CW3 Linux Steam crash on startup

[hjalfi]

Black screen for a couple of seconds, then exit. Other games work fine. This is on Debian testing, 64 bit, NVidia graphics driver.

Poking at the logs doesn't show anything particularly exciting; I tried both the 32 and 64 bits versions; logs attached. Running the binary directly behaves in exactly the same way as running it through Steam, but in addition says:

---snip---
Set current directory to /home/dg/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Creeper World 3
Found path: /home/dg/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Creeper World 3/CW3.x86
Mono path[0] = '/home/dg/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Creeper World 3/CW3_Data/Managed'
Mono path[1] = '/home/dg/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Creeper World 3/CW3_Data/Mono'
Mono config path = '/home/dg/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Creeper World 3/CW3_Data/Mono/etc'
displaymanager : xrandr version warning. 1.5
client has 4 screens
displaymanager screen (0)(DVI-I-1): 1920 x 1080
Using libudev for joystick management


Importing game controller configs
/dev/input/js0: driver version: 2.1.0 (20100)
/dev/input/js0: fd 4, buttons 7, axes 6, name Logitech Inc. WingMan Extreme Digital 3D
/dev/input/js0: axis  0: raw   -996, mapped 0.000000
/dev/input/js0: axis  1: raw      0, mapped 0.000000
/dev/input/js0: axis  2: raw   -771, mapped 0.000000
/dev/input/js0: axis  3: raw -24342, mapped 0.000000
/dev/input/js0: axis  4: raw      0, mapped 0.000000
/dev/input/js0: axis  5: raw      0, mapped 0.000000
Assigning joystick 1
Aborted
---snip---

Any suggestions?

[hjalfi]

...and here's the 32 bit log.

[knucracker]

Do you have pulseaudio running on your system?
Run "ps -ef | grep pulseaudio" and see if you are.  If not, the current version of CW3 (version 2.12) will crash thanks to a Unity bug. 

In steam you can right click the game and go to properties, then the Betas tab.  In the dropdown is a "Version208".  That was built a few years ago before Unity added this bug.  Give that a shot and see if it works.  After switching, you will want to close and reopen the steam client else it could take a little while before the steam client switches the game.  It will say "Version208" next to the game name in the list once it has switched.

If none of that works, try disabling the steam overlay.  And in any case if it starts working write back and let me know what fixed it.

--edit--
If you are running the nonsteam version you can get version 208 by going to the following link and noting the download link for the steam version .  Just copy the link and change it from 212 to 208 (the file name) and you'll download version 208 non-steam.
http://knucklecracker.com/creeperworld3/redownload.php

[hjalfi]

Apparently I did not have pulseaudio running. Or, for that matter, installed. Huh? Very weird.

But I've installed it, and now everything's working. Thank you so much.

Excuse me, I need to disappear off the internet for a while...