Quoting: s_dRegarding differentiating Telltale, I quite disagree.  The 11 bit studios sale feels a lot like the old one-studio bundles (which I don't think we'll be seeing ever again, as those will be converted to weekly sales, I suspect), but the Telltale sale feels like the THQ one (which was not a weekly sale).  Hence, I feel the distinction is somewhat arbitrary and unhelpful.

Actually, the THQ stuff returned as the first weekly sale. The original intention from Humble (at least when I talked to people prior to the Humble THQ Bundle going live) was that it would be presented as a different product off the main humblebundle.com page (much like the Weekly Sale and Amnesia Fortnight promotions). I view the THQ bundle as the exception (the mistake I referred to in my last post) rather than the benchmark to compare others against.

If anything, overlooking the differences between Humble's spectrum of products seems to me to be unhelpful.

It helps Humble manage people's expectations. Remember all the flack they copped between the Humble Indie Bundle #4 and The Humble Indie Bundle V when people were saying that Humble's quality had dropped and were getting cranky enough to say they wouldn't buy future bundles (it's sad how often that gets thrown around these days)? If the differentiation between the Indie bundles, Android bundles and debut bundles were better highlighted, that would have helped people make more informed buying decisions (the same also applies for all the people who missed the first Android bundle because they thought it was Android only and all the people who purchased the Mobile bundle expecting it to support desktop platforms).

The most relevant reason for distinguishing, of course (and this responds a little to Hamish's post), is native support, which the Weekly Sales have been established as not being a reliable source for. I'm definitely not denying that Humble is diminished and made "less special" by not sticking to its guns on the cross-platform, DRM free and "no middlemen" angles, but I do think that if they want to explore that stuff, relegating it to a separate, lesser product is certainly more favourable than polluting their core offerings.

Quoting: s_dHumble have always offered bundles/deals of varying sizes and apparent "value", so I don't really see why the branding should somehow cause their offerings to be considered a vastly different thing.

Humble were expecting customers to see them as being separate products/brands under the Humble umbrella, but people were still mislabeling the Humble Indie Bundle #3 as HIB4. It wasn't until the real Humble Indie Bundle #4 that people started to catch on that were more than one type of offering. Though Humble failed to communicate it, those varying styles of bundles were internally seen as discreet, differently structured products (I've touch more on Humble's branding troubles in my articles and the interview I did with RYG last year).

Quoting: s_dThe averages are certainly lower, but they run for half the duration of the other offerings, but I'm fairly certain that most of the bundle revenue comes in the first week anyway (hence the goodies added to the beat-the-average bonus halfway through).

I track hourly data [External Link] on weekly sales to help make it easier to look at this sort of stuff. Sadly I missed the first two days of the Telltale sale due to markup changes at Humble's end (and a lack of free time on mine :( )

Edit: Woah, wall of text. Sorry guys :D

s_d: Would love to discuss what defines an adventure game and how the broad range of potential mechanics/presentations/styles all fit together/relate to each other, but I think I've derailed this thread enough >_<

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Quoting: s_dOh yes, certainly.  Well, at least, depending on your definition of the genre!

Recall the Amanita Designs titles, specifically Samorost 2, Machinarium, and Botanicula.  These are probably the closest (though, the narrative in Botanicula is thin enough that some, including Speedster, would prefer to call it more of a puzzle game).  Loosen your definition a little, and we can include TRAUMA, Sword & Sorcery and Stacking as well.  Loosen your platform a little, and there is, of course, the Telltale Games bundle.  Loosen both, and we might include The Room (though, it's more of a puzzle game linked by a loose plot than Botanicula!).

Oh, you are right! I can't believe I forgot about Samorost 2, Machinarium, Botanicula and Sword & Sworcery (I think they're all unarguably point-and-click aventure games).

I'd probably place TRAUMA in whatever box Myst lives in, which gameplay-wise is fairly different from the first few mentioned.

The Telltale stuff hasn't been in a Humble Bundle though (only a Humble Weekly Sale to date), which I think is important to differentiate - Too many people have trouble telling Humble's different brands apart.

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As always, stats for the new bundle can be found in the Humble Visualisations [External Link], and there's a preview of hourly per-platform data [External Link] up as well.

Quoting: s_dReally glad to see an adventure game featured again!

I'm pretty excited about this too! Have there previously been any playable adventure titles featured in a Humble Bundle promotion (sort of feel like Broken Age shouldn't count yet)? I don't recall any.

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Quoting: Kristian"Personally I like Unigine (Oil Rush) It's a little more expensive than Unity but it runs great and looks wonderful even on older machines."

A little more expensive? Doesn't it cost $1000s, IIRC a source code license is something like $50000!

What's a source licence for Unity worth though? It's probably worth noting that the Leadwerks source licence appears to be separate from what's included in the pledge rewards.

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Quoting: GuestThe real news here isn't the engine; the news is the editor. Engines are one thing, but are ultimately useless without the editor to create and import content.

QFT

It's tricky to compare this one to Unity as Unity's editor doesn't support Linux - you need to fire it up in Mac OS or Windows to make/build a game for Linux.

As for Unigine, I've heard rumours that its toolset is not as easy to work with as say, Unity or UDK, making it less attractive to developers (writing your own tools isn't a big deal, but it costs dev time, and since these things are targeting people who don't want to/can't invest time in writing their own engine, needing to write/tweak tools and workflows detracts from the appeal).

Definitely something I'm going to be keeping an eye on though. There seems to be a bunch of documentation and info on their site (which is linked to in the article above) which are probably worth having a look over.

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The first time I heard about this game was when I came across this gif [External Link]. Which still makes me smile.

Will be interested to check it out more closely when it's available :D

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When we first heard about Linxu support being considered for this last year, there was lots of excitement in our house! I didn't realise it was so close to being released. Can't wait :D

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Quoting: muntdefemsThe main problem is, of course, where to draw the line. Which projects do get to be treated preferentially and which other don't? Because what I'm not going to do is keeping track of every single game I comment on the column. Mmmh... I'll give it a thought.

My suggestion would be to track anything you're personally interested in plus whatever people express an interest in in the comments (to encourage participation/feedback).

Perhaps keeping the repeat summaries down to a single line each, showing their current status and growth since last time, would help short work of it. If anything has a big update that would have an impact on how relevant the project might be to Linux gamers, then it could be pushed back up into the main article content for extra exposure.

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Until a couple of days ago, instructions for installing SS1 and SS2 Linux binaries were on PCGamingWiki.com. I'm currently trying to chase up why they were removed.

Edit: It's back now [External Link] ^_^

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It's been around for a few days, but I only spotted it last night. Garry's been talking on Twitter about how many Linux sales there have been. Interestingly, the Steam store still says that it's Windows/Mac only.

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