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David Szymanski and New Blood have updated DUSK to include some helpful UI updates, along with 40% off and there's plenty more to come for this brutal retro FPS.

For the main menu UI you can now delete saved games (hooray!), and there's a Continue button now to jump right back in a little easier for your current run. There's also a Max Loadout button for when you just want to bring on all the toys a little easier without lots of clicking.

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Much more exciting stuff is coming though, as they're bringing over some fancy upgrades done for consoles including a completely redone world map and loadout menu to be "easier to read and navigate with a controller, keyboard, mouse and eyes.". We're also getting the weapon wheel, the classic HUD option and finally Steam Workshop support is getting close. You will be able to easily add in new "enemies, weapons and literally everything else". They mentioned how they've "basically rebuilt the entire game to be 100% moddable at this point".

Find DUSK on Humble Store , GOG.com and Steam . Both GOG and Steam have it on a 40% discount right now!

Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis)? That's not a piece of Linux gaming hardware last I checked? No but Irena Genesis Metal Fury is a new game coming for the retro console and will provide the ROM file for your favourite emulators.

Here's the thing: I'm a huge retro fan and I grew up with the Sega Mega Drive so it always holds a special place in my early gaming years and helped me really appreciate games. Irena Genesis Metal Fury looks awesome too and the developer, White Ninja Studio, aren't ignoring Linux either.

First, take a look at their trailer:

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You can actually grab a demo ROM file from the ongoing Kickstarter campaign , and they provide a link right on the page to grab the BlastEm emulator for Linux and Windows. Always nice to see a developer take notice of Linux enough to provide everything you need right there. It will support the real hardware too.

Seems popular too! Against their goal of €35,000 they've managed to raise over 38,000 and the crowdfunding campaign has 22 still left to go.

More about the gameplay:

During the game, the player can collect different power ups to upgrade their main weapon and equip two modules; one increasing firepower and one to create a magnetic shield protecting the ship from enemy projectiles.

Depending on the situation, it's possible to adapt your ship’s speed to three different levels with a button push. You can set the default speed in the options menu according to your preference. The current speed is indicated on the HUD in the right of the screen for better visibility.

During the progression, there are dangerous mini-bosses. It will be necessary to be well armed and know the different patterns in order to win the fight and continue the stage.

As the player destroys enemies, the special attack bar will increase. Once fully charged, the special attack can be used to clear the screen of all enemies through a powerful four dragon attack inspired by The Revenge of Shinobi.

Know what else is interesting about it? It's built with open source tech too. They're using SGDK , an MIT licensed development kit for the Sega Mega Drive.

Find the Kickstarter here and try out the demo in your favourite emulator.

Looking for a little gaming on the go or perhaps something in bed? The upcoming ODROID-Go Super announced recently sounds like quite a useful little Switch-styled device.

Going on sale in late January for $80, this is the next-generation of the ODROID-Go Advance which Hardkernel announced back in 2019. This time the ODROID-Go Super will feature a bigger 5 inch screen with tough tempered glass for protection, a higher resolution at 854x480 and also a bigger 4000mAh battery. On top of that a bunch of hardware design changes also went in including being pre-assembled instead of a kit, dedicated volume buttons, a second joystick and more smaller changes.

Seems it will have no wireless chips built in, but they did mention better support for USB Wifi and Bluetooth plus the micro-SD slot has been changed to the nicer spring-eject style rather than needing you to push and pull.

The question is: what are you going to use it for? The answer is of course - emulation.

As for the actual system specs compared with the older ODROID-Go Advance, they say it will have very similar specifications and performance so it seems it's mostly the new design you're getting here with the better screen and battery. This means Ubuntu 20.04 along with EmulationStation for the front-end.

$80 for a pre-made dedicated on-the-go emulation unit? Seems pretty sweet.

Ready for some serious action-platforming with an awesome 8-bit inspired style? Cyber Shadow has been confirmed for release on January 26, 2021.

Coming from developer Mechanical Head Studios who teamed up with Yacht Club Games (Shovel Knight), Cyber Shadow is a pulse-pounding 2D ninja action platformer that allows players to relive the authenticity of the classic 8-bit challenge (with an added convenience or two)!

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They've confirmed it will be supported across Linux, macOS and Windows for the PC release.

"The world has been taken over by the evil Dr. Progen and his merciless synthetic army. A desperate plea for help sets Shadow, the sole survivor of his clan, on one last mission to uncover what started the path to perpetual ruin. Your robotic companion, L-Gion, is your only guide through the ruins of Mekacity. How far will Shadow go to protect his clan and the one he loves? Is there more to their bond than meets the eye? Only you can unlock the secrets to your clan’s ancient powers. Hurry before you run out of time! The road to redemption awaits!"

Features:

• Dash, slice, and leap through masterfully designed levels filled with sharply honed ninja platforming action.
• Authentic 8-bit presentation with hand-crafted sprites, a detailed pixel aesthetic, and perfect controls. Modern touches like fluid animation, multi-layered parallax backgrounds, and evolved game design.
• Take down more than a dozen apocalyptic bosses, from enormous war machines to your synthetic clan rivals.
• Relive the authenticity of classic 8-bit challenge or experience it for the first time.. with an added convenience or two.
• Rescue your clan to unlock permanent Ninjutsu skills and abilities, combining them seamlessly as only the warrior of legend could.
• Search for secrets as you explore the ruined world. Return to your old haunts to find supplies, items and upgrades.
• Experience the gripping story, told both in-game and through animated cinematic story scenes between the action. Who can be trusted? How far will Shadow go to protect his clan and the one he loves?
• Pulse-pounding soundtrack by Enrique Martin, produced by Jake Kaufman.

You will be able to pick it up on Humble Store , GOG and Steam for $19.99 on January 26, 2021.

Love twin-stick shooters? Need a fresh modern take on retro classics with plenty of upgrades? Glitchangels is pretty much all you need and it's fantastic. Note : key from the publisher.

Developed by Pumpkin Games with a little publishing help from Puppygames, this is true fast-paced twin-stick arcade shooting at it's finest. However, it's not as basic as that. Glitchangels is all about the upgrades and there's a lot of them to go through as you blast through level after level of enemy hordes. It's pretty clever in what it does with the minimalist style too, including the fancy glitch effects.

"FIGHT, DIE, GLITCH, WIN!"

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Starting off nice and slow to teach you the ropes, it doesn't take long before you're glitch-deep in enemy territory facing off against lots of varied enemy types. It gets fun - really fun, frantatic as hell too as you're running around zipping through enemies with your various abilities.

What makes it exciting are the different Glitchangels you have access to at any time, as you can simply tap a button to switch between them and then have access to their weapons and abilities. You will need to do this quite often too, especially when you die as you then get to rewind time a little to pick a place you think you're safe enough to dive instantly back into the action. That is probably my most appreciated feature here, because I died a lot and often embarrassingly so too as I'm so focused on everything coming at me that I miss an enemy sneaking up behind me and —pop, i'm dead. Time to rewind, pick a different Glitchangel and spawn back a second or three to where I can turn around and blast that sneakily little devil.

Part of the reason you're going to die often though is how the game rewards you. Want more cash? Get closer, much closer. If you destroy enemies closer, you're going to earn more money towards upgrades. After each level, you then get to pick through the usual sort like firing faster, a more powerful weapon, increased range and more.

Additionally though, you also get special Glitches. These are more unique powerups on top of the normal stat boosters to make it even more entertaining. It spins through a bunch that you need to try and click for the one you want.

If you do prefer your game to be a little less retro, you can disable the CRT effects in the settings to get a bit of a cleaner screen but I think it looks pretty great with it on.

Overall, Glitchangels is pretty much perfect as a retro-fuelled arcade action shooter that's easily repeatable and enjoyable thanks to the masses of upgrades and the extra abilities on top of different characters to switch between. Challenging once you get further into it and leaves you with that satisfying feeling of needing to play through more.

You can buy it on Steam now and you definitely should.

1C Entertainment announced today that they've teamed up with Acid Man Games and Fire Plant Games as publisher for Viscerafest, their colourful retro themed sci-fi fantasy FPS.

Shown off originally during the Realms Deep event earlier this year, in Viscerafest "you take the role of Caroline, a bloodthirsty, psychopathic mercenary who wants nothing more than to marry her wonderful boyfriend Athens Fetter. Problem is money's tight, and rings aren't exactly cheap. But thankfully there may be hope for her yet, as a warlock named Cromune has acquired a rather hefty bounty on his head."

Check it out in the new trailer:

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Planned Features:

• Navigate nonlinear hand-crafted levels, stuffed to the brim with secrets, using key cards, completing puzzles and various objectives to progress. Set across a wide variety of locations, from a space station above the earth, to a realm beyond our reality.
• Wield 9 unique and powerful weapons, from staples of the genre like the bunker buster double-barreled shotgun, to the more unique and offbeat, such as the Pung Cannon.
• Slaughter over 2 dozen different enemy types, from the minor grunts who make up the U.S.C's forces, to monsters beyond your ability to comprehend such as The Soul Hunters. New enemy types are introduced every level, each compounding the challenges you'll face with a variety of attacks and behaviors
• Juggle your resources, as you fight to stay alive, constantly balancing your use of ammo, health, and armor.
• Move at the speed of light, chaining bunny hopping and dashing together to move at speeds no man would dream of, and with your overbearing air control, dance around projectiles like no other.
• Collect tons of goodies to unlock items such as Cypher keys, and level modifiers to spice up your playthroughs.

Speaking to 1C Entertainment today, they confirmed over email to us that they are "planning to have Linux support for Viscerafest, but it hasn’t been decided yet whether it will happen during the early access period or once the game is fully launched" and they will be updating us on that when they fully decide.

For now you can follow / wishlist Viscerafest on Steam .

What looks to be a HD remaster done rather well, the 1991 title Crystal Caves got remaster with Crystal Caves HD back in October and it's now supported on Linux. I've no doubt many of our older readers will have fond memories of this one, it is something of a true classic.

Speaking about the modernizing of the game they said that a "true remastering of a classic game must mean preserving everything that made the original game challenging, fun and addictive, well we did this and more with Crystal Caves by incorporating a new vibrant color pallet to the not only the gameplay action but the storyboard elements as well".

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Feature Highlight:

• Help Mylo get that burger joint all over again by guiding him through the original 3 episodes in HD!
• All new achievements will have you competing for that top position of the online leaderboard!
• Unearth exciting adventures in the all new Crystal Caves Episode, with challenging puzzles, action oriented hazards and rewards, featuring sandworms, break away platforms and much more!
• Be the first to earn all the achievements including discovering the “Secret of the Volcano”!
• Challenge your friends to beat your own adventures using our built-in level editor from the Steam Workshop
• New Difficulty levels, Cloud Saves, New OST in the classic style and finally get that damn hard crystal!

While it's now released, they continue to update it and expand the level editor to help users create more interesting content for the Steam Workshop. This latest update that added Linux support also expanded the tiles available with the addition of a lava fall, a steel hanging block, you can rotate turrets now and more.

You can buy it freshly supported on Linux from Steam . The GOG version does not currently have a Linux build.

Leaning heavily into nostalgia and something of a parody, the very difficult platformer series Angry Video Game Nerd has been re-released as a enhanced Angry Video Game Nerd I & II Deluxe.

Truthfully, I've never followed Angry Video Game Nerd but they have a pretty clear cult following and they were a huge influence on the early lot of on-video game reviews being one of the first set of people to do it. They somewhat set the stage for the many thousands of others doing them regularly across YouTube and other sites today. There was even an Angry Video Game Nerd movie…

Anyway, they had two episodes of a difficult retro platformer out that have been bundled together, remastered and upgraded with new content in the Angry Video Game Nerd I & II Deluxe edition out now.

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Features:

• Enhanced Visuals! Experience the 8-bit awesomeness in a whole new way.
• Improved Level Design and Difficulty Options! Both games are infamously hard-as-nails, but Normal and Easy difficulties come with infinite lives, so take as many attempts as you need to beat the challenge.
• Quality of Life Improvements! Faster respawning when you die (which will be often) has never been more appealing. There's also multiple save slots and accessibility options.
• Surprises! Perhaps you've never played either of these games, perhaps you're new to the sequel, or maybe you have spent years achieving the world speedrun record for both, but whatever your experience with the series, there are plenty of surprises in store for you!
• New Chapter, Completing The Story! "Wait, the game had a story?" Yes, kinda, and now there's more of it! Beat both games to unlock the epic finale.

You can buy it on Steam .