Quoting: Quote from Cheeseness

Quoting: Quote from s_dI recall this popping up on Reddit also!  Exciting, but I'll believe it when I see it :)

Same here, although I'd like to see the Linux gaming community help highlight any demand for a Linux version.

I recall that during the JP debacle, Dan said that they'd been looking into all sorts of things including Humble Bundles (at that point, they were cross platform only), so it's possible they've been considering it for some time.

Well, along with many others, I have e-mailed them and (once upon a time, under an abandoned username) posted in the forum before one of the big forum reshuffles many years ago, as well as (along with a few dozen other Redditors such as yourself) on the recent AMA.  Though, at the time, I recall feeling a little trolled by either dismissive or outright anti-Linux sentiment from other forum denizens (with the exception of the one long Wine thread).  That was frustrating :)  Twitter isn't really in my genes, though.

It's good to hear that they've made other positive noises within recent(ish) memory, aside from the usual "we have no plans for a Linux version at this time" and so forth.  That was what, three years ago?

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I recall this popping up on Reddit also!  Exciting, but I'll believe it when I see it :)

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With Steam, you log in to install a game every time.  No DRM means you log in to *download* the installer... and never forced to log in to install or play that game.  No DRM means you can *choose* to log in for a patched version if you care to.

Non-Steamworks games on Steam are a pain in the ass to copy out and archive for later installation;  in fact, no care is made whatsoever that it be easy for you to remove the game and play it elsewhere.  A DRM-free installer (like the Desura standalone downloads, Humble, Shinyloot, Fireflower, etc) makes that as easy as possible.

The above can be useful for older games.  Here is a practical example of why it's handy even on new-ish games With a DRM-free game not on Steamworks, I can easily archive and reinstall any previous patch revision.  Not all patches are beneficial!!! Try to roll back a few patches on an arbitrary Steam game.  Give it a shot and tell us how that goes.

The downside is that patching is an annoyance, a pain in the ass, and is incredibly wasteful of bandwidth.  The best solution has barely any attention at all;  a digital distribution service providing an integrated client that can do incremental patches, happens to be open source, permits but discourages DRM, and alternately permits multi-platform DRM-free installer downloads.

I do believe that the DRM-free issue is strongly stacked toward single-player games.  For multi-player games, there is already a notion of always-on DRM in the form of logging in to one's leaderboard profile, match-making, cheat prevention, server ban lists for repeat offenders of malfeasance, and intra-game/team chat.  Giving developers really good tools to handle all that in a easy, reasonably secure, and streamlined way with a nice programmer's API is one of Steamworks' greatest value-adds.  Developers love it for that purpose.

Personally, those features offer me little benefit, and I'd prefer to not have a client ever get in my way.  Others have different needs.

Anyway, the above is my personal definition what is and is not "DRM".  Simply having a log-in to download a file for the first time does not qualify.  If that were the case, then liquor transactions at a shop could be DRM... you can't take the merchandise until they see your personally-identifying card?!  Ludicrous!  Claiming that a simple log-in to one-time-download an installer is equivalent to Steamworks plus Steam Guard is equally ludicrous.

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The team stated that the gameplay footage is using placeholder graphics for the background layers... and that they're planning to have FEZ-level pixel graphics to match the sprites.  For a pixel-art fan, that sounds gobsmackingly amazing!  FEZ is gorgeous in that regard, and the faux-3D parallaxing works really well in that game.  If they can even come close to that level with Super Roman Combat, I'll be a very happy backer indeed.

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Knytt Underground is fun.  I've been playing it with my kid for a while now (she's just learning to read, so I skip over and "paraphrase" the text where it isn't appropriate for a little one) and it's pretty good.  Nice tight platforming controls, very atmospheric.  The character sprites (some literally called sprites in-game, BTW) are cartoon-styled, and seem a touch out-of-place, but are expressive enough to carry the story along.  I got it when it released on Linux (it was on Desura then) and have been enjoying it since!  Being on Steam will certainly do good things for the dev, I'm sure. :)

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AWESOME turtle tank!  Wow, I wants :D

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Lookin' irie mi bredda :D

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The demo is updated to work properly now (per Lapinopl's comment, and others).  Just needs execute permissions set on the game binary, but other than that, seems to work :)

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Wow, another take on it from Game Informer:  http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/10/20/dark-matter-publisher-address-the-game-39-s-abrupt-ending.aspx [External Link]

Really looks to me like they should have marked it as an episodic adventure platformer, and put this version up on Early Access, with the caveat that they're working on it.  As it stands, they've already changed the "ending" once, and are going to do so again (i.e., give it a proper cinematic).  That marks it "unfinished", to me, regardless of the length and polish of the content.

They should have hired their trailer video team to create an ending cinematic in precisely that art style, and with similar voiced narration, and probably priced it below $15.

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A free-culture game, and one that looks really good as well.  These guys deserve all the monies.

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