Thanks for the tip. Did not know about the Steam thing. Will be extra-careful then.

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Everyone currently in-engine is on Windows. That'll change once we get the full team together/everyone doing more. I'm on a triple-booted MacBook, and one of our other programmers also uses a Mac. We'll also be getting test machines to fill in any gaps and of course Linux is pretty low-effort to install and use on most computers these days (Arch and company notwithstanding, of course).

As I said above, regular testing will be a part of our development cycle from the start with The Tower. We learned the hard way with the first game that our type of game especially needs heavy testing.

As for editors, Windows and OSX can only be compiled for from their native editors. Linux can be either cross-compiled for from Windows or compiled to from the native editor (the cross-compiler was provided originally because the engine's Linux support happened before the editor's, though both are now supported).

Generally, since UE4 project files are cross-platform portable (save for anything custom-compiled outside of the engine, of course), we'll likely find each developer using the editor on whichever platform they happen to be running, with occasional ventures onto other platforms when platform-specific work/debugging is required. Builds themselves will most likely be automated.

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Quoting: scaineThanks for the update Stesen. Can I ask a couple of questions, since your update still leaves me with some uncertainty - mainly because you keep inferring things should work, but if you don't know, I don't see how you can expect us to pledge.

So my two questions are: 1) how does the Linux build work right now and 2) Can you confirm that Linux builds be available at your $50 tier "Rook"?

Given your response, if you were on Kickstarter, you'd probably have my money in the near future. Sadly, I don't trust Fig, but best of luck with your campaign.

The Tower is currently in late-stage pre-production. This means that, while we have some in-engine content created, most of what we are doing is concepting, planning, and doing systems-design. So there is no "Linux build" yet any more than there are "builds" for the other platforms. We've mostly just been running in-editor at this point.

Once main-phase development starts, we'll be setting up a new project on the latest engine, recreating the components we've written during pre-production using more production-quality code, and proceeding with regular testing on all supported platforms.

We plan on using an automated testing system for technical components, and will be doing in-person testing of each supported platform on a regular basis and as we pass development milestones to test end-to-end integration.

Anyone who backs at $20 or higher will receive one copy of the game for a single physical platform of their choice (meaning (Windows/OSX/Linux) | XBOne | PS4).

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: stesenbuilding for Linux or OSX will be no different than building for Windows. Just open the project in the editor and pick a different option under Build.

No, Just no. Stop right there.
Do not imagine it is as easy as to just develop for Windows and then push the button that says "Linux" and ship it. This attitude above is the exact reason why we got far too many Unity-based games with issues on Linux. This is why we've had to do idiotic things like rename installed files due to case sensitive file system. This is why we've had to live with insane mouse tracking, horrible screen tearing, faulty focus handling and utterly annoying multi-monitor issues.

It's not - NOT - that easy. There are fundamental differences between the platforms that must be handled and tested throughout the entire development cycle, and obviously preferably planned from stage one.

We will not simply be "developing for Windows and then plug-and-chug building for other platforms sight-unseen", and I'm sorry if I came across that way. I used "build" there to basically mean "the process of compiling". I highlighted the "press a different button" because that is what it ultimately boils down to, process-wise in UE4. The key meaning of that is that, unlike with the first game, there will be no having to write entire graphics pipelines twice (as an example), as the developers at Epic have already done that for anything we don't write in-house. We will of course be following up with the results of those builds and making sure to isolate any platform-specific issues that arise. And anything we do write in-house, we'll be writing considering a cross-platform environment from the start, not once we already have an established codebase. I'd also like to think that, as several of us are Linux/OSX users ourselves (myself included), we'd know that the *nix filesystem is case-sensitive (honestly it annoys me more that Windows isn't). ;)

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Support for Vulkan in The Tower?

Support for Vulkan really would depend on what the UE4 build we ship with supports.
I'm not sure that even the latest UE4 fully supports Vulkan at this point. It's a really new technology.

Basically it comes down to: we will officially support whatever Epic Games officially supports, platform/technology-wise, when we version-lock our engine build for release (which obviously hasn't happened yet).

We will of course list system requirements for the game when we release it.

If you mean support for Vulkan in Source 1 for porting Consortium 1? Definitely not. Our Source Engine base version is contemporary with Portal 2. I don't think Vulkan was even an idea yet at that point. Source 1 supports OpenGL 3-something, I do believe. Don't know the exact number.

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Hi!

I’m Duke, one of the folks over at iDGi (developers of The Tower). I thought I’d try to clear some things up. The majority of these issues just come down to miscommunication and bad timing.

Regarding OSX/Linux support in Consortium 1:

When we began development on Consortium in the Source Engine, it did not yet have support for *nix, and so our only development concerns were for Windows. This meant that when we decided to roll our own renderer (on top of code already present in the engine), it was only built for DirectX (as that’s what the engine supported).

When Valve announced native *nix support in Source, we thought “Sure! We should support as many platforms as possible!” and announced intent to eventually port to OSX and Linux. Most of the process went fairly smoothly. However, porting our in-house DirectX-based renderer to OpenGL has proven incredibly problematic, with strange bugs continuing to plague the ported version. We have a few theories, some of which would require major changes to fix, but in the end it will simply require a long-term, highly focused debugging effort for which we have not had the resources.

That effort has not been shelved, however. Once resources allow, we will redouble energy towards getting it working. That rendering code is the only component of the OSX port that is left to finish, and once it’s done it should be translatable 1:1 to a Linux port.

Regarding OSX/Linux support in The Tower:

The explanation here is much simpler. Those earlier messages/text saying Linux support was only tentative arose from a misunderstanding on our part about UE4’s Linux support. At the time of writing those messages, support for the Linux *editor* was unofficial, however support for *building* for Linux (via a cross-compiler from Windows) was fully official. We mistook the first stance as being representative of all of UE4’s Linux support. All newer text has been corrected to account for this mistake. If UE4 officially supports building for the target, so do we (excluding mobile/web of course). Assuming we don’t need to build any major custom components like we did with Source (currently looking very unlikely), building for Linux or OSX will be no different than building for Windows. Just open the project in the editor and pick a different option under Build.

Regarding the “FAQ item being removed”, that was an unfortunately-timed attempt to remove redundancy. Someone in a comment on our Community Forums pointed out that it seemed redundant with the main Platform Support item, and we agreed. The fact that it said “day-one” support was just a wording difference. Our intention has always been a simultaneous release for all supported platforms, and we didn’t realize that wouldn’t be assumed (we’ve basically been treating “platform support” as “day-one support”, where any other platforms would be considered ports and not be listed). Sorry if this was misinterpreted.

Regarding Fig itself, I can simply direct you to https://blog.fig.co/how-investing-in-game-shares-through-fig-works/ [External Link]

If you have any more specific questions about Fig, you can email [email protected] . They’re a pretty friendly bunch and happy to clear up any concerns you may have.

Sorry again for the confusion!
—iDGi

EDIT: If you want to be sure I am who I say I am: http://interdimensionalgames.com/verify.txt [External Link]

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