Odd that Yanick says in the article that statically linking against SDL was a requirement. Bundling dynamically linked libs has been an option for a long, long time. IIRC, Loki were adjusting rpath to be relative for that purpose back in the 90s.

It's not specifically Linux game development per se, but it's great to see recent posts by Media Molecule [External Link] and PolyKnight Games [External Link] using Blender for different areas of production. Developers who use cross-platform tools are more likely to consider Linux a viable option in the future than developers who don't, and by showing that cross platform tools are suitable for "serious" use, these non-Linux using developers are offering validation to aspiring developers who want to work on Linux.

For my development personally, not a lot has changed recently. SDL2 is nice, but SDL was serviceable before that. MinGW for cross compiling has been around for ages, as has the JRE for Java stuff.

I think the big changes that are happening now are in visibility and accessibility - the kind of noise that Unity Technologies, CryTek and Epic are making helps raise the profile of developing on and for Linux in ways that empowers people on our platform. That's going to have a lasting impact, I think.

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Quoting: ProfessorKaos64I have this. Great game and tons of fun. However, the last boss difficult is such BS.

Ah, Medulla isn't that hard once you get the hang of it! IMO, Venom is harder.

Quoting: ProfessorKaos64For a whole, you had to use a save file or skip option since it would crash for me when starting a new game under a fresh user that goes into a tuturial.

That's true! I'd forgotten about that. I believe that's been sorted out now though.

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Quoting: Tak

Quoting: Cheeseness

Quoting: JuliusWhat is odd is that this genre is called twin stick shooter, but it plays MUCH better with a mouse and keyboard... almost on a FPS kind of level.

I've found this too. I find the gamepad so cumbersome (but other players swear by it). I think that the game stands up as a super solid keyboard and mouse experience in spite of it being specifically designed for gamepads speaks volumes about the developers attitudes towards making sure that the game is well rounded.

I have exactly the opposite experience - I much prefer playing it with gamepad.
However, I agree that the fact that it works equally well for folks who prefer both is a point in its favor.

The only time I find that side of things to break down is when mixing kb/m and gamepad for co-op. Since the mouse uses the cursor's screen coordinates for aiming, it becomes super hard to aim/predict your aim when the gamepad player's position relative to your own ends up shifting the camera position unexpectedly.

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Quoting: tartifI tried this game a year ago and found it enjoyable but overwhelming. Is there a difficulty slider or "easy mode" in the current version?

I don't think there is. Looking at the reactions that new players have had, it feels like there's a point at which the game "clicks" for some players and becomes much easier (often along with a realisation about how the battery mechanic works).

Quoting: liamdaweI've been sent a key for it, so expect to see more of it in videos/livestreams :)

I'm also planning to get back into streaming and will be streaming the Daily Drive most days :D

Quoting: JuliusWhat is odd is that this genre is called twin stick shooter, but it plays MUCH better with a mouse and keyboard... almost on a FPS kind of level.

I've found this too. I find the gamepad so cumbersome (but other players swear by it). I think that the game stands up as a super solid keyboard and mouse experience in spite of it being specifically designed for gamepads speaks volumes about the developers attitudes towards making sure that the game is well rounded.

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Quoting: LinasUh oh, link to Steam broken. And this is totally my cup of tea. Or coffee. I take both. :)

Fixed. Sorry about that!

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Quoting: EikeIt's not my cup of coffee, but judging from the demo I think it is very well executed.

If the game doesn't feel like your sort of thing, it's not so relevant, but the demo itself is a bit out of sync with the full game (according to SteamDB, it looks like the demo was last updated 6 months ago).

I believe that it's still very representative of the core gameplay (even the July 2013 build I was playing this morning in preparation for writing this article stills feels very "Cactusy" to me), so it's worth checking out :)

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Quoting: STiATInterestingly, if I calculate with 500.000 instead of 400.000 and 1.5 % of the userbase, 70 % after-tax and paying 45 € I get to 236.250 € as you do with 400.000 - typo?

Yup! That looks like a typo. Good catch :D

Quoting: EikeIf I read correctly, Cheeseness didn't even subtract any taxes.

Yep, that's very true. I made the mistake of assuming that people would understand that there are additional overheads, fees, administrative costs, etc. that eat into those kinds of numbers (I specifically avoided taxes since I assume that their country's taxation system and rates are different to my country's). As a general rule of thumb, if you're employing people, you usually budget about double their salary to cover insurance, holiday pay, sick pay, payroll and HR overheads, plant/equipment costs, etc.. I can't see the rough numbers I was highlighting covering much more than a single person's salary for a year at most (that's an example - I'm certain that their Linux related expenses would be spread across multiple people and roles).

Takings are a long way from profit.

As I said in my first post, those numbers are also super vague. It's probably worth taking into account that a significant percentage of Linux users were probably Kickstarter backers (which frames things a little differently, and reduces the per unit cost since a copy of the game was given to $20 pledges and above), and that there have been discounts of up to 33% since the game became purchaseable on Steam.

Pushing uncertainty in the other direction, the quote focuses on active users rather than owners. I can't speak for other people's playing behaviours, but it's not uncommon for me to let a game sit for a few months until I have a good amount of time to dig into it (particularly with RPGs). It's possible that their number of Linux customers is higher than their active Linux playerbase.

My reason for bringing numbers into the discussion was in a hope to highlight where Obsidian are placing the bar for reward justifying effort when it comes to supporting Linux - in the article they said it didn't feel worthwhile. Obviously, they made the decision to support Linux whilst aiming for a bigger margin than what they got.

Quoting: EikeBut what I can imagine very well is that bug hunting and support on system foreign to you is very hard. I had a tough time when I developed my first open source piece of software on Linux although I was using Linux for 15 years, just because the tools are... strange to me. All that costs time and time costs money.

This is super true. Working with unfamiliar issues and unfamiliar environments is awkward and painful. It slows things down, and as someone else in the thread pointed out, costs extra time in keeping track of upstream bug reports. That said, providing they were taking advantage of Unity's Linux developers (who have always been super enthusiastic about resolving engine issues when I've brought problems to their attention), the experience shouldn't have been significantly troublesome.

Quoting: maodzedunDid anybody stop and think this company consists of some of the most successful and reknown developers of the last 30 years? You know - people who maybe, just maybe, know more about making games and selling them than a bunch of random people on the internet.

You mean people who haven't supported Linux before and may not have known what work would be required? The same people who hadn't made a crowdfunded game before (the dynamics of budgeting and production can shift dramatically when a publisher isn't involved)?

The whole point they were making was their expectations regarding Linux didn't match the outcomes. This suggests to me that they don't know much at all about making/selling games for/to Linux audiences.

Edit: Thanks for sharing the video there, SuperTux. The stuff at 55 minutes seems to suggest that deploying Linux builds was trivial, but buying machines and stuff was what they found hardest. Listening to the voices and tones heard in the video it feels more like the attitude is more about "We should have thought more about what was involved" rather than "We specifically regret doing this." That's a good thing to keep in mind when talking about this issue.

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To me, the saddest thing is that there's no recognition that the investment of learning to support a platform (even if it is excessively high, and I don't quite believe that it is as large as claimed in this case) is something that reduces the overhead of supporting that platform for future titles.

Some super vague calculations (I can't take credit for this @directhex raised this on [External Link] Twitter [External Link] earlier today) lets us take a guess at some numbers. 1.5% of an estimated 500,000 copies equates at 70% of $45 ea would equate to $236,250 worth of takings, which seems to me like it would more than cover the QA overheads involved (there can't have been meaningful engine porting costs, unless they had source access to the Unity engine and/or were paying Unity Technologies additional money to resolve Linux specific issues - I don't believe they were).

The interview also fails to recognise that Unity has been steadily maturing on Linux as time wears on, bringing more stability and robustness. This is something that Pillars of Eternity itself has likely to contributed to. It's a shame that that isn't being celebrated here.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

In this didn't bother to touch on other expenses that can reduce profit margins (note that I was specifically talking about takings and not profit). I had expected that that stuff would already be understood by most readers. I expand on that a little in this post.

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For anybody who's interested, I did a dev stream yesterday looking at the demo and how the game handles puzzle logic. An archive can be found here [External Link] :)

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Quoting: LinasWhat about the gameplay? It is worth it if it is fixed?

I haven't played it since April, but back then, it felt like it had promise. It had an a arcade feel to it and was a long way from being a realistic flight sim. If that's what you're into, then it might be worth taking a look at.

Like wolfyrion, I didn't encounter any noteworthy issues with the game.

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