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Now this is putting Humble back on the map for Linux gamers, a weekly sale where some of the proceeds go towards open source projects!

Of course you can customize where you money goes as always.

The bundle consists of:
Magical Diary
NEO Scavenger
Offspring Fling!
Planet Stronghold
Anodyne
Defenders Quest
Evoland (not on Linux)
Incredipede

Not actually a bad list of games!

By buying the games you can support these open source projects:
FlashDevelop - A source code editor for working with Flash Actionscript and Haxe.
OpenFL - a fast, cross-platform implementation of the Flash API
Ren'Py - a game engine designed for visual novels and life simulations, forms of digital storytelling that present writing, choices, images, and sounds to the player.
Haxe Foundation - Haxe is an open source cross-platform tool kit. With a single programming language you can target multiple mainstream platforms: web, mobile, desktop. It is used to develop apps and games such as Papers Please, Evoland, and many others.

It does make you wonder why Evoland has no Linux version if it is built with such cross-platform tools. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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17 comments

Rattlehead Mar 27, 2014
If I remember right, devs was promised to make a linux-port of Evoland, aren't they?
Liam Dawe Mar 27, 2014
If I remember right, devs was promised to make a linux-port of Evoland, aren't they?

I have reached out to the developer for clarification.
migizi Mar 27, 2014
I love to support open source but I fundamentally hate anything involving Flash. The fact that more than one of the games in that bundle requires Adobe Air or Flash makes me angry. I'm sure they are great games but I hate Adobe with a passion.

I know some of these guys have been working on their stuff for so long that Flash and Air once sounded good, but what happened is Adobe proved they don't stand behind their products.

Hope the devs make some money on the sale but it won't be mine.
Lars Doucet Mar 27, 2014
For the "I hate flash" crowd:
First, read this article:
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20140318/213407/Flash_is_dead_long_live_OpenFL.php

Haxe/OpenFL/FlashDevelop all contribute towards a development pipeline that is our best hope for entirely replacing flash. By moving our Actionscript code to Haxe (a similar but superior, and 100% open source) language, and leveraging OpenFL's mirroring of the Flash API, we can compile our games, *natively* for C++.

As for EvoLand -- that's created by Nicolas Cannasse, the *creator* of the Haxe language. Right now it's outputted to AIR, but it's actually written in Haxe so it will likely come to linux in the future, as soon as he can build out the 3D Api's for haxe so that they mirror in OpenGL the stage3D calls he's using right now.

Here's Nicolas' open source report card:
http://osrc.dfm.io/ncannasse

And here's the 3d library in question:
https://github.com/ncannasse/h3d/tree/heaps

Here's my open source report card for the record:
http://osrc.dfm.io/larsiusprime
migizi Mar 27, 2014
For the "I hate flash" crowd:

Some of those game still require Flash and or Air even if they are built with tools that give you the option not to output to Flash. This was a decision the developer made for one reason or another.
Anonymous Mar 27, 2014
Indeed, it's not a perfect situation. We'd like the future to be here already, but we're still busy building it. When Haxe/OpenFL matures, we'll be able to leave Flash/AIR behind once and for all, and putting together this bundle to raise money for those causes is a part of that initiative, to bring truly native cross-platform development, built entirely on open source tools, to linux and other platforms.

And if you don't want to play games with Flash/AIR... that's fine, I get that, feel free to skip this bundle, I'll support you in that. I just want to explain our motives.
DrMcCoy Mar 27, 2014
Haxe and OpenFL feel clutchy, like "supporting" cross-platform programs by letting your code run in Javascript browsers thanks to cross-compiling using Emscripten, or bundling your new games with a wine wrapper.

I'm fine with them for making old, unsupported games run on Linux, but they really shouldn't be seen as a viable platform for new projects.
dcfedor Mar 27, 2014
Haxe and OpenFL feel clutchy

It sounds a bit like you think Haxe/OpenFL apps are just a Flash projector or browser-wrapper around a Flash file. If so, I can see why that would make you hesitant to support it. Being a dev stuck in that mode right now, it's not something I want to perpetuate.

However, Haxe and OpenFL (a lib for Haxe) generate native apps for each platform. No browser-js, Flash projectors, Wine wrapper, AIR doodads, etc.

If you already knew that, I apologize! Also, if I have my facts wrong, feel free to correct me!
s_d Mar 27, 2014
This looks like it will help more developers bring native builds of their games, while still allowing them to use the development tools they are familiar with. I think this is fantastic, and if it provides a robust, familiar development environment, coupled with solid, performant, native builds, then it's definitely worth supporting.

If there are example projects, then someone could build a simple unit-test & benchmarking suite for platform comparison, especially 3D acceleration. That could also be used for community regression testing. I think that such a project might help dispell the sentiment that effort spent here is intended to build a glorified node-webkit, when that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Hamish Mar 27, 2014
Not terribly excited by any of the games (just as a matter of taste) but I probably will throw some money in as I do genuinely appreciate the concept, making this only the second Humble Weekly Sale I ever felt the desire to participate in.
Maokei Mar 27, 2014
I love to support open source but I fundamentally hate anything involving Flash. The fact that more than one of the games in that bundle requires Adobe Air or Flash makes me angry. I'm sure they are great games but I hate Adobe with a passion.

I know some of these guys have been working on their stuff for so long that Flash and Air once sounded good, but what happened is Adobe proved they don't stand behind their products.

Hope the devs make some money on the sale but it won't be mine.

I do agree with you adobe is a good example of a company that gives 0 fucks and behave like shit, and it shows on theor products.

Adobe CEO refuses to answer Australian pricing questions!!! *creative cloud*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv6CUbFvC2Y
manny Mar 28, 2014
finally some humble $$ for open source! And this time Windows / mac users will be contributing also :D

This was long overdue, since a lot of open source helps indies to start out or is used in some form or another. but not much is contributed back...

Anyway if this bundle does well am sure they'll do it more frequently and maybe even for tools like Gimp, blender, inkscape, krita, etc.
Crazy Penguin Mar 28, 2014
Strange! An Open Source Bundle without sources.
Anonymous Mar 28, 2014
@Lars Doucet

Sure, it enables you to make native versions, but that's sort of meaningless here, isn't it? It's not like you couldn't have made your game without Flash. For every developer that used it, it was a conscious and deliberate decision - you went with Flash because you wanted to run in the browser (or because you're a pigheaded ignorant person who thinks Flash is a good platform, see Telepath or BoI). The chances of those same people now choosing a different solution? Oh, I understand *some* might be kind enough to offer a native version, most likely those who end up in a high profile bundle, but it's not like they've suddenly seen the light due to Haxe, and now their rather undemanding games will finally run at a decent framerate on modern computers instead of the present comic strip like experience gamers on Linux have with Flash. It's still going to be Flash. Or worse, HTML5, which is the great equalizer - now everyone suffers poor performance, not just platforms Adobe can't be bothered with due to preparing money smoothies (dollars are still green, right?) and leaving their source code all over the place.

Enough ranting, I'm off to buy Planet Stronghold (again) and donate some money to Ren'Py.
dcfedor Mar 28, 2014
Strange! An Open Source Bundle without sources.

A few folks have mentioned being confused by the bundle's title, and in retrospect, it probably should've been more explicit. The games in this bundle are not open source. Rather, they are all games that used one or more of the open source tools this bundle donates to. Namely, Haxe, OpenFL, FlashDevelop, and Ren'Py.

We gained a lot from the generosity of these open source communities, and we wanted to return the favor in some way. Humble Bundle not only gives those projects some much-needed money, it also grants them some pretty good exposure!

@Lars Doucet

Sure, it enables you to make native versions, but that's sort of meaningless here, isn't it?

I'll be honest, I'm one of those pigheaded ignorant people you refer to. I thought Flash was a pretty good choice for a cross-platform game. True, I wanted to target the browser. But later, I also started providing downloadable versions, and I thought Flash was still good enough for what I was trying to build.

However, I wouldn't say this bundle is a meaningless effort. For one thing, this bundle exposes a large number of people to four technologies they might not have heard of. Even if it only inspires 1 of the developers who see it, that's worth it, right? I mean, that's one more developer making truly native, cross-platform games.

I guess my point is, we're better off for this bundle existing than not. Aren't we?
Ivancillo Mar 28, 2014
Has anyone noticed that in this bundle there's a game redeemable in GoG.com?

If I'm not worng, Defender's Quest is the first game that HumbleBundle make redeemable via GoG.com (for the moment Windows-only).
hagabaka Mar 30, 2014
Incredipede works fine in Firefox. It’s pretty and original, but possibly tedious.

Defender’s Quest does not start.

Offspring Fling tried to use a non-existant « sensible-browser » command, but you can just open the swf in Firefox… It works but the keys cannot be remapped which is not ideal. Also it looks bad.

Neo Scavenger works… but it changes parts of my desktop background on other workspaces and also some parts of Offspring Fling (if I run the two games at the same time on different workspaces).

Anodyne wants to install Adobe AIR in /opt… not sure I want that.

No problem with Magical Diary and Planet Stronghold (ren'py games).

(Arch Linux 64 bit, nvidia blob)
Defender's Quest is in Adobe Air. Archwiki explains how to run such programs on Arch Linux here. Basically, install adobe-air-sdk, and run /opt/adobe-air-sdk/bin/adl -nodebug Air-app-directory/META-INF/AIR/application.xml Air-app-directory/
I actually uploaded AUR packages for Defender's Quest and its demo version a while ago. They are probably out of date though.
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