Good interview! I'm really glad to see some Linux gaming portals starting up. I've been saying for years that we need this, but nobody was willing to do it. That's one reason why I started adding Linux games made by other developers to my own site.

To Jonathan: I would recommend adding a link to your home page so so interested developers can quickly find your partner page. I spent quite a few minutes hunting around before I found a link to it in your FAQs. A discreet link at the very bottom of your page would be sufficient. You don't want to make it hard for interested developers to find it.

Also, your partner page doesn't load right for me. It's dark text on a dark background, with some little white boxes down the side: http://partners.gameolith.com/ [External Link]

On your partner page, I would like to see some additional information:

1) The royalty split. I see no reason not to be up front about this, especially for a startup company. Apple posts this with regard to their App Store, and nearly all casual game portals (Big Fish, Oberon, iWin, etc) post it. I realize Steam doesn't, nor some of the other hardcore gaming sites, but I really don't understand why, unless it's so they can screw some developers with lower royalties than others. That's one reason why I've never approached them with my games (not that they would probably take them anyway) - it doesn't inspire a feeling of trust and fairness on their part.

2) An e-mail address. You really need to provide a way for interested developers to contact you if they have questions. If you don't want to post an e-mail address publicly, then at least provide a contact form.

3) A link to a copy of your standard publishing contract. Some companies post this, some don't. But unlike other companies, which I can just deliver a binary to and they package it up, you want the source code. I understand why you need it, since Linux is so fragmented with hundreds of distributions running a nearly infinite combination of library versions. But as a closed source game developer, if I'm going to turn my source code over to a company I don't know, I'm going to need some assurances. I need to know precisely what both of our rights and obligations are, what you will and won't do with my source code, and what provisions are in place to protect the source code if our partnership should cease. I realize you probably have the best of intentions, and you may even be a person of good integrity, but what if you sell your company someday or someone else takes over? That happened with Reflexive Arcade a couple of years ago. Amazon bought them out, and immediately changed the terms of the contract. So myself and dozens of other developers chose to end our arrangements because we didn't agree to the terms of the new contract. So I would like to see a link to your standard contract on your partner page, or at least a good summary of these provisions in your contract. It would go a long way to alleviating my concerns (and perhaps those of other interested developers) to the point where they're willing to contact you to start discussions.

Thanks for reading!

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Thanks! Whew!

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I got them, thanks. But you may have missed my latest updated version. Can you download it again and give it another go? I think I have it fixed.

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Ok, Hamish! I just uploaded a new version. Same link as before. Somehow I missed the fact that the first level was still loading a bunch of old placeholder art that doesn't exist anymore. All of the other levels should be fine.

Please give it one more try, and let me know.Thanks!

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Yes it does! Thanks Hamish! I'm going to upload another update in a few minutes that should fix it...

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KIAaze - good, the lighting looks normal now. I'm not sure there's much I can do about the dark room. The stair-stepping you see is occurring along the tile boundaries. I think it is so noticeable there because the ambient light level is very low in the room, so the contrast between the light and dark area is very high. Raising the ambient light level in the room will help hide the stark edges, but then that kind of defeats the purpose of having the light switch. Granted, in this case the light switch is not necessary, but it does introduce players to light switches, which become important later on in the game with some lighting puzzles.

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Hamish, please try one more time. I uploaded a new version that will spit out the image name for the texture it is trying to load. If I can isolate the specific image it's having trouble with, maybe that will help.

It's at the same link as before:
http://www.mygamecompany.com/downloads/dirkdashing2setup_linuxtest [External Link]

The output will go to the game's log file in ~/.dirkdashing2/ddlog.txt. Please e-mail that log file to me at [email protected] - thanks!

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Drat. I'm learning to hate this R600 driver.

Oh well, at least it wasn't a total loss. I think optimizing the texture loading and fixing the lighting issue was still necessary. I just wish the R600 error message wasn't so freaking cryptic. I'm shooting in the dark here...

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I have a new test build that should smooth out the lighting effects. I think I've also fixed the crash that some users have reported when using joysticks/gamepads, and some crashes when switching back and forth between fullscreen and windowed modes while a game is in progress. I've also updated my texture loading code based on some information I found on the OpenGL site's wiki under "common mistakes". Oh, and it shouldn't modify your PATH environment variable anymore either.

You can get the test build from here:
http://www.mygamecompany.com/downloads/dirkdashing2setup_linuxtest [External Link]

Can you guys give it a go, and see if it fixes the crash when using the R600 driver, and if the lighting effects look better?

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Will do. I'll have a new version in another day or two. I've got about a half dozen crash reports from various players, and I really want to get these fixed ahead of Friday's release.

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