A story driven, action-stealth-puzzler where you create and control your own zombie army! I fell in love when the developers emailed it in. Linux and Mac releases from day 1 will be a stretch goal, so I dug to find out why!
Ray’s the Dead is a game where YOU are the leader of the zombie army. It’s story driven gameplay will challenge you with a satisfying blend of action, tactics, puzzle, stealth, and adventure, all rolled into one fresh gaming experience. Sneak, smash, laugh, and moan your way through the last hurrah of the 1980’s as you take on the role of Ray, the newly risen zombie.
On asking about Unity and Linux support they said this:
QuoteWe do use Unity. To be honest, we haven't actually started playing with a Linux port yet! We are still 9 - 10 months or so away from release, so we haven't even gone there yet. So I'm afraid I can't answer your first two questions yet!
Depending on how the campaign goes, our first stretch goal after we are funded is a 'have the game release on Mac and Linux the same day as the PC'. So if we get that few extra bucks, we can get some help from someone with experience and have it release at the same time. That is what we want for sure!
Thanks again Liam!
Chris
When asking why it will be a stretch goal when they haven't even tested it yet they responded with this:
QuoteA fair question!
The cost is an educated estimate based on our programmers research, and the experiences we've seen first hand based on our dealings with the Mac version.
In our findings, there is NO chance that either version will be as simple as the click of a button, so the costs are roughly for a month of a programmers time for each version, with a bit less slanted toward the Mac, and a bit more slanted toward Linux.
The only reason we haven't tried it is that none of the three of us currently run Linux. Our programmer is the only one of the three of us that has a Mac, and he occasionally makes a build and investigates the differences.
If by some miracle, Unity improves and it really is as simple as clicking a button, there will be no shortage of other expenses that we will need to spend the money on. Any aspect of game development nearly always end up costing more and taking longer than it should.
I hope that answers your question!
A pitty it will be a stretch goal but I am still totally in love with this concept and the current gameplay looks highly entertaining.
The good thing to remember is Linux is supported anyway, just not on day 1 until they hit the stretch goal, so unlike other studios they will be doing the Linux port anyway! Considering that and they where very honest about it all, they are well worth supporting I say!
muntdefems May 13, 2013
Anyway, I thought that creating a Linux build with Unity4 was as simple as clicking a button...
We don't have a mention of our stretch goals because we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. As you can see, we have a long way to go. We feel it would be putting the cart before the horse to talk about stretch goals on our page when we have so far to go to achieve our base goal. I mentioned it to Liam because he specifically asked about it.
If what you say is true about Unity 4, then all the better. That will ensure that we can release the same time as PC, even if our stretch goal isn't met. Upgrading to Unity 4 is the first thing we want to do when we achieve our base goal. If we aren't funded, we will be stuck using Unity 3.x, and in truth, we may not be able to release on Linux at all, as the Linux license is included in our base goal.
As things stand right now, the testing we have done with exporting to other platforms has yielded a lot of inconsistencies, and it would be irresponsible for us to assume that it will go off without a hitch, even after upgrading to Unity 4. Things rarely do in game development. :)
Thanks for your interest!
muntdefems May 13, 2013
Fair enough, I understand your reasons, but still I think it could be quite a letdown for Linux backers if eventually they don't get the game released on this platform on day 1, specially if they pledged believing so.
I'm not really sure a Linux export is as easy as I said with Unity 4, I just remember somebody saying something along these lines, and complaining that because of this some developers just distribute what Unity spits at them, without even testing it.
I hope this is the case for Ray's the Dead (the exporting ease, not the lazy distribution :P) so there's a Linux version on the first day and this discussion about announcing stretch goals or not is rendered purely academical. ^_^
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