Running Hex Kit on modern Linux systems via Lutris

In attempting to run Hex Kit on my current desktop Linux distro, I found that the native Linux version – unfortunately – no longer runs – or rather, it runs, but then crashes immediately once it tries to draw the contents of the application windows.

[69232:0722/012218.684735:FATAL:gpu_data_manager_impl_private.cc(894)] The display compositor is frequently crashing. Goodbye.

My gut feeling is this is an incompatibility with Wayland – Hex Kit hasn’t been updated in a couple of years and Wayland has seen pretty decent adoption since then. So I tried running it under Lutris and found that it would run, but also very poorly, and the contents of all windows were just blank. Bars, but no windows. So close.

So I went through trying different compatibility settings. I got close by telling Wine to emulate Windows 8; it drew the contents of the windows, but the bars at the tops of the windows disappeared – they could be clicked on, however, and would throw every clickable thing in the window off by about 32 pixels down. Usable, but not really ideal. Amusingly I found that in pretending to be Windows XP that Hex Kit would still run – but with the blank windows again!

in the end, what really worked was using setting the Wine version to Proton-GE (latest version) and telling Wine to emulate, and I cannot believe I am typing this, Windows Vista. That gets you a well-drawn and mostly usable version of Hex Kit running on Linux desktops again. (It’s not perfect: the “Generate” option seems to just open a blank window, but “Generate Custom” works just fine.)

One step closer to playing Mythic Bastionland…