Some sad news to wake up to, as No Brakes Games have discontinued Linux support for Human: Fall Flat [Steam].
Here's what they said on a Steam post:
Unfortunately we've made the decision to discontinue Linux support so we can focus on new content and features for Windows and Mac versions. Apologies for this but thank you for your understanding!
Going by SteamDB, it looks like this was done around five days ago.
The Linux version does still exist and it is still playable, but they're no longer advertising it and so it will not get any future updates. It's a sad time when things like this happen, especially when I was quite a fan of the game. Thankfully though, this situation is actually really quite rare.
In the era of Steam Play/Proton, it's not such a massive issue, although it does become a nuisance when they leave an outdated build up since Steam doesn't currently offer a built-in way to pick between Native and Steam Play. Native2Proton is a thing, but it's not as simple as Steam's click and play. So, Linux gamers end up with a subpar experience. It's also not great for people who don't use Steam, since they actually removed Human: Fall Flat from GOG at some point too. Obviously though, it's still not good.
What bugs me about situations like this, is that developers end up being able to drop support for platforms with basically no repercussions. Anyone who purchased it solely for Linux support does have a right to be annoyed, but can they refund it? Not unless you're within two weeks and under two hours play time. You could argue "you got your money's worth", but then you paid for support which you no longer get while other platforms that paid the same still do.
As mentioned though, this situation is quite rare but it's still not great.
Quoting: TheReaperUKAlso RUINER (https://store.steampowered.com/app/464060/RUINER/) has pretty much dropped Linux support as we did not get the Last Patch also The Mean Greens - Plastic Warfare (https://store.steampowered.com/app/360940/The_Mean_Greens__Plastic_Warfare/) has not drop the last Patch for Linux either, Some Other game i have on Linux also have had no support or patches for a while now.
With the Mean Greens, I was in the Discord. They asked for beta testers a few weeks ago to test the new game mode. I asked if there was a Linux beta. The guy (who's not the programmer) said there wouldn't be beta for Mac/Linux and that they would update when all the kinks with the Windows version are dealt with. I think they only have 1 or 2 programmers on the team.
So I don't think they're dropping it, I assume they'll just update the Mac/Linux versions after Halloween at some point, which is a bit poopy seeing as it's a Halloween themed map.
QuoteJamie Krautkremer - 09/10/2018
no linux beta, we will likely do all beta testing on windows and then do a linux/mac build after everything is setup and working
Last edited by thelimeydragon on 30 October 2018 at 4:10 pm UTC
Last edited by Micromegas on 30 October 2018 at 4:28 pm UTC
Quoting: MicromegasMaybe it's necessary to create a small section on this site where incidences like this are collected and listed and easy to find so that people can quickly check whether a developer ever dropped the support for his games? If there is a sales section there could also be a "commemoration" section for games and developers who "left" us.https://www.gamingonlinux.com/wiki/Games_that_removed_Linux_support
Quoting: MicromegasMaybe it's necessary to create a small section on this site where incidences like this are collected and listed and easy to find so that people can quickly check whether a developer ever dropped the support for his games? If there is a sales section there could also be a "commemoration" section for games and developers who "left" us.
A certain maintainer of a certain site might just be doing that. :D
Edit: Ugh. Too slow!
Edit 2: It's not properly linked in the wiki "Games lists" though.
Last edited by Ehvis on 30 October 2018 at 4:36 pm UTC
Quoting: EhvisQuoting: MicromegasMaybe it's necessary to create a small section on this site where incidences like this are collected and listed and easy to find so that people can quickly check whether a developer ever dropped the support for his games? If there is a sales section there could also be a "commemoration" section for games and developers who "left" us.
A certain maintainer of a certain site might just be doing that. :D
Edit: Ugh. Too slow!
Edit 2: It's not properly linked in the wiki "Games lists" though.
Nice! That link gets a very accessible bookmark in my browser, for sure!
Quoting: liamdaweQuoting: MicromegasMaybe it's necessary to create a small section on this site where incidences like this are collected and listed and easy to find so that people can quickly check whether a developer ever dropped the support for his games? If there is a sales section there could also be a "commemoration" section for games and developers who "left" us.https://www.gamingonlinux.com/wiki/Games_that_removed_Linux_support
Can understand Anoydyne dropping support. Uses Adobe Air which dropped Linux support in 2011 and is a pain and security risk to get running.
Quoting: MblackwellI wonder what the heck people are doing. Once things can compile for a target platform that should always be the case. Once support is solid there should be no difference from then on unless there are external factors like Unity breaking something.
In a ideal world: If you do a proper QA, each new feature you add to your game requires a full set of human being tests in order to achieve the quality you require. This said, removing the official support to one of the platform reduce testing time by 1/3.
Of course, we know that in the reality this is far to be the case...
From a developer perspective, I can say that the problem origin may be that all devs works in one platform and code only on that platform. So, they do all their work there and then try to fix for the other ones (this is a real scenario, took from my experience on multi platform projects). Weird thing is that Linux is by far the easiest and best platform to code...
He tried a kick starter for his game tools to create games, and because he didn't advertise enough, he bailed on it and dropped out of the community...
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