Asteroids Recharged Won't Launch on Linux

[scifidude79]

I don't know if anyone from Atari actually looks at this forum, but there's an issue with Asteroids Recharged for Linux on Steam. I just built another PC today and I installed Kubuntu on it. I have all of the Recharged games in my Steam library because they're awesome. However, Asteroids Recharged won't launch. It gives me this error:

 

I looked in my folder and, sure enough, that executable isn't there. Instead, I have folder that says MacOS in my Linux game library folder:

Going to the folder for Black Widow Recharged, you can see Linux files:

 

(and that's what the other Recharged games have in their folders too, Linux files, not MacOS files)

 

I looked at the Steam forums and it looks like this has been a problem since June of 2023. The title of the thread is "Broken on Steam Deck" and it's the top discussion on that forum. Someone quickly pointed out in that thread that it's also broken on Linux and that there are Mac files in there. So, this has apparently been a problem for seven months. I would have submitted a ticket on Steam, but there's no way to directly contact Adamvision, SneakyBox or Atari. And, if you try to contact Steam support directly about a problem with a game, all they do is say "it's not our fault." I didn't submit a ticket, but they basically said that on the contact form. And, I doubt they would even forward the issue to the correct companies. So, I figured I would try here. After all, Atari does own this website.

 

[zzip]

What I would try is creating symbolic links to the files in the directory where they belong:

 

ln -s MacOS/<source file> <destination>

 

and then see if it can be run.   If it fails, then remove the links

[scifidude79]

The executable file in the MacOS folder isn't a Linux executable, it's a Mac file. I've been through the contents of that game folder, and there are no files in there that Kubuntu will execute as a file, because the wrong files are installed on my system. I already tried uninstalling and reinstalling the program twice and it's still installing the wrong files. It looks like this happened after an update in June. It's probably been longer than that since I last ran Asteroids Recharged on Linux. I was messing around with PopOS at one point on my VCS, and it was running fine then.

[zzip]

That's bizarre,   are you on the Atari discord?  That seems to be the best way to reach Atari support people

 

[scifidude79]

I was on the Atari Discord for a while, but I found it to be a hot mess.

[zzip]

6 minutes ago, scifidude79 said:

I was on the Atari Discord for a while, but I found it to be a hot mess.

Haha, yeah I only go there if I'm looking for some fix

[scifidude79]

Maybe I'll give it a look. I can at least see if anyone has reported the issue and gotten a response.

[scifidude79]

I e-mailed Atari customer support to see if they can fix this. I tried Steam again, but Steam customer support is a contradiction in terms. They literally just point you in the direction of their community section, which is where this was first reported in July of last year. 🙄 So, we'll see what Atari can do about it.

[zzip]

18 hours ago, scifidude79 said:

but Steam customer support is a contradiction in terms.

Too true.   I got a faulty Steam gift card once, and it took them months to resolve it

[marlowe221]

You might try installing the Windows version and playing the game via Proton. 
 

I use Linux exclusively and often find that games run better via Proton than native Linux ports, which are often neglected and get little in the way of development resources. 

[scifidude79]

On 1/29/2024 at 11:57 PM, marlowe221 said:

You might try installing the Windows version and playing the game via Proton. 
 

I use Linux exclusively and often find that games run better via Proton than native Linux ports, which are often neglected and get little in the way of development resources. 

Thanks for the suggestion. I gave Atari's customer support all week to get back to me, and they have yet to make contact. So, I did exactly that. I had to do that with Dirt Rally too. I guess the Linux version has been borked for a while, so I installed it using Proton and it works great. Same for Asteroids Recharged. I just installed it and played it for a bit.

 

One of the reasons I put Linux on this computer is because it has an older CPU in it that's not supported by Windows 11 and Windows 10 support ends in 20 months, so there's no reason to install it and act like that's not looming. So, I went with Kubuntu, one of my old favorite Linux distributions. I first used it back in 2009, and I even used Linux exclusively for a while. But, gaming took me back to Windows. I decided to try some games with Proton on this computer and it's been a dream. I remember when Steam wasn't even on Linux and then when it was but with very little supported games. Proton makes that a moot point. I have games that run better in this computer than they do on my Windows 11 rig, so I see no reason to keep using that. It's nice to know that if a Linux version of a game isn't running, I can just use Proton to run the Windows version in Linux. 😎

Edited February 3 by scifidude79