Looks like one I'll be excited about, as well!  Fantastic.

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Quoting: liamdaweThe picture on the homepage for these articles is a constant sauce of amusement, keep it up guys!

Amuse-sauce indeed!  Bravo, Muntdefems :D

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Liege has reached it's recently-lowered Linux stretch goal [External Link] 20 minutes ago.  Penguins are welcome now!

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Oh, also... as of now (timestamp of this post) IndieGameStand [External Link] has come through for us, yet again, bringing us Pitman [External Link] and a whole slew of goodies in the beat-the-average corner, including an alpha key for the developers next game, TRI [External Link].  Alongside that, average-beaters will get a Pitman strategy guide, a copy of all of the dev's game music to date, and the APK installer of Pitman for Android.

Pretty good deal I'd say, considering that the average is around two dollars right now.

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Great Permutator [External Link] for 64-bit Linux is available now!  This one was mentioned in past editions of "The Cheapskate's Corner" as a possible upcoming port, due to comments by the developer, and it is here now.  It's relevant for this article not only because GOL first mentioned it in earlier editions of this column, but also because it's on sale for 50% off for a bit more than one week!

For those who are curious, there is a demo version on Desura (I haven't tried it), and another community member has already added it to the sales page.

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: muntdefems

Quoting: liamdaweWell they replied, may have to do a full article on it to get the word out with what they told me.

I really hope it was good news... :|

First reply wasn't good news, just backing up their use of a stretch goal, I've now asked the Unity question on why Linux is extra when it has an exporter hoping that actually gives us a decent enough answer.

Our Kickstarter "adventure crew" (including myself) have been pushing them in the comments.  I've been somewhat absent (work conference eating up my time this week), but others have picked up the slack for me.

It's interesting that all of the other Sierra game alums have found a way to commit a Linux port on Unity for less.  Even Leisure Suit Larry, who set their Linux stretch beyond what was achievable, later launched on Linux anyway!  This includes the Space Quest creators (day 1!), Gabriel Knight's creator ($300k base, stretch at $400k coupled with a huge cinematic trailer & opening sequence), Quest for Glory's creator (day 1 after committing strong community resources, and dev committing himself to work the port personally).

I feel like Jim's development team are interested in supporting us, but aren't perhaps, aware of the above.  Cheese's article can help here, but it seems to me that things are slightly different on these mid-sized $250K-$600k projects.  Exactly how these differ is something I haven't exactly cracked, though.  When I do, I'll write it up and share it with the class :)

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Ah.  Lame.  I guess neither of us are in it.  Hopefully another GOL person is in the beta.  :(

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From the Kickstarter update:

Just a quick comment to say that we've had far more applicants than we were expecting for the Linux Beta, and have no more positions at this time.
Many thanks to everybody who has got in touch so far -- we'll be sending out information and instructions early next week.

Goes to show that game devs really have no idea how successful they'll be with their Linux fans.  I suspect that SSZ could become one of the more popular Linux space games, if they are able to make all the content creation tools available to us, simply because it looks really good, plays pretty well, and there are few games for us quite like it.

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They've now promised the Linux version to Kickstarter backers.  If they do not deliver it, then they'll be hit with refund requests as well.  The Team Meat guys have never promised anything to anyone for Linux, with the exception of working with the Humble Bundle team.  So, there is a difference.

Hey, Liam... did you e-mail to enter the beta, like they requested on the Kickstarter update?  I did, but haven't heard any reply yet...

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I don't think I'll be participating in any sort of Desura boycott.  I don't think Linden Labs are a bad company, nor are they bad for Linux gaming (they've continued maintaining their own Linux client software, seem quite permissive with their SL members, are generally against DRM, etc).  Also, I already regularly back up my standalone Desura installers and CD-keys, so I'm not personally too worried about that.

With luck, some long-standing troubles can be resolved by these Linden funds and resources, like improvements to marketing and promotion, including sales banners.  Also, I know that the Humble folks have been aggressively courting newly Kickstarted game projects, and have been extremely helpful to dozens of projects, arranging for them to continue pre-orders/alpha-funding, as well as distributing digital rewards.

Desura has a messaging problem which we've discussed at length in this community, regarding their game installers, where there is still the misperception that the desktop client is required for all games, where it is actually only required for a small number of games.  Well, a very small number of my games, anyway (I'll have to check;  last I looked, it was one single game).  That sort of erroneous perception is tough to combat without any marketing resources.  I can't even count the number of folks I've had to explain that to, having to resort (unfortunately) to referring to it as Desura's "GOG.com mode".

Another example would be to once again bring Desura keys to Humble Bundles, like the ubiquitous Steam keys.  That was a cost burden that Desura simply couldn't justify, but it was awesome marketing.  I was drawn to them because of it originally which is somewhat ironic since I'd known about ModDB and IndieDB for some time before finally learning about Desura from a totally unrelated game bundle.

And, of course, the Mac desktop client (along with assorted client bug fixes and improvements, many from Desurium).  Anyway, these suggestions are far from revelatory, and this is almost certainly the wrong place for me to voice them.

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