Games: Metropolisim, Monster Prom, Kingdom Two Crowns and Lots More

• Metropolisim aims to be the deepest city-building simulation experience ever, will have Linux support

  Metropolisim from developer Halfway Decent Games is releasing next year, with a pretty bold aim to be the deepest city-building simulation experience ever.

• Monster Prom, the dating sim that won me over is now available on GOG

  Visual novels and dating sims aren't something I'm usually into, however Monster Prom is actually funny and worth playing and it's now available on GOG. I know we have a number of GOG fans here, so hopefully this will be interesting for you. As always, we try to treat all stores equally with release info.

• Kingdom Two Crowns will be coming to Linux after all with the Quality of Life update

  Kingdom Two Crowns, the third in the Kingdom series released recently for Windows and Mac. It looked like we weren't getting it, but it's now confirmed to be coming. In their new roadmap post on Reddit and Steam, under the "QoL #01 Update" (Quality of Life Update) they noted that they will add "Add SteamOS (Linux) Support". This update is due out sometime early next year. This is really nice news, it's good to know they didn't give up on supporting Linux after all.

• Steam Link for the Raspberry Pi is now officially available

  After a rather short beta period, the Steam Link application for the Raspberry Pi is now officially out.

• Valve in it for the 'long haul' with Artifact, first update out and a progression system due soon

  Artifact, the big new card game from Valve isn't doing so well but Valve won't be giving up any time soon. The first major update is out, with a progression system due soon. At release, it had around sixty thousand people playing and that very quickly dropped down hard. Harder than I expected, a lot worse than Valve probably thought it would too.

• Bearded Giant Games open their own store with a 'Linux First Initiative'

  Bearded Giant Games, developer of Ebony Spire Heresy have announced their new online store along with a 'Linux First Initiative'. I know what you're thinking already "not another store", but fear not. For now, it's mainly going to be a place for them to sell their games directly. Speaking about it in a blog post, they mentioned how they hate having to check over multiple forums, channels, emails and so on to stay up to date and they wish "to spend more time giving love to my projects instead of updating 4 different distribution channels, translating pages, writing different press releases and making separate builds"—can't argue against that.

• The Forgotten Sanctum, the final DLC for Pillars of Eternity II is out along with a patch

  Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire expansions come to a close with the release of The Forgotten Sanctum along with a major update now out.

• Pre-order Meeple Station for instant beta access, what the developers say is like Rimworld in space

  Meeple Station, the space station building sim that the developers say is like Rimworld in space can now be pre-ordered with instant beta access. While we don't like the idea of pre-orders, getting access to the beta right away is a decent way to do it. Sadly, their Kickstarter campaign actually failed which I didn't notice. Making sure that wasn't the end of it, the developer Vox Games decided to go the Early Access route. They weren't left out in the cold of space though, as they also recently announced that Indie DB will be publishing their game. Under the label of Modularity, this will be the first title published by Indie DB.

• Heroes of Newerth drops support for Linux and Mac

  Heroes of Newerth, the MOBA originally from S2 Games which is now handled by Frostburn Studios has dropped Linux and Mac support. [...] I'll be honest here, I couldn't care less about it personally. The last time i tried it, it was the single most toxic experience I've ever had in an online game. I've played a lot of online games and even so it was still at a level I had not seen before. I tried to go back to it a few times, never with a happy ending. Still, sad for any remaining Linux (and Mac) fans of the game. Looking over some statistics, it's not popular with viewers either. Around 180 on Twitch compared with nearly 100K for League of Legends and over 50K for Dota 2.

• Unity 2018.3 With HDR Render Pipeline Preview, Updated PhysX & More

  Unity Tech is ending out the year with their Unity 2018.3 game engine update that brings a number of new features and improvements to its many supported platforms.

Wine 4.0 Release Candidate 2

• Wine Announcement

  The Wine development release 4.0-rc2 is now available. What's new in this release (see below for details): - Bug fixes only, we are in code freeze.

• Just when you think you can stop drinking, Wine 4.0 has another release candidate available

  Just before the weekend hits you in the face like a bad hangover when you realise it's Monday already, there's another bottle of Wine ready for you. Of course, we're not talking about the tasty liquid! Put down the glass, it's the other kind of Wine. The one used to run your fancy Windows programs and games on Linux. Doing their usual thing, developer Alexandre Julliard announced that the Wine 4.0 Release Candidate 2 is officially out the door today. While this release is nothing spectacular it is an important one, the more bugs they're able to tick off the list the better the 4.0 release will be for more people to use it.

Android Leftovers

• The best Android e-readers of 2018

• 10 gifts for Android fans this Christmas

• This week’s best Android games to help you forget about Tumblr

• Android version of The Weather Channel is updated with new UI

• OnePlus 6T McLaren Is 2018's Shock Android Champ

• OnePlus 6 and 6T get MIUI 10 port based on Android 9 Pie

• Honor Play 8 with 6.08-inch, Android Pie onboard spotted online

• Honor 8A Reaches TENAA With 6.08-Inch HD+ Display, Android Pie

• BLU Vivo Go with 6-inch display and Android Pie Go Edition launched for $80

• Galaxy S9 and Note 9 Android 9 Pie - Samsung releases new update ahead of official release

• Galaxy S10's ultra-wide camera teased by latest Android Pie beta

• Sony's smaller 2018 flagship, the Xperia XZ2 Compact, is now just $450 ($200 off) at B&H

• Sony has started rolling out Android Oreo on 2017 & late 2016 TVs

• Sony XB501G EXTRA BASS Google Assistant Speaker review: A beat-dropping Google Home Max killer

• Google's Gboard for Android Gets New Light & Dark Gradient Themes

• Android Phones Easily Broken Into By Using 3D-Printed Face, But iPhone Remained Impenetrable

• Drops Android App Review: Learning Languages Gets Interesting Again

• Chrome Beta 72 releases for Android and is available on Google Play

A Look At The Clear Linux Performance Over The Course Of 2018

With the end of the year quickly approaching, it's time for our annual look at how the Linux performance has evolved over the past year from graphics drivers to distributions. This year was a particularly volatile year for Linux performance due to Spectre and Meltdown mitigations, some of which have at least partially recovered thanks to continued optimizations landing in subsequent kernel releases. But on the plus side, new releases of Python, PHP, GCC 8, and other new software releases have helped out the performance. For kicking off our year-end benchmark comparisons, first up is a look at how Intel's performance-optimized Clear Linux distribution evolved this year. For getting a look at the performance, on four different systems (two Xeon boxes, a Core i5, and Core i7 systems), the performance was compared from Clear Linux at the end of 2017 to the current rolling-release state as of this week.