Oh yes, all over this one!

The adventure gaming community I belong to has also taken a look, and would like to know more about the setting and the specific graphic adventure gameplay mechanics you intend to employ in the game.  More story details would be welcome, also!  Will The Maker's Eden have an inventory system & inventory puzzles?  Or will it be entirely dialogue-focused (like a visual-novel)?

Thanks for bringing this project to us :)

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Quoting: HamishYou do not want to oversell your case there s_d; icculus was awesome long, long before Humble Bundle came along, and so was MojoSetup by the way. Much of what you pointed to there is still the result of Loki and their free tools from well over a decade ago. Even Edward Rudd was there cranking out Penumbra and Amnesia for us back in the day, a good time before he became Humble Bundles porting go-to guy. I am not disputing that HIB has done a lot for us in the past, but we do not need to change history to justify it.

Yes, you're absolutely correct, and I see how what I wrote would be read that way. I, in no way, intended to credit HIB for the past accomplishments of their porting crew. I did identify them that way (as a group) because they work as a team and do assist each other from time to time. If I'm not mistaken, even their newest member, Ethan Lee, ported games before working with HIB (you may know better than I).

My point was that as awesome as each contributor was on their own, HIB was the first commercial entity in almost a decade to eagerly and consistently fund loads of great ports of third party titles, by seeking out the best porting experts as well as cool games with native ports ready to go. The increased exposure and credibility gained by our community was pretty dramatic. I suppose I should thank Transgaming and CrossOver, though I'm not really a fan of their methods... simply by staying in business they do show there is a market for paying customers of Linux & Mac games.

See, all you have to do is read the post exactly the way it was written in my brain, and then it all becomes clear, with history remaining intact! Easy, yes? :P

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Quoting: Mike FrettBeen trying my best s_d, to spread the word about Linux. I just switched my brother over to Xubuntu...

I have about 3000 'friends' on Facebook that I constantly throw Linux articles at...

I also apologize for not knowing who you are, but I thank you for your work. I myself can't code and are too sick to learn but I do my best to add my library of Win Games to the WineDB, only a few so far, but hopefully I can get them all in their to help people know what's working. =)

WOW, dude, you're a hero!  That's fantastic stuff, and I should be thanking you.  Thank you!

Me?  I'm a nobody.  :)

There's absolutely nobody who should have ever heard of me, and when I did do something significant (I have my proud moments) I did so anonymously.  Back then, while I was still at University, I just wanted to be another part of the mythical cloud of Linux community awesomeness, to help the tech world have this feeling that "if a thing could be done, one of those random Linux folks would go post it to Slashdot, or put a patch up at Sourceforge".  Those were fun times!

In terms of gaming, I'm one of a number of folks that pre-ordered some RuneSoft stuff forever ago,  supported all of the Linux games I could (including Loki!), and other assorted things.  I've reported so many driver bugs to video adapter vendors...

Now, I'm trying to help make a niche of a niche be a solid as possible on Linux, but this game programming stuff is all new to me.  It's different than other systems programming and has all sorts of weird constraints.  It's interesting, though, and I'm learning a lot!

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Liam, you could round up certain things (like a number of new Unity3D releases) into a digest-style feature, like once per week or so, if a number of the projects don't have a strong proponent in the community here.  That way, each new game at least gets a mention, and specific projects we feel particularly excited for, can be fully featured with a dedicated article (like you and RTS's, or myself and graphic adventures).

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Perhaps we need to actually begin to helping people switch over (again!).  I used to do that, but I stopped.  Instead, I focused my hobby-time (and often my work focus!) on improving the Linux ecosystem itself, between submitting patches and bug reports to just getting more people to rely on it, and see how robust it is.  However... it may be time to try to build the base with outreach efforts, working with LUGs, etc.

It's been years since I worked any direct advocacy;  in the past decade I quit with the zealotry and convincing others to give Linux a try, mostly because it didn't work.  One of the reasons it didn't work was due to the available software, including games.  Now, we have a wide variety of great native apps, as well as popular & very functional web-based (or mobile) versions of most media consumption and productivity applications, and hundreds of games.

Responding to Mike Frett;  we are not only shouting loudly enough, but we are well known for over-representing, at this point.  Pay-what-you-want initiatives like Humble and crowd-funding have finally permitted that over-representation to turn us from an intense annoyance into a viable market to serve.  In fact, RuneSoft was the only dev I ever remember trying to use a crude version of crowd-sourcing (and achieved pretty good success at the time!).  To continue this, though, we need some steady increases in our userbase, something consistent that concurs with our claims of increased adoption due to increased availability (of worthwhile stuff).

I'll just continue down the "build it, and they will come" path that I'm pursuing with my game porting work because I'm not sure that I'm clued-into the social media generation enough to do direct advocacy effectively, but some of you are!  Do it!

L4Linux:  I agree, but Unigine is having a tough time gaining traction because of the primitive nature of their game development tools in contrast with the sophistication of their engine.  It is an amazing engine, better than UE4 in some ways, but multiple devs (not just motorsep from Kot-In-Action) have expressed how difficult it is to actually work with.  That is a shame, and I hope that the situation improves with Unigine being able to invest further in tools and developer-relations.  Also, despite what developers and representatives of Unity Technologies has stated publicly, their Linux port seems at best a grudging concession after porting to literally every other viable platform first.  

Humble has, I think, done the most, by far.  Valve would never have listened up, otherwise.  The porting crew at Humble have done so much publicly, with open-source engines, tools, and other goodies, that they have made it easier for all Linux devs to port and distribute games.  Heck, for the indies I'm working with, I'll be packaging up their Linux games using MojoSetup, by icculus himself!  Valve has taken it to the next level, with some of the most awesome and well-respected triple-A titles (their own, of course!), as well as growing the Steam ecosystem to bring on hundreds of cool titles.

A current Windows core-gamer may not find what they're looking for in Steam, by switching, and may feel cramped in that small-ish games library.  But a new gamer, starting fresh with Steam on Linux today... well, that kid is hundreds of hours deep in amazing indie and triple-A titles, across a dozen genres (or more!) before remotely becoming bored.  Further, this entire website is a testament to the fact that new amazing games are becoming available every day.  So, any of you folks out there with little sisters & brothers, daughters & sons, or nieces & nephews entering high-school... get to them early!  Help them love Linux like we do!  Help them appreciate quirky indie titles that can do & say things the larger devs can't get away with, in addition to the deep immersive triple-A experiences!  The next generation is now...

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Quoting: reedLaughed so much when I watched Sevadus play this on his stream. Cool game, though I think I'd prefer watching more of it instead of playing myself.

Well, we do have our own resident Linux gaming Let's Player, here in the community!  His name is Sabun [External Link], and if you haven't checked out any of his longish LP's, you ought:  http://www.youtube.com/user/PenguinRecordings [External Link]

Of course there's room in this world for all different styles of LP, but he's pretty well differentiated by his upbeat, positive energy, which contrasts the usually cynical, grumpy, and humorous personalities we are typically used to.  Don't get me wrong, I avidly watch (and have respect for) TotalBiscuit, Kikoskia, and Northernlion as well, but for some reason, Sabun's earnest enthusiasm best fits a Linux gaming LP, in my opinion.

I'm sure we could convince him to LP the game when it comes out :D

Though... a game like this makes it tough to stay positive!

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Hmm... as an inveterate point-n-clicker, after taking a look at The St. Christopher's School Lockdown, this one is really looking like it ventures more into visual-novel territory than what I would consider a classic adventure game, for what it's worth.

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Great coverage, as usual!  VEEERY interesting, regarding the Kingsport Cases, indeed.

Also, broken URL w.r.t. Kicking It Forward, at the end.

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Quoting: Mike FrettThis is what I like, a simple but effective Space game. Non-cluttered UI and Sand-boxed.

Yeah, actually the final UI design is going to be even cooler;  one of the stretch goals was to bring on a pro UI designer.  He's the guy that designed the logo and the promotional poster (which are all pretty cool, very clean & minimalist without looking lazy).

I'm pretty excited to play this!

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Quoting: scaineWaiting what feels like a very long time for this. Will purchase this weekend. Sweet!

Man, you said it!

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