I've been pausing most months for quite a while now, and I finally cancelled it last month after I read their announcement about their "revamp" plans. I must say, it's quite a weight off my back.

True, I wanted to pause and was like wtf... really shady... guess I should cancel... not like I get anything be keeping it, 10 euro is less than $12...

Oh, good point. I hadn't realized it yet, but I guess classic subscribers are not locked into the subscription anymore, because there are no advantages left to lose? So there is no significant difference between skipping a month or completely canceling the subscription with the option to subscribe again should they present an attractive bundle for a change?

Did anyone install and test the new Humble app yet?

At this point I don't see any, but they may change it in the future out of nowhere.

oh no another store app

well, they've had an app for years but it wasn't on the play store for a long time, had to be sideloaded.
It's what I used to download the android versions of games from bundles.

I don't know about the new one, but the old one was a no-nonsense app - you could view your collection of games and download them. That was about the extent of it.


Speaking of Humble, I have a few old HB keys sitting around. I'll probably put them in the Ninja Giveaway thread.
But don't tell anyone... it's ninja.

i was really hoping for GOG to partner with HB and Amazon in order to create gog exclusive bundles.

Well, that would require anyone buying the bundle first, heh. Although I'm still debating whether Black Book might be worth getting it for the $4 off discout they always offer me when I want to skip. Should I cave in after all, I'll let you know about the app.

Ah, what the hell. Just cancelled it. Finally. No more "I gotta remember to pause next month".

played it for a half hour it looks nice so far

No specific questions. Just interested how well it runs, if it uses a lot of ressources and if you only need it to download stuff or if it still has to run in the background when you want to play the games.

I think we can already assume that the answer to the last question is that games need the client to run, since the idea is that you can only play them as long as you're subscribed and that would be hard to achieve without DRM. But I'm going to run a test later today.

Ok, so ...

The Humble app behaves like your average Windows program - it only launches when you click on it and does not try to insert itself among the programs that launch automatically when the PC is booted up. First thing it does is look for updates online. It does seem to start much faster than the Epic Launcher or Steam on my rig though. Then again, it's not connected to the store, just the app's library (not your Humble Store library). It did not ask for my login data on installation and does not ask for it on launch either. I guess it contends itself with knowing that I was logged into my account in the browser during installation? The load on the system seems minimal (0% CPU, 30-60 mb in the RAM when idle in the background?).

On the Home page, it distinguishes between "Humble Games Collective" (which currently includes five games: Unsighted, Dodgeball Academy, Forager, Void Bastards and Wizard of Legend) and "From the vault" (former "Humble Trove") (screenshot 1). If you click on "Browse" it mixes both (screenshot 2). And if you click on "Library", it only displays the games you've installed (they are also listed in the bar on the left side). It doesn't seem to offer any other options (yet? the app is labeled as "beta"). If you close the window, it minimizes to the tray. In order to close it completely, you have to click on Settings, scroll down and click on Log Out, or right-click on the icon in the tray and select Quit.

If you click to download a game, the client informs you about game size, free space on disk and allows you to define a directory for the game (screenshot 3). It does not create a desktop shortcut for the game, but you can navigate to the folder you defined and in there no files are encrypted, it looks like a regular installation from Humble (screenshot 4); you can create a shortcut and start the game from there, too. But if you do so for the games from the "Humble Games Colelctive", it will also launch the Humble app in the background, if it's closed. If I uninstall the app, the games stay installed. If I then try to launch a game, I get a warning that the Humble app was not found. The game is started but stalls on a black screen (screenshot 5). If I close the warning, the game shuts down, too. So, no, those games are not DRM-free, unfortunately. The ones from the former Humble Trove apparently continue to be though. They can be run without the Humble app.

Something else I noticed is that even though I set the client to English, the game I launched ignored that and consulted my OS language instead, so the game was in German. That might have been due to the design of the individual game I tested though (it happens on Steam and Epic occasionally, too) and luckily this game had in-game option for setting the language to my preference (which is not always the case).