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This is mighty interesting for Linux gamers, Oniken an action platformer has released itself onto Steam and it states it uses Wine for Linux & Mac.

QuoteMac and Linux version are Wine wrappers. They're not a port but in every machine we could test the game it ran perfectly and without any problem. However if you have a problem with these versions please e-mail us!
We can't get gamepad controls working in the wrappers, but you can use key mapping softwares (like joy2key).


Features
Graphics, sounds and difficulty from the 8-bit era
Cinematic cutscenes
Over 18 boss fights
Six missions, three stages each
An extra mission after you beat the game
Boss rush mode
Not difficult enough? Try the new HARDCORE MODE
Global Leaderboards
Full pixelated violence

About
When a global war nearly decimated humankind, an evil military organization called Oniken takes advantage of the situation to dominate and oppress the few remaining survivors. Even though any resistance to this organization seemed hopeless, a small rebel movement organizes strikes against Oniken. One day, a ninja mercenary named Zaku offers his services to the resistance for unknown reasons. His moves are lethal and now he is the resistance's only hope.

Oniken is an action platform game highly inspired by the 1980's, its games and its movies. You can see this not only in the graphics and sound design, but also in Oniken's story and difficulty.

Don't Worry, You Will Die A Lot Of Times.

Every copy of Oniken comes with digital versions of the game manual and the original soundtrack.



Ps. It has been available on Desura for some time now.
Oniken

Do you think we will see more of this on Linux in general? What do you make of it? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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18 comments

abelthorne Feb 5, 2014
While I don't really care if a game is native or uses a Wine wrapper − as long as it works flawlessly −, the lack of gamepad support and the suggestion to use joy2key instead is really, really bad IMO. A game should work as expected out of the box, the people who buy it shouldn't have to use "hacks" to make it work.
tuxisagamer Feb 5, 2014
I think a lot of companies are going to do this. Especially some of the smaller indie developers making smaller games running their own engine.

From the perspective of a one or two man team making only one version but testing it against wine makes sense for them.
Samsai Feb 5, 2014
I can in some cases understand the use of Wine to bring your game to Linux, but I think we can call this pure laziness. This game isn't exactly technologically advanced and the engine should be fairly easy to port to Linux. Hey, we even have native AAAs, so an 8-bit platformer should definitely be possible with the libraries and technologies on Linux.
Edgar Feb 5, 2014
I am not against the availability of Wine-wrapped games, as long as their status is made clear. However, I won't pay for a Wine-wrapped game.
adolson Feb 5, 2014
I am not against the availability of Wine-wrapped games, as long as their status is made clear. However, I won't pay for a Wine-wrapped game.
I guess I agree with that. It's going to really suck when a game I actually want to play ships with this Wine bullshit, though.
PKM Feb 5, 2014
Don't care if it uses wine when it comes to a game that would probably run on a potato, the problem is that it doesn't support gamepads, I like playing platformers with them, I guess that's where the steam controller comes in.
Linas Feb 5, 2014
Oh no. I was really hoping that Valve would not allow this. Now we are going to end up with a bunch of different versions of Wine embedded in every game claiming Linux compatibility.

I do wonder how does it integrate with Steam overlay and such?
manny Feb 5, 2014
if it actually works very well, almost native like, I actually prefer wine, than other non supported stuff like adobe AIR, that make installing games pretty hard many times.

I know the devs that used AIR were thinking multiplatform from the start , so is not their fault that adobe pulled the plug on our platform. But is better for them to start dropping these dying proprietary technologies.

I can't say this dev is lazy, since you never know when the fella started the project and what was the best tool he could find back then. And needs some funds before making proper ports.

But Hopefully devs will be moving on to better and OPEN multiplatform technologies.

Anyway be it wine, monogame, etc. as long as the game is not buggy or hard to install, I have no problem. But yea I will pay more to those that already made the extra effort for native ports.
Anonymous Feb 5, 2014
Valve should NOT allow wine wrappped games on steam. This is not right. I don't care how well the game works. If they want my money, they better support my OS properly. If I wanted to run a game in Wine, I would buy the windows version and do it myself. Gotta give them some credit for being upfront about it on the store page though. There is a couple of games wine wrapped now on Steam. I for one will avoid them all.
Márcio Carneiro Feb 5, 2014
I don't have problems with old games that use wine to archive the linux version in Steam.
But new games? No. They need to be native ports.
AX Feb 5, 2014
For me it's better to have working Wine-bundled game in Steam for linux than half-working game in half-working Steam for Windows under Wine
CFWhitman Feb 5, 2014
I would hope that new efforts for games would just use a cross-platform technology. I don't know when this game was developed or what they used to develop it. It's clearly something that would be easy to make cross-platform without Wine if you started development for it now.
abelthorne Feb 5, 2014
I don't know when this game was developed or what they used to develop it.
It seems that they use the Clickteam SDK, which has no Linux support.
Liam Dawe Feb 5, 2014
If anyone is to use a "game creator" type SDK I wish they would use Construct 2 rather than Clickteam's MMF, at least construct 2 has Linux exporting due to being a HTML5 engine.
Hamish Feb 5, 2014
I remember I did get to play with this at one point and the WINE layer it used at the time was dreadful. Display settings ran badly and it was so obviously being ran through WINE that even someone who had never used the software before could figure it out.

If it has not improved since then I really do question Valve's decision to include it on Steam, given the higher entry barrier they enforce on developers I would hope that it would at least mean that they have a higher degree of quality control. Desura having it is one thing, they are inclusive, but if Steam wants to be taken seriously with its demands they have to be a little more circumspect in this respect.
Francois MAROT Feb 5, 2014
I have no problem with Wine but the problem with joysticks is a stopper for me... Too bad, this is the kind of 'little' games you expect to work flawlessly right out of the bos, whatever the emulation layer running it.
potatopete Feb 6, 2014
I'm really in two minds about this, as I'm a sucker for retro styles games, but I don't want to encourage the use of a Wine wrapper.
HadBabits Feb 7, 2014
My main problem is definitely the idea I have to hack around to get the same experience people are on other platforms. It's not the first time I've heard this attitude from a dev and I won't support it.

As for the wine wrapper I don't know. If anything I'd like to see it implemented in older Windows games I'd like to play, because getting Wine to behave is often a frustrating experience I'd prefer someone else to handle.
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