Cheese talks to Frozenbyte

Cheese our local forum resident recently had a chat with a couple people from Frozenbyte (Trine, Trine 2) and did an interview with them.

QuoteLately, I've been corresponding with Joel Kinnunen, Vice President of Finnish independent game development company Frozenbyte, who are currently recovering from the lauch of Trine 2's native Linux client, and working hard on the as yet untitled upcoming Trine 2 expansion.

In this two part interview, Joel and Senior Programmer Jukka Kokkonen share their thoughts on the Trine series, the in-house development of Trine 2's Linux port, and what the future may hold for Frozenbyte. Part two of the interview is also live.

For those that don't know Trine and Trine 2 (do you live under a rock?) are very colourful (read - beautiful) platformers with combat, puzzles, the whole shabang!

Cheese asks some important questions for us Linux folk;

QuoteLinux versions of Frozenbyte's games have been available since 2009, but Trine 2 is the first game to have a native Linux port developed in-house. How did the decision to handle a Linux port internally come about?

Jukka: At least technology-wise, we had already gone with a major engine re-write for Trine 2. And as we did that, writing portable code was one of the major points of focus. So with an engine that was already portable to various other platforms, Windows, Xbox 360, PS3 and Mac OS X, it seemed like a rather easy task to port it to Linux as well. Specifically the relative similarity of the Mac port made the Linux port seem like a feasible thing to do.

Joel: We also wanted to be able to provide proper support for the Linux versions. There will always be problems and if we're going to be serious about Linux, then we need to be able to help our customers directly.

QuoteLooking forward, are future titles likely to be ported in-house?
Joel: Yes, this is the plan. We will do these decisions on a game-by-game basis but the Trine 2 experience at least has been very good, so chances are good.

Cheese holds nothing back and makes sure they get right to the point and keeps the questions nice and relevant. It is interesting to see another developer have a positive porting experience when porting to Linux (maybe the LIMBO "porters" for the latest HIB can learn something from frozenbyte...).

What really caught my eye is this one though;

QuoteWhat distribution platforms for Linux are currently being considered for Trine 2?
Joel: I think we'll go with everything, it just takes time to set things up. It's not a high priority to be honest - we have the game now on our own store and will bring it to Desura, and I guess Ubuntu Software Center would be good too, and Gameolith just because it's easy to work with Jonathan over there, but other than that it'll be a new channel every now and then. We are somewhat selective about the stores though, so we have to decline the smallest ones unfortunately.

Looks like Gameolith is doing a good job, maybe more developers should look to them, they seem to be a little bit of an underdog at the moment (they are good though i own a couple games from them!).

Enough of my quoting and rambling, be sure to check out the two parter interview, it's a good one. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.