They Showed Me Support!

     So, not really me, but a whole wide community of people got validated by Sega.  The massively popular Total War: Warhammer game is available to play on Steam for Linux, which is just amazing.  I'm not sure how many people reading this even know that Steam has a download client for Linux distros, but it is a real thing that really took off in the early 2010's and opened a lot of people up to the use of Linux as an alternative to Windows.
     Then, in the late 10's, Steam gave up on the concept of Steam Boxes and their own flavor Linux, SteamOS, and it seemed to many of us it would only be a matter of time till Steam gave up on Steam for Linux.  But games continued to get coded for Linux, and Steam for Linux chugged on, though without much attention from major studios.

     Now enter Sega and the total war: warhammer game.  I recieved a free copy from a Games Workshop promotion, and though I don't own a Windows PC at the moment, figured I should redeem it in case that changes soon.  Imagine my surprise when I redeemed my steam code and the game appeared on my games for Linux list.  I was so excited about it, honestly, I went straight into writing this article.  I mean, a major publisher like Sega, with a major property like Total War, and a license like Warhammer, available on Linux.  Even a decade ago I would have told you you were mad if you'd said this would happen.  I'm just glad I've seen a shift like this in my life.

     It really has seemed for the longest time that gaming on the PC was restricted solely to Windows, with even Mac having to scrape and play second fiddle.  To see the linux development environment explode in recent years, and more companies embrace this shift and release titles on Linux, its heartening to see people support a less controlling and more laser-focused ecosystem.  Steam Boxes may not have taken off like Valve originally envisioned, but I personally feel that all of gaming is bettered by the inclusion of a Linux download client.  And hopefully we will see more in kind from their major competitors, so the entire gaming culture can grow better together.

     I look forward to playing Total War: Wahammer on my Linux box, and I hope to see more major titles get this treatment soon.

Click Till You Drop

So, I started down the dark and terrible path of Clicker Heroes almost a year ago, as something highlighted on Steam.  I really wish I hadn't.

Clicker Heroes, as the title suggests, is an idle click game, and so, by extension, not really much of a game at all.  It takes everything about an RPG battle system, and reduces it to clicking madly on a picture of a monster, or leaving it to die by auto-generated damage per second.

The real trouble is, this game is addicting.  Your get sucked in to the simplicity, the adorable characters, and the need to accomplish the many achievements the game offers you.  You come back to the game again and again just to see if you can finish things, then get frustrated and leave.  Then you come back.  Its a vicious cycle.

Another complaint I have, just having watched the game change over the last year, is the amount of change.  The game is not exactly the same one I started playing and got sucked into.  One recent change that has bothered me was the removing of buffs gained from achievements.  They used to give you +5% DPS per achievement, helping you move along through the game.  Now they are just badges, providing no benefit at all.  The developers also recently modified the Ancients, (statues that you can collect to help you do more damage and collect more gold), making them more complicated to work with by adding weird leveling requirements and even removing some Ancients.  And more changes; they've added Clans, Mercenaries, Transcending, the Powerbloop, Relics, Forge Cores (which still have no in game use), and many more minor things that just get overwhelming to keep track of.

All in all, Clicker Heroes has been a total waste of my time that I can't get away from, and feels more like a game beta than an actual complete game.  I did read in an in-game ad that they are working on Clicker Heroes 2, so maybe there is some hope for the second game.