Enlarge / If I click the "I/O Events" in the upper-left corner, maybe some of the frozen processes with a little hourglass will unfreeze. But how soon? Before the other deep-red processes die? I can't work under these conditions! (credit: Pier-Luc Brault)

I spent nearly 20 minutes this morning trying to be a good operating system, but you know what? People expect too much of their computers.

I worked hard to rotate processes through CPU slots, I was speedy to respond to I/O requests, and I didn't even let memory pages get written to disk. But the user—some jerk that I'm guessing keeps 32 shopping tabs open during work—kept rage-quitting as processes slid in attrition from bright green to red to "red with a frozen face emoji." It made me want to get four more cores or potentially just kill a process out of spite. If they were a writer, like me, I'd kill the sandboxed tab with their blog editor open. Learn to focus, scribe!

You're the OS! is a browser game that combines stress, higher-level computer design appreciation, and panic-clicking exercise. Creator Pier-Luc Brault says specifically that the game "has not been created with education in mind," but it might introduce people to principles like process scheduling and memory swapping—"as long as it is made clear that it is not an exact depiction." Brault, a computer science teacher himself, writes that they may use the game to teach about cores, RAM shortages, and the like.

NeuroNet: Mendax Proxy is the upcoming title from Dream Harvest, an upcoming choose your own adventure styled cyberpunk visual novel and it looks brilliant.

While Dream Harvest are also working on the strategy game NeuroSlicers (which will also come to Linux ), NeuroNet: Mendax Proxy will be coming out first but they're not giving a date just yet. NeuroNet: Mendax Proxy is also confirmed to be launching with support for Linux.

"You are an artificial intelligence charged with managing a city-wide augmented reality network known as the "NeuroNet". Embark on a journey of self-discovery as you learn what it means to be human in a world losing itself to technology."

Watch video on YouTube.com

Features:

• A branching narrative that takes you across the city of Catena, exploring humanity's reliance on technology and its power to be both our saviour and downfall.
• Manage a variety of city resources tied to the state of affairs within Catena. Balance the city's financial prosperity, how the public perceives you, the axis of order, and your degree of power.
• Meet and build relationships with 23 diverse, fully voiced characters, each with their own wants and needs.
• 6+ hours of gameplay with over 5000 unique story cards.
• Discoverable mini-games and secrets.
• An expansive Codex packed with gorgeous character and environment art.
• A unique original soundtrack.

Definitely excited about this one. With some wonderful visuals backed up by what sounds like a thoroughly interesting story in a visual novel adventure style setting with a cyberpunk theme.

You can follow it on itch.io and Steam .

Enlarge (credit: Itch.io)

Itch.io, a digital download storefront that largely sells indie video games, launched its first-ever "Creator Day" on Friday. This one-day-only price promotion is aimed more at developers than consumers, as it comes with a twist: Itch.io will claim precisely zero dollars in service fees from its developers until the promotion ends at 2:59 am EDT on Saturday, May 15.

The sale comes as Epic and Apple, two massive players in the digital storefront space, continue to face off in court over the percentages charged to game- and software-makers for every sale of a game. Itch.io may not have wanted to become part of that argument, but the Epic Games v. Apple court case may have forced the company's hand.

Before the lawsuit's start, Epic announced that it would allow its Epic Games Store (EGS) users to download and access Itch.io , thus publicly proving that Epic was willing to host a competitor's storefront. Epic's lawsuit revolves around Apple's unwillingness to do the same on the iOS App Store—a decision that led to Fortnite 's delisting from the platform .

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Free Game Thursday! Now this is great, a shoot 'em up that tries to do away with the traditional twitchy gameplay in favour of something a little more interesting with co-op.

The idea in Fingeance is that four players work together, as it places an "emphasis on teamwork and strategy". The focus was on making it a truly fun co-op experience, where even a novice player can make a difference to the team. The developers say to imagine "Faster Than Light meets Jamestown meets Team Fortress 2" and then "add four tiny fish, a comic book style, and a veneer of seething vindictive rage".

Watch video on YouTube.com

Sounds like an absolute blast, and completely free to play too. The developer doesn't even take donations on their itch page. Perhaps something to blast through over the coming weekend?

Available free on itch.io .

Inspired by the Werewolf/Mafia genre and similar games, Untrusted from developer evolvedlabs has now left Early Access and it seems it has done quite well.

"In Untrusted (or “Untrusted – Web of Cybercrime”), hackers from the fictional NETSEC group are tasked in hacking a specific server on a computer network. NETSEC members must use their skills and wits to outsmart the undercover AGENTs that will try each night to perform arrests or have other players become snitches for them."

Watch video on YouTube.com

Features:

• Hacking themed game focused on social interactions.
• Hack into computers and analyze their log to find out who is telling the truth
• Keep your personal log and cross-reference data to find out who are the undercover agents
• An amazing, friendly community ready to welcome you
• Multiple winning conditions for both factions: hack or murder your way to victory.
• 2 Factions and many neutral classes
• 23 Unique classes
• More than 80 unique skills
• Unlock avatars and badges as you win
• No bogus IP addresses! All IP addresses are from RFC 5737, for all of us IT people :3
• Discord integration

For a niche experience given the interface and gameplay, it's managed to gain a nice following. With a few hundred user reviews on Steam giving it a Very Positive rating and it regularly sees a few hundred players online at any one time so for a game with no marketing it's doing okay.

Also, you can claim an exclusive GamingOnLinux avatar! See our previous article for the link, you need to be logged in on GOL to claim the redeem code.

Check it out on itch.io and Steam . It's free to play.

Not a big fan of permadeath? Good news for you as Caves of Qud, the awesome science fantasy roguelike epic, now has new game modes in Beta.

While the traditional and normal mode of the game remains as permanent death, the current opt-in Beta on Steam now has new options available which should help people explore its truly wonderful and bizarre world. Here's the modes it has now:

• Classic - nothing changes.
• Roleplay - checkpoints and settlements enabling you to reload when you die from the last one.
• Wander - checkpoints at settlements, most creatures start neutral to you, no XP for kills, more XP for discoveries, completing quests, and performing the water ritual.

Never played Qud? Here's just some of what to expect from it:

• Assemble your character from over 70 mutations and defects and 24 castes and kits—outfit yourself with wings, two heads, quills, four arms, flaming hands, or the power to clone yourself—it's all the character diversity you could want.
• Explore procedurally-generated regions with some familiar locations—each world is nearly 1 million maps large.

• Dig through everything—don't like the wall blocking your way? Dig through it with a pickaxe, or eat through it with your corrosive gas mutation, or melt it to lava. Yes, every wall has a melting point.
• Hack the limbs off monsters—every monster and NPC is as fully simulated as the player. That means they have levels, skills, equipment, faction allegiances, and body parts. So if you have a mutation that lets you, say, psionically dominate a spider, you can traipse through the world as a spider, laying webs and eating things.
• Pursue allegiances with over 60 factions—apes, crabs, robots, and highly entropic beings—just to name a few.
• Follow the plot to Barathrum the Old, a sentient cave bear who leads a sect of tinkers intent on restoring technological splendor to Qud.

It is absolutely one of the wildest roguelikes I've ever played. What other game can you claim to be a mutated human with a beak that generates corrosive gas? While also having horns, multiple legs and you're cold blooded? Not many other games I bet, probably not any in fact. Caves of Qud is just brilliant.

You can grab a copy now from GOG , itch.io and Steam .

Exploring a romantically wretched city as a strange alien creature, Aolta is a thoroughly weird casual experience for those of you who like games aimed at an adult / mature audience.

"Aolta is a casual RPG where you play as an eponymous alien who lives in a romantically wretched city. Sit back and enjoy the game world... relax at the night club, stroll down the streets and meet interesting creatures and discover their stories. You can find a job that suites your abilities or you can skip work and resort to foraging. Meet someone to love, become the lord of the local music industry, retire to another planet, and/or maybe get married."

Features:

• Discover many activities around the city which includes dancing, loitering, smoking, drinking, getting high and fighting in the pits.
• Romance up to six main characters and unlock their endings.
• Befriend dozens of other characters and learn their secrets.
• Collect spirits for your bottle city!
• Develop your character by working on your stats which allow you to survive and ultimately get what you want.
• Features several animated sexual scenarios.
• Unlock several endings, collections and achievements.
• Engaging music and atmosphere.

You can buy Aolta for $10 from itch.io .

Free Game Friday! Fancy trying out something completely bizarre? EXsynchronos from developer Ravee is a true cyberspace adventure and it looks fantastic visually.

The developer describes it as a "transhumanist action packed cyberspace metahorror" and frankly that's about as good a description as you're going to get on this one. It's a complete visual overload on the senses with puzzles, exploration, platforming and shooter elements, all wrapped in a dense atmosphere. You control a Pr0x (Process Resurrective gh0st eXistence), "one of the most advanced virtual technologies that was ever developed" possessed by a human soul.

Prepare for lots of flashiness:

Watch video on YouTube.com

There's a huge and completely wild story behind it too. In fact, it's actually part of a series with this being the third (although you don't need to have played the others). Feel free to check out meloveyou and awaren3ss as the first and second episodes if you want the entire story but it's all quite disconnected.

When you download EXsynchronos, you get an 18 page PDF full of lore and words from the developer at the end, it's truly something to read through.

Play free on itch.io . You can donate if you like it when downloading.

This looks absolutely brilliant. Oddventure is an upcoming adventure RPG from Infamous Rabbit and Pineapple Works that follows a girl trapped in a cursed fairy-tale world.

"Oddventure is a JRPG about the misadventures of Charlie - a nihilistic and rebellious teenage girl with anger issues and social awkwardness. Charlie searches for her troublesome brother Bonzo and ultimately for a way back home. The setting is the Kingdom of Luxia, a land straight from original Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales with a dark, Nietzschean twist."

Watch video on YouTube.com

It's currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, with a goal of €20,000 they need to hit by June 5. I'll be massively surprised if something that looks this good doesn't get funded. Looks like it's off to a good start with over €3,000 pledged less than an hour after launch. For Linux fans, it's good news too as they're supporting "PC (Windows, Mac & Linux) and Nintendo Switch" with it being "actively developing and testing the game on all platforms".

Features:

• Meaningful choices – EVERY decision matters, sometimes in the most unpredictable ways.
• The friendly RPG where nobody has to die... but can. In a horrible way.
• Unique and EMOTIONAL turn based combat system with cursed-image-like enemies.
• Countless hidden secrets, references to pop culture and fairy tales.
• MEDIEVAL FURRIES?!
• Frog milk as a currency.
• Bitter-sweet comedy mixed with some coziness and dark humor.
• Dope and climatic OST.
• A life changing gaming experience.

You can fund it on Kickstarter and follow on Steam .