For anybody who hasn't spotted, there's a playable Linux build available to backers, and with 4 hours left on the clock, it looks like it's going to hit its goal. Last chance to get onboard [External Link] before the Kickstarter campaign ends.

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I'd be super welcoming of a original-experience-first re-release of Flashback :D

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On the off chance that anybody who's interested is subscribed to the comments for this article, I'm nearly done with my research for my upcoming Another World article about player experiences.

If anybody would like to answer some questions about their experiences with the game, please fill out this questionnaire [External Link] super soon (no worries if responses are a couple of days late)!

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I'd be happy to co-host a GOL show or two if that's of interest :)

I've been co-hosting SteamLUG Cast [External Link] on and off for a couple of years now, and we found that having a pool of hosts that can cycle in and out helps make sure that there are people to fill in when availability changes (we do aim for 3 hosts per show though). Switching hosts around can help keep things feeling fresh too.

If there's any other experience or advice you'd be keen to grab, I'm happy to answer questions.

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Quoting: HamishJust to make it clear, I do not mean to imply that itch.io is not trustworthy, but that is something I would be worried about if I really was just being faced with a generic storefront. So that is something that having an established brand helps with.

Yeah, for sure, but I see that as how-often-you-see-an-itch.io-widget-on-websites-of-games-you-care-about more than how-easy-it-is-to-find-games-you-care-about-on-the-itch.io-website. itch.io as a tool for selling games feels like it's got pretty strong (and growing) brand presence.

Quoting: Hamish... and find fully realized games to play. itch.io could still use improvements in this area

It's definitely interesting that there are no filters for this since release status (a choice of in-development, released, on-hold, cancelled, or prototype) is something developers must enter. It's still hard for me to see that as a big issue though, since I'm aware of a project's status before I arrive on the itch.io site (unless I'm following a developer on itch.io and get notification that way, but at that point, I want to read up on what they're doing anyway).

Quoting: HamishThis is a management barrier and not a financial one, so saying that there are lots of free games to play does not really help with this problem. In fact, they might even help get in the way of my search for polished content, although I do not mean to imply that all free games are not polished. But you do have to admit, there are an awful lot of pre-alphas or basic demonstrations on there.

For reasons stated above, I can't see that as a bad thing, but also I know I'd rather play Photobomb [External Link] from last 7DFPS than Football Manager 2016 (to pick a game at random from the queue thing that Steam seems to think is full of games I'd like). I feel like the majority of those unpolished or unfinished titles have some intrinsic value even if the majority of them aren't of interest to me. I don't mean to imply that you're saying those things shouldn't be there at all, but I do feel that it's important to not be dismissive of prototypes and in-development projects when open development is a comparatively new thing that developers and consumers are still coming to terms with.

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I guess my take on it is that ideally, a store shouldn't be somewhere you should go to find games you don't already know about/plan on buying. That's something that should be done by third parties/communities with interest focuses/general discourse. The alternatives are pretty reductive, and we see that on GOG, Humble and Steam to what I believe is our cultural detriment.

As for whether itch.io is a trustworthy storefront to spend your money at, that seems entirely separate from any level of curation or quality control, but I guess if you're not sure that there will be enough games that you'd be willing to pick up, then that's fair enough. It's worth noting that there's a large number of gratis and Free titles (including my stuff \o/), that add some value to having an account outside of purchasing.

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Quoting: HamishObviously the whole point of the service is to promote raw creativity, and these games do deserve their place on the service, but itch.io really does need a way to separate the cream from the crop.

I'm not so sure. Currently itch.io is the same kind of service that Bandcamp is for music. It's not really a discoverability platform and doesn't need to be - it's a hosting/storefront service that developers can use in conjunction with other marketing efforts rather than a place where monolithic curation is appropriate.

At the end of the day, what constitutes the"good stuff" is subjective, and it's super important for a distribution platform (a general platform like Steam or itch.io rather than a platform that tailors itself to a specific flavour of game) to not overtly favour one set of tastes above another IMO.

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Itch is pretty cool. Things may change in the future, but for now, it's a perfect counterpoint to Steam's less open, less accessible, discoverability oriented approach, and developers end up with a bigger cut from itch than any other platform that I'm aware of.

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Quoting: hummer010

Quoting: DrMcCoy

Quoting: hummer010Let's see, they received 8X the funding they were looking for, and with all that extra money, managed to release the end of the game only 30 months late.

...You say that as if an increased budget, and with it an increased scope, means faster developement. That's not how it works.

Nope, I'm saying their project management skills are awful. In my world, if I'm only 50% complete, 14 months late, and I've already burned through 8X my initial funding request, I'm fired.

In most contexts, you'd already have been through some hard meetings and negotiated expanding the budget and scope. The documentary shows some stuff along these lines, admittedly done without a lot of community consultation, but the general attitude among backers at the time seemed to be, "Take your time, the game will be better for it."

Quoting: Segata SanshiroAnyway, I don't know why I bother commenting on them anymore. They'll get their money regardless of what people say and I do hope this one turns out to be a good game.

That's the nature of crowdfunding, isn't it? It's a way for people who believe in a project and its creators to support an attempt at bringing that project into reality. There's not really much in the way of meaningful outcomes from discussion for people who aren't interested in the project (unless their goal is to actively prevent others from supporting, which is kinda weird).

Quoting: Segata SanshiroNo offence to them, but in my eyes to make a game which on paper is EXCATLY the kind of game I pay good money for, but still manage to make it mind numbingly dull is just a massive achievement.

Massive Chalice is far from dull. Its vibrancy is along different axes to other prominent squad oriented turn based strategy, games which demonstrates that it's not exactly the same kind of game. With that game's crowdfunding campaign putting a lot of focus on the planned generational aspects, it felt to me from the beginning that the MC had different priorities and that that would be reflected in the final game.

Either way, I think it highlights that it's really important to for anybody considering supporting to make sure that they're in the same headspace as the designers - Psychonauts 2 feels a little easier in that regard with it being a sequel, but at the same time, sequels can take things in directions that are different from what a given player of the original might have expected, and Psychonauts has had 10 years of speculation shaping their expectations.

To use other sequels that Tim Shafer has worked on as examples, Day of the Tentacle changes a lot of what I think defines Maniac Mansion's identity (I really enjoy DotT, but I can see why some people who love Maniac Mansion don't and vice versa) and Monkey Island 2 has a distinctly different kind of atmosphere and approach towards the characterisation of Guybrush (though not to the extent or in the same ways that Monkey Island 3 does).

It's important and healthy to be cautious, and if anyone feels like it's not for them or that they'd rather wait for the finished product if the game gets made, that's totally cool :)

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I'd love to see a category that celebrated games by developers who primarily work on Linux.

It feels like Linux-made games - not just F/OSS titles with prominent contributions from Linux users, but also proprietary games like Expand, Don't Be Patchman, The Maker's Eden, Phr00t's 5089 or Limit Theory (as a broad set of examples that includes unreleased titles) - have extra reason to resonate with Linux players.

I can't recall if there was one last year, but F/OSS engine replacements as its own category would be nice (that kind of work is demanding in different ways to the creation of new games).

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