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City-builder ‘Banished’ Linux Port Nearing Release

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls8FBFFjMxk
Banished is a highly rated city-builder from Shining Rock Software that is coming to Linux, and the developer has a new blog post detailing how it’s going.

QuoteI’ve finally got OpenGL rendering Banished with identical output to both the DX9 and DX11 renderers. I’ve still got a little bit of work to support the boring parts of a rendering engine, such as handling window resizes, switches to fullscreen, and handling renderer changes at runtime. But all that’s platform specific code. What really matters here is I now have a working GL implementation that should (hopefully) seamlessly work on OSX and Linux.


It’s great to see progress going so well, and it doesn’t look like there’s much left to do until release!

Hopefully now future games from Shining Rock can come to Linux a lot sooner.

About Banished (Official)
In this city-building strategy game, you control a group of exiled travelers who decide to restart their lives in a new land. They have only the clothes on their backs and a cart filled with supplies from their homeland.

The townspeople of Banished are your primary resource. They are born, grow older, work, have children of their own, and eventually die. Keeping them healthy, happy, and well-fed are essential to making your town grow. Building new homes is not enough—there must be enough people to move in and have families of their own.

Banished has no skill trees. Any structure can be built at any time, provided that your people have collected the resources to do so. There is no money. Instead, your hard-earned resources can be bartered away with the arrival of trade vessels. These merchants are the key to adding livestock and annual crops to the townspeople’s diet; however, their lengthy trade route comes with the risk of bringing illnesses from abroad.

See the full blog post here. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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15 comments
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OZSeaford May 2, 2015
Ah good news, I have been waiting on that one for a while.

I am still in the middle of a lot of games, but sure that I will start that one as soon as it's out.
Aryvandaar May 2, 2015
I will definitely buy this when it comes for Linux. :D
throgh May 2, 2015
When released I'm going to delete my WINE-prefix. :)

The problem with OpenGL and DirectX is very simple: Windows as platform is widely used and so is DirectX the preferred method to built graphics. Most middleware used here for gamedevelopment also uses DirectX. An OpenGL-renderer is not so complicated but not preferred. And Banished uses an own engine and no middleware, so this is also something different.
oldrocker99 May 2, 2015
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I've been hoping that this would be released for Linux; it is extremely highly rated. Now that we've escaped the Great Linux Gaming Desert, there are more games than I can play , and I am one happy ^_^ camper.

EDIT: I just noticed that I had already bought Forsaken for Windows... :)
Avehicle7887 May 2, 2015
One of the games I'm really looking forward to, great to see the port is making progress.
Nezchan May 2, 2015
A friend bought this for me on Steam for Xmas, and I was never able to get it running properly through Wine (ran progressively slower as I played, frequent crashes) so this is something I've been definitely looking forward to.
throgh May 2, 2015
Quoting: GuestI dont really understand your argument since opengl is availiable on more platforms and ALOT more devices than directx. And you are saying that banished has its own engine and no middleware? So what is the reason to use directx and opengl when opengl by itself gives you all you need on the platforms you are going to release on?

Its plain stupid and gives you more work and more to maintain.

You have to focus on what platform your software should work on. For my personal thought it is more easier today building something independent. But it is depending on what you want to do and to use. It is easier building for a greater community and therefore you'll find this on Windows. Nevertheless we all using the base platform here, Windows is the major platform for gaming for the most people today - the mass is not caring about our individual purpose here. And building something like Banished it is also a financial risk when being independent. So I can understand the initial decision using DirectX instead of OpenGL. Even OpenGL is working better on Linux and Windows literally has its problems with the API with a closer look on the performance. Yes finally it is more work building a new rendering system into an own implementation, but the developers behind Banished got their money and it seems more than a simple enhancement. So they can use this enhancement for future projects with the same framework. You should also consider that the developers had to implement their own toolset. This is also behind the risk I've mentioned: Using something like Unity or Unreal is more easier because there are toolsets existing. With building everything you start from the scratch. My preferred method is the last one, just to mention! :) So if this update has some costs and is DRM-free again, I'm going to pay again just even as personal respect to the developers.
Kimyrielle May 3, 2015
In short, they use DirectX because that's what they are used to, and also because everyone else is using. Same reason why people keep using MS Office.

Thing is that these days there is an increasing incentive to use cross-platform APIs, because in the -overall- market (if you include mobile devices), Windows is actually a niche product these days and DirectX doesn't work anywhere outsides of the MS ecosystem. Time is working in our favour. ;)
neowiz73 May 3, 2015
i've been wondering if this one would see a port, can't wait. :)
throgh May 3, 2015
Quoting: KimyrielleWindows is actually a niche product these days and DirectX doesn't work anywhere outsides of the MS ecosystem. Time is working in our favour. ;)

That's the way to go. :)
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