Thank you for reaching out about the issue you're experiencing with Hands of Necromancy. We appreciate your detailed report and the troubleshooting steps you've already taken.

While we strive to ensure compatibility across various Linux distributions, it's unfortunately not feasible to test and optimize for every possible configuration. The discrepancies you've noticed in library versions are indeed likely causing the launch issues you're encountering.

We'd like to suggest a few potential workarounds that may help you run the game:

1. Using Wine: You could try running the Windows version of the game through Wine. This method often helps bypass Linux-specific library conflicts. https://www.winehq.org/

2. Utilizing Distrobox: Another option is to use Distrobox with a Debian-based distribution. This approach creates a containerized environment that may provide the necessary library versions for the game to run properly. https://distrobox.it/

3. Another option may be self-compiling the game, if you feel comfortable doing such things. Our source tree is here: https://github.com/HandsOfNecromancy/HandsOfNecromancy-Engine - You can try and install the dependencies yourself (at least libsdl2-dev and libopenal) and see if it works better for you.

If you decide to try any of these methods and continue to experience issues, please don't hesitate to reach out again.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to improve compatibility across different Linux environments.