This review of Grounded by Jim Sterling caught my interest. It’s one of those survival games where the hook is that you’ve shrunk to the size of an ant and you have to kill stuff and collect stuff and build stuff, and it’s full of spiders. I could get into that.
Then, the catch: it’s for XBox. Nope, sorry, never gonna get a console — I don’t play games enough — and I’m definitely not getting anything Microsoft.
Also, it looks like the spiders are just your implacable enemies, which is appropriate, but not as much fun as playing as the spider. Years and years ago, I played SimAnt, and would only play as an ant long enough to see the colony grow to a large size, and then I’d type in a cheat code that let me be the spider, with laser eyes. Now that was a game!
There was an oldish game for iphone where you play the part of a spider. You have to navigate thru a house, build webs to catch flies, and explore. Avoid the wasps! It was pretty fun, actually. Its on different platforms, and might be available still on Steam.
Now there seems to be a sequel: https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/6/9104371/spider-rite-of-the-shrouded-moon-ios-steam-ps4
SimAnt, you say? Here you go:
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/simant-the-electronic-ant-colony-197
Works okay for me using wine 4.0 (Linux Mint 19.3). Even the nostalgic, cheesy midi music.
LOL just watched Jim’s show about this. Love his channel. Not too excited for Grounded. Survival games really aren’t my thing so I’ll probably give a miss. I played the hell out of Sim Ant back in the day though. The SNES port because I didn’t have a computer back then. TBH its a very faithful port so if you don’t want to get into the WINE thing, I’d recommend SNES-9X and a pirated ROM. I know it’s technically illegal but nobody cares about games from three decades ago.
There’s a PC version!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/962130/Grounded/
Shouldn’t SimAnt run under DosBox on Linux, for those who don’t want to mess around with WINE?
@5 you’re right. I’m surprised it’s not already on GOG yet. I’ve done manual configurations in DOSbox, it’s a pain. That’s why I love GOG so much. They do all that for you.
Don’t be so hard on the XBOX. In fact, if you’re not all that into gaming but still like to game a little it’s probably worth getting due to the abundance of casual titles in the XBOX library.
And I have yet to fathom what you see in Sterling. To each their own. I guess, but I think Zero Punctuation is pretty insightful sometimes.
World of Warcraft: The Corrupted Blood Incident
@5 – Yes, the abandonware version I linked appears to run fine under default packaged linux dosbox as well. I use wine so much it’s become a reflex action that I go there first. Anyway, surprisingly fun little game, I’ve got a nice colony up and running!
I only really engage with MS products for gaming… and will also say this this game is on game pass (which is sadly just Windows and Xbox One). Microsoft is light years ahead on anyone on value for those types.
Unsure if this will ever move outside the Windows realm, as Microsoft owns Obsidian, but compared to the other two console makers, MS is a lot better about cross platform releases.
Last I checked, you were planning a Linux box, right? Install steam on that puppy, chances are good it should run well through Proton.
@dWhisper considering the push to be more open source and less reliant on the Windows platform, I’ll bet MS is moving to do more cross platform.
I guess I understand the MS hate due to past business practices (and some current ones, though they haven’t been as egregious as some other companies in recent years, and unless you are using some super obscure distro of Linux, those other companies have a hand in its development as well), but if you hate it so much, why play Minecraft?
I just picked it up when my crew in Sea of Thieves suddenly logged out to play it and the little sloops we’d been dominating all evening in our galleon smelled weakness and returned to face me all alone with vengeance in their putrid pirate hearts.
It’s a work in progress in that it is actually not done yet, so there may eventually be spider taming. It plays like ARK Survival, which was a similar style of survival game except you’re in an exotic alien environment populated by dinosaurs, and eventually they made it possible to tame just about anything.