I just went to Humble Bundle to check to see if the promised DRM-free version was available. It is! I was afraid they'd forget that they promised that on Humble Bundle too; not just GOG. But it's available!

I can't believe I'm finally going to get to play the full release (after being a bit let down by the Early Access version due to its "Early Accessiness.")

Then I saw my original pre-order purchase date... December 10, 2013. Holy crap. But hey! In this day and age I'm just really glad they didn't abandon it! It's kind of an impressive accomplishment itself to be in Early Access for so many years, and live long enough to come out of Early Access!

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I actually saw the sale announcement on Steam and thought: "Sigh. I'd like to take advantage of that, if only it was out for Linux." Then I opened up GOL, saw the article, and thought: "Holy $&^# really?? Buy!! BUY!!!"

Thanks GOL! You saved me from passing up the SteamOS/Linux launch sale! I honestly didn't expect the port to come this soon; I'm used to the loooong waits we have to put up with from "triple-A" studios. An indy studio puts the big studios to shame AGAIN!

What really irritates me is that Steam's own stupid design regarding filtering by OS would have made me miss the launch! The sale box on the right side of the Steam store's page is almost always highlighting a non-Linux compatible game on my Linux Steam client, so I automatically ignored the Undertale sale because I had no reason to believe it wasn't Win/Mac only! There are always a bunch of games on sale so there are always Linux compatible games on sale! Why can't they filter the sale highlight?

Don't answer that. I already know that Steam couldn't filter coffee with a desalination plant.

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I've heard about this game before and it sounded fun already! If you community gets a hold of it and really polishes it (like the modding community is great at) it starts to sound really awesome!

The only problem I have with open-sourced games (but not assets) situations like this is all the confusion with versions from different sources. Like setting up something like Zdoom could get complicated if the instructions you're reading are intended to be used with the Steam version of the game, but you have the GOG version.

There has to be a way to streamline this process like mods have been streamlined on Steam, but Steam never seems to want to do that; I've never seen Steam take advantage of Zdoom or anything like that. I'd be ecstatic if GOG could offer an officially-unofficially fully patched version based on the eventual open-source version! Here's hoping.

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I really (really!) wish I had the smarts to configure Winetricks etc to get games working reliably with Wine, but I just don't. It's like another language. Not even PlayOnLinux works for me very often. I'm afraid the only way I take advantage of Wine is through official ports. But that's okay as long as Wine ports don't discourage native development! I just have to hope that doesn't happen... everything is so uncertain! Agh!

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Quoting: LinasWas not my intention to sound demeaning.

I didn't think you were! It's cool.

Quoting: LinasI do think that Wine is an amazing piece of software and I have great respect for Wine developers. Yet I do not consider Wine-wrapped games to be proper ports, just as I don't consider software running in DOSBox to be Linux software. Simply because it still runs non-native code, makes non-native system calls, and generally does not interact with system libraries and services the way native software is expected to.

That's fair from a dictionary definition standpoint. I'm not trying to set or change any definitions here. But if I can install a game and play it without having to do any extra manual steps configuring any sort of compatibility environment (like I don't have to with GOG's Dosbox ports; it's all handled behind the scenes by the install script) I have no problem calling it a "real Linux game" if nothing else.

Quoting: LinasThis can lead to all sort of hard to diagnose problems, and imposes limitations on how much you can take advantage of the native system.

That certainly might be a problem, but it also might not be a problem. This is more of a case-by-case issue. Good Wine ports vs bad wine ports.

Quoting: LinasThat is not why I dislike Wine-wrapped "ports" though. My main issue is that this method is very Windows-centric from the developers point of view, and does not encourage proper cross-platform development practices. That is why so many developers choose to use technologies that are inherently incompatible with Linux, such as DirectX 11, and then write off Linux ports as unfeasible.

The culture of development is far outside of my area of expertise, but you're probably right. But is it really necessary to denigrate Wine ports to encourage better programming practices for new software? It really seems like we should be able to encourage developers to adopt more cross-platform friendly programming habits for developing new games, while also acknowledging the value of the work and effort that goes in to making a good wrapper port for games that will never run under Linux without it.

Quoting: LinasThat is exactly what projects like PlayOnLinux and Winetricks do. Also we are talking about a game that already has a platinum rating in Wine, therefore I cannot see how it is much more than just running it in Wine.

All I can offer is anecdotal evidence about how I've tried many games, with very good Wine compatibility ratings, under vanilla Wine and PlayOnLinux, and have almost always failed to get a good experience. It's why I don't use Wine or PlayOnLinux anymore. The most common problem I've had with games is the inability to switch to fullscreen without the entire desktop crashing. I've searched for hours for solutions online and never found any that worked. Also, I've been using Linux for 8 years but most of the options and settings in Winetricks are complete gibberish to me. You're free to say I don't know enough, and I would not argue, but we'll never get any new converts to Linux if we keep thinking like that.

Quoting: LinasFor the sake of argument let us say that the game really is problematic and cannot simply be run in Wine. Would you not rather have all that effort put into a proper port instead of making workarounds for the non-native software?

Given a choice I would of course always prefer a native port, but that's not the right question; the right question is "would you prefer a Wine port or nothing?" I know the answer that a lot of vocal Linux gamers would give is "nothing," and I just very much disagree with that. I still remember that GOL article titled "Why we want native ports only" and how insulting and discouraging I felt that was to a lot of good Wine port developers. And I can't help but feel like a lot of these Linux gamers who would say they want "nothing" rather than a Wine port are only saying it because they've already played through the game using a lot of Wine configurations that I am not knowledgeable enough to repeat.

Quoting: Linas...I believe that Wine ports will lead to more Wine ports. Which can do wonders for older games, but new games may prove problematic. For example Alien: Isolation has a garbage rating on Wine.

Again, if it means Wine ports leading to more wine ports of games we would not get otherwise, then I think that's a good thing! If it means more Wine ports of games that would have been native otherwise, that is a problem, but isn't that really hard to foresee? And again, does it really have to be this way? Is it really "either you're for us or you're against us?" Am I really harming native ports by liking Wine ports?

Quoting: LinasWhat we really need is more developers getting into Linux as a first-class development platform, and not as an afterthought.

I agree!

Quoting: LinasAnd that in my mind means going native.

Does going native mean ostracizing non-native ports? I'm not be sarcastic or snarky here! That is a legitimate question! I am just hoping the answer is no.

Thank you for the civilized debate Linas! This topic needs to be discussed constructively more often.

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Question for anyone who has played the game: can you ride the rides in first-person? Like in Rollercoaster Tycoon 3?

The graphics appear to be 3D polygons, but all the footage I've seen is always in the overhead isometric view. I loved Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 and 2 even though that was all 2D sprites which of course couldn't let you ride the rides, so it's not a deal-breaker, but it would be great if you could. Just wondering. Thanks!

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Quoting: Linas

Quoting: JuliusHave been playing this with WINE (platinum support) quite a bit...

As far as I know, it will be a Wine "port", so nothing will really change here.

Um... I take serious issue with this comment. A real Wine port done by professionals is much, much better than just "running a game with Wine."

1. A lot of people who are inexperienced with Wine configuration (like myself!) will not be able to troubleshoot and hack around problems that come up when running a game in Wine, and games that work perfectly with no configuration at all in Wine are very rare in my experience. A good Wine port solves those issues for the user, rather than making the user solve it themselves.

2. Most important: A Wine port can be bought on Steam/Humble/GOG and count as a Linux purchase, thereby helping our OS get more games in the future!

I personally do not use Wine to play games, unless it's an official port, because it's too unpredictable. I could sink hours into a game I'm running in Wine myself, but then have an error with Wine compatibility ruin all the progress I'd made. At least with a real Wine port there is some assurance of compatibility and quality control. There are some bad ports of course, but even the bad ones are usually fixed later, and it's at the very least a much better bet than the crap shoot that is playing games with Wine yourself.

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Sweet! Linux is badly lacking in legitimate Japanese and Japanese-style games of... every genre actually. I noticed this years ago and it looked like fun just for the art style.

The only thing that bugs me now is I already have the game in my Steam library from a Humble Bundle that I bought a while ago for other (Linux compatible) games in it! Now my purchase can't count for Linux! I've never actually installed the game because I was already off of Windows by the time I bought it. Did we ever get any concrete word on the rumor that the OS under which the first X hours of playtime is logged on Steam will give some credit to that OS, even if it was a Windows only game at the time of purchase?

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So... what was the game like? Anybody ever play it? I'm really curious what an MMO from the Commodore 64 days was like!

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I will definitely try to get his sometime! It sounds like a cool game and I have never liked the negative attitude many Linux gamers seems to have against Wine. It seems like if Wine ports are stigmatized than we just won't get older titles ported, and there are a LOT of older titles that I want to see ported! Wine is fine by me.

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