Josh Klint of Leadwerks emailed me to ask me to shout out his new Kickstarter aimed at bringing Leadwerks over to Linux, unlike Unity3D the editor itself from Leadwerks will be on Linux as well enabled you to make games on Linux for Linux!
I am not personally up to scratch on Leadwerks but the more I look into it the more I think it will be useful to have!
It notes that you will be able to compile your code to work on Windows and Mac as well so you can push anything you make with it to all 3 of the major desktop Operating Systems, sounds even better!
He is looking to raise a total of $20,000 so it's not even a very high target in comparison.
Some games that have been made with Leadwerks:
You need to fork out at least $100 to get yourself a copy, to put things into comparison a Unity license is $1,500. The only drawback I can see is you have to pay $200 to get a copy for Linux, Mac and Windows but again still far far cheaper than Unity so in comparison still good value.
I may be comparing it too much to Unity but comparing it to the competition is the best way to see how it all stacks up, so far the fact that it's far cheaper is a big tick in my book.
They are a proven company too since their products have already been out for some time now, it's not like backing something brand new that might not come out.
Certainly seems like a complete no brainer to me, includes everything you need to make a game!
It's also needing Greenlight votes if you like the look of it!
What do you all make of it? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I am not personally up to scratch on Leadwerks but the more I look into it the more I think it will be useful to have!
QuoteWe have a complete visual editor that handles all aspects of the game development process, and we’re porting it to run natively on Linux. We’re using GTK for the user interface, so our editor will look and feel like a native Linux application.
It notes that you will be able to compile your code to work on Windows and Mac as well so you can push anything you make with it to all 3 of the major desktop Operating Systems, sounds even better!
He is looking to raise a total of $20,000 so it's not even a very high target in comparison.
Some games that have been made with Leadwerks:
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You need to fork out at least $100 to get yourself a copy, to put things into comparison a Unity license is $1,500. The only drawback I can see is you have to pay $200 to get a copy for Linux, Mac and Windows but again still far far cheaper than Unity so in comparison still good value.
I may be comparing it too much to Unity but comparing it to the competition is the best way to see how it all stacks up, so far the fact that it's far cheaper is a big tick in my book.
They are a proven company too since their products have already been out for some time now, it's not like backing something brand new that might not come out.
Certainly seems like a complete no brainer to me, includes everything you need to make a game!
It's also needing Greenlight votes if you like the look of it!
What do you all make of it? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
Personally I like Unigine (Oil Rush) It's a little more expensive than Unity but it runs great and looks wonderful even on older machines. From my experience, Unity takes quite a toll on machines. Games like Kerbal and Verdun which use Unity, don't run very good even on hardware only a few years old.
I just built my computer last year yet games like those two run like molasses even on low. Of course this is from my observations of my few computers in house. This engine looks really nice though and I am grateful that we have more choice for developers. And no matter the cost of all these engines, I have heard of Indie devs being able to negotiate the price of Unigine and Unity.
Let's not forget about Ogre too, it's free and doesn't look that bad; Torchlight for example. Incidentally, Torchlight 2 I think uses Ogre, I wish we had a native port of that. I had a blast playing Torchlight.
I just built my computer last year yet games like those two run like molasses even on low. Of course this is from my observations of my few computers in house. This engine looks really nice though and I am grateful that we have more choice for developers. And no matter the cost of all these engines, I have heard of Indie devs being able to negotiate the price of Unigine and Unity.
Let's not forget about Ogre too, it's free and doesn't look that bad; Torchlight for example. Incidentally, Torchlight 2 I think uses Ogre, I wish we had a native port of that. I had a blast playing Torchlight.
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I agree with Mike Frett.
Unigine is already an impressive concurrent to Unity, and the latter runs slow even for title like broforce.
On the other hand, Torchlight uses 90% of opensource libraries and although the devs said the game will be released under GNU/Linux we had to wait for HiB owns employees to do the port. Using an opensource engine doesn't mean they have to play it fair and smart.
Unigine is already an impressive concurrent to Unity, and the latter runs slow even for title like broforce.
On the other hand, Torchlight uses 90% of opensource libraries and although the devs said the game will be released under GNU/Linux we had to wait for HiB owns employees to do the port. Using an opensource engine doesn't mean they have to play it fair and smart.
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Cheeseness Jun 17, 2013
Quoting: GuestThe real news here isn't the engine; the news is the editor. Engines are one thing, but are ultimately useless without the editor to create and import content.QFT
It's tricky to compare this one to Unity as Unity's editor doesn't support Linux - you need to fire it up in Mac OS or Windows to make/build a game for Linux.
As for Unigine, I've heard rumours that its toolset is not as easy to work with as say, Unity or UDK, making it less attractive to developers (writing your own tools isn't a big deal, but it costs dev time, and since these things are targeting people who don't want to/can't invest time in writing their own engine, needing to write/tweak tools and workflows detracts from the appeal).
Definitely something I'm going to be keeping an eye on though. There seems to be a bunch of documentation and info on their site (which is linked to in the article above) which are probably worth having a look over.
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"Personally I like Unigine (Oil Rush) It's a little more expensive than Unity but it runs great and looks wonderful even on older machines."
A little more expensive? Doesn't it cost $1000s, IIRC a source code license is something like $50000!
A little more expensive? Doesn't it cost $1000s, IIRC a source code license is something like $50000!
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I have to agree with Mirv on the importance of the Editor itself coming to Linux. I hope Leadwerks succeed.
By the way, whatever happened to Torque3d? Looks like they're interest in bringing their editor to the Linux platform was just fluff... which is depressing. Their Github shows last commit as being a month ago for Linux, unless I'm looking in the wrong place.
By the way, whatever happened to Torque3d? Looks like they're interest in bringing their editor to the Linux platform was just fluff... which is depressing. Their Github shows last commit as being a month ago for Linux, unless I'm looking in the wrong place.
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Cheeseness Jun 17, 2013
Quoting: Kristian"Personally I like Unigine (Oil Rush) It's a little more expensive than Unity but it runs great and looks wonderful even on older machines."What's a source licence for Unity worth though? It's probably worth noting that the Leadwerks source licence appears to be separate from what's included in the pledge rewards.
A little more expensive? Doesn't it cost $1000s, IIRC a source code license is something like $50000!
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I should have included it in my comment, but I wrote it while standing and was in a rush. Yes, totally true the real story is the editor, but what's the point if the games created run badly and make customers angry?. Apparently a Unity pro license is $1500 for all platforms and a Unigine license is something like $30,000 but as I said, I read about Indie devs being able to negotiate the price down to around $2000.
Of course none of this is helpful to Indie devs just starting out with little to no money. Which is why I noted Ogre. The more the merrier I say, right?.
Of course none of this is helpful to Indie devs just starting out with little to no money. Which is why I noted Ogre. The more the merrier I say, right?.
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Quoting: GuestThe real news here isn't the engine; the news is the editor. Engines are one thing, but are ultimately useless without the editor to create and import content.This exactly.
Unity's editor doesn't support Linux but the Engine does. So this gives Leadwerks a bit in it's favour!
I have also heard Unigine isn't easy to work with and it's high price tag as well is probably why next to one in the indie scene uses it!
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Quoting: SabunI have to agree with Mirv on the importance of the Editor itself coming to Linux. I hope Leadwerks succeed.
By the way, whatever happened to Torque3d? Looks like they're interest in bringing their editor to the Linux platform was just fluff... which is depressing. Their Github shows last commit as being a month ago for Linux, unless I'm looking in the wrong place.
No, you're totally correct. GarageGames has committed to bringing the editor to Linux, but they needed a little help (the company is in rough shape, but is staying in business). They ran an ill-fated IndieGoGo project to do exactly what Leadwerks is doing, but they needed $30K, and ran a fixed-funding campaign (Kickstarter-style). I pledged to their campaign to help out.
The campaign would have benefited from a number of tweaks... in addition to very light interactivity with the backers (by today's crowd-funding standards), they also didn't even brag about Torque's clients' products' until late in the campaign! For example, there's the demo video from BeamNG, creators of an awesome soft-body physics engine... aside from obvious YouTube compression artifacts, the graphics may not seem too amazing until you realize that BeamNG are only two programmers & two artists, and they're only doing enough graphics to show off their physics engine!
It's pretty obvious that a larger, better funded, indie team with environment & texture artists could pull off AAA-quality with Torque3D... but GarageGames didn't sell that crucial point, unfortunately. It's already hard enough to put up, essentially, a free software project crowd-funding campaign, but I feel like they shot themselves in the foot on this one. Also, their campaign suffered the "IndieGoGo effect" (i.e., ~25% of the potential crowd-funding audience of Kickstarter).
Basically, when it ended, they said this was still important to them, but that they couldn't fund the port full-time. You know what that means... it's nights & weekends (and poking in a fix, here and there, between other features & deadlines), from the couple of folks willing to do it on their own. I hope that others (like Leadwerks) succeed and show there is a market for game creation on Linux with tools similar to that which Unity Technology provides. If that happens, then GarageGames could partner with an investor, or similar, to bring their editor over.
Also, the Linux version of their engine needs some love, but it's supposedly quite capable in the hands of a good video game programmer, albeit somewhat inflexible. Don't quote me on that, as I haven't used it personally, and am relaying what other developers have stated.
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QuoteIf that happens, then GarageGames could partner with an investor, or similar, to bring their editor over.I definitely hope something that good would happen in the future for them. I had no idea about the demo being done by only four people! You raise some good points, I hope Leadwerks won't fall into the same pits of doom. 100$ for the licence is very reasonable, so I hope that it's doable in the time frame they've set up.
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