIC. Barely needs anything to run and the game is quite good.
I’d suggest to check IFDB for the text adventures.
Ooh I didn’t know there was a database for interactive fiction! Thank you!
Battle for Wesnoth: open source turn based strategy rpg.
I started playing Wesnoth something like 15 years ago because I was a kid who didn’t have access to ways to pay for games online. I’ve come back to it on-and-off years later - it’s a hell of a game for lasting that long.
Slay the Spire is pretty cool.
hotline Miami, katana zero, osu.
Katana ZERO is an all time fav.
Really looking forward to the second half of the story in the upcoming free update.
“just wait for the dlc”
The game is worth it as is, already. And the DLC will be free.
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 up 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 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.
Hotline Miami is FOSS??? WOOOOW
EDIT: I can’t read
lmao
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.
I know that you can run TES 4 Oblivion decently well on Linux with a Windows emulator (WINE). I had a few odd graphics glitches like a gigantic texture of a tree just completely taking over the sky. I guess it wanted to be some kind of Yggdrasil tree or something.
It ran well though, and on a early 2010-era laptop. I don’t know about mod compatibility though.
WINE Is Not an Emulator 😉
Seriously, that’s what the acronym means, because it’s not an emulator, it’s a compatibility layer.
There’s also Proton for Steam games, or even non-steam games, though it’s a little more complicated to set up in the later case.
Oblivion’s excellent with mods, though I’m unfamiliar with modding Bethesda games on Linux.
Proton is Wine with a bundle of extra libraries included for compatibility. It’s basically an opinionated gaming-focused distribution of Wine for games.
I realize you may know this but I’m just adding it here for anyone who may be confused and see the two as in-competition with each other.
Oceanhorn
While it may not exactly match up with the body of your message, I think this would fit the subject line rather well:
…and cataclysm: dark days ahead.
with those two, i can survive indefinitely on (almost) any linux machine.
Suikoden I and II are great PSX RPGs, if you can emulate. Shadowrun (Returns, Dragonfall and Hong Kong) are great and Linux native.
