A few days before the official release of Kubuntu 24.10 I decided to do an install. While not an entirely sensible idea, there was method in my madness: I wanted access to the Nvidia 560 driver as it seemed it might play better with both my Steam games and with Wayland. In the past, I would do a Linux install, and all would be fine until I grabbed the Nvidia driver, at which point the login with Wayland would fail and I would need to go back to X11. Kubuntu, Steam, Wayland and Nvidia...

Dyson Sphere Program is sold as a game, but for me it is more of a vast engineering project where you begin with a mech, iron ore, copper ore, stone and coal and your job is to build a Dyson Sphere to utilise the energy of the star at the middle of your solar system. Learning to create more and more advanced tools and using each new tool to advance your technology even more until you finally have all the items, tools and skills to achieve your goal. Dyson Sphere Program review...

When My Time at Portia begins, you will be able to adjust some of the aspects of your character's looks (at a basic level) and start out sailing on a boat, on your way to begin a new life in Portia, using your Dad's old workshop as a base. You meet people who lead you through the main game story-line - you will dig in mines and fight in ruins in order to build items to further that, as well as to upgrade your tools, buildings and character abilities. My Time at Portia review...

Stronghold is another game I originally bought as a boxed CD - I tried a demo of it from a magazine and liked it so much I bought it as soon as I found the game in the local computer shop. My present game is downloaded from Steam and runs well in Windows 10. This gets occasional patches hence my Steam purchase, while the original game has not been patched for years. Stronghold review...

Sid Meier’s Pirates is a PC game I bought years ago and have played on and off ever since. I was also able to purchase it recently via Steam, which allows me to play it without ever needing the game CD. The underlying theme is revenge on the rich bloke that has taken your family captive and then hidden himself in the Caribbean. You get to choose from 4 starting nationalities – English, French, Dutch and Spanish – by signing up in a pub before your adventures begin. Sid Meier's Pirates review...