It is worth reporting the bugs on the forum as suggested, since the devs really have been paying attention to bugs encountered on Linux.

When I first started trying the LoA Linux betas they were pretty unplayable on my system. I've seen a lot of important bugs getting fixed between those early betas and the last beta before this official release, including memory optimizations, mouse-grabbing behavior, crashes in game settings, major graphic artifacts on radeons, and the whole multiplayer feature being added. The only reason I'm not jumping on this release yet is that my aging desktop is a little too low spec for multiplayer, which is how I really want to play LoA. I'll get back to LoA in a couple months after getting a new desktop.

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Insection just cancelled their campaign as well, but are continuing to work on the game
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glasswingstudio/insection/posts [External Link]

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Whoa this is the Worms series that a good friend used to tell me about, when I tried to tell him about Earthworm Jim... think I'll need to give this one a try!

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I'm liking Unity a lot -- finally a good reason for mono to exist.

The new Spaceventure demo level is built on Unity, and is running just fine on linux. Dev said so far they didn't need to do much beyond selecting the build output. LoA team had to do more work, but like I mentioned they were releasing betas when Unity 4 was still quite new.

On the stretch goal topic, I agree that Linux stretch goals are normally problematic, as explained in Cheeseness' fine article. However leaving all the extra funds open to a backer poll would not inspire me to pledge above the base goal; I keep getting voted against on all the Worlds of Magic polls :P

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Quoting: OZSeafordAll these kickstarters with Linux promises make me a bit wary.

Eador, Interstellar Marines, and I could name a few who managed to get our money because they said that Linux was going to be supported, and we are still waiting to see this happen.

Mark my word, I still find it admirable that developers are even thinking about releasing on what is, we have to face it, a niche platform. And apparently, none of them have yet "abandonned" the idea officially, we will have to settle for later releases. I just hope projects don't get abandoned.

I have my fingers crossed for wastelands 2, one of the first projects I supported, for a simultaneous release on all platforms.

So far so good on the projects I've funded, starting with Legends of Aetherus who put in some work to fix linux-specific mouse grabbing and fglrx issues in the early betas. Now Spaceventure just released a demo level to backers, and that one appears to have no linux-specific issues at all, so maybe Unity has matured since LoA started releasing Linux betas. Planetary Annihilation beta is coming this fall, and that also sounds very promising given the lack of complaints in the recent GoL article on the alpha.

I admit I did pledge for the unsuccessful kickstarter on Interstellar Marines, but if they had managed to get all that funding then it might have been easier for them to justify doing cross-platform work to begin with -- probably they really need the Steam funds rolling in from windows gamers ASAP to support further work after their reasonable budget went down in flames. Of course it's easier for me to cut them some slack, since I didn't go through with the pre-order on their own site after the kickstarter failed... but they never promised simultaneous release based on a slim budget of pre-order funds and whatever investment they could scrape together. In fact any other investors would likely try to discourage investing time to work on the Linux port prior to Steam release.

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Yeah, all our art is gonna be done in gimp, inkscape, and blender. I like it!

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My bet is Liam, wanting you to do more like this ;)

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On the good side, I don't need to go around posting about this thing in forums for the next few weeks, since they think they've got the base goal covered without Linux gamers. I have plenty of actual work keeping me busy at the moment. If they really do get into stretch goal territory, we'll all hear about it.

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Precinct could have been another Biggie, except so far they postponed the Linux port to $200k extra!

Some current backers are trying to explain why that's not a great idea, so we'll see.

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Quoting: muntdefemsfor the record we'd want to state that LFG & The Fork of Truth was already featured as a Biggie two weeks ago. :D

It did appear as a Biggie, but I realized just now that Linux has been added to base goal instead of a stretch goal (yes wiki is now updated). If I'd known that last week, it probably would appeared under "in the running", but by this time it's rather a long-shot given current performance
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1412277313/lfg-the-fork-of-truth/#chart-daily [External Link]

The goal is just too high; while certainly well known, LFG has about an order of magnitude fewer daily readers than Homestuck, which is likely the project in whose footsteps they wanted to follow. Plus the culture of the fanbase seems different, not so amazingly gung-ho on comic-related collectables that they are begging for the chance to spend all their money on physical goodies. Homestuck had an insane average pledge for a game project, because it was practically a physical goodies project with a game offered as extra incentive. We're talking major emphasis, effort, and expense on the physical reward fulfillment for Homestuck, while LFG kickstarter has forgone physical collectibles altogether.

Not that I'm saying LFG should have gone crazy on the collectibles; like I said, their core backers don't seem like the same kind of fan who is dying to spend hundreds of dollarson limited edition shirts, stickers, plushies. However it does help explain why they haven't been able to follow the same path to success as Homestuck, which is a big outlier in kickstarter history as a hugely funded game not developed by a game development "star" (Chris Roberts, InXile, etc etc)

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