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Free Indie Saturday - The Very Organized Thief

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First of all, what is "Free Indie Saturday"? A series I'll be trying to do every Saturday about a free indie game! Of course, I'm not an approved writer so it wont be guaranteed ;) If the higher powers feel my work is worth it, maybe it'll change!

Anyway, lets be organised here. What is this game I'm talking about? A stealing simulator 2014. You run around, you steal stuff and you get hit in the face by an angry lady who apparently has a problem with people stealing her christmas presents. Some people..

This is a fun little game with a few secrets. Like, you can cut the alarm-circuits if you decide you have time left for that. (The lady comes home a few minutes into a stealthrough) You have a list of things you need to steal, as shown in the picture below and you have to find all the things before the lady finds you. She has super-vision you see, she can see in the dark!

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It uses Unity, which is a shame. But I haven't noticed any bad performance or glitches honestly, which is great! I had a problem with "libGLU.so.1" missing in the beginning, but I fixed it by creating a symlink to the correct install directory. Just Duck/Google it and you'll find more in-depth answers there.

Game Link: http://gamejolt.com/games/puzzle/the-very-organized-thief/18991/

Official About:

You are a thief. A very organised thief. Find all the items on your checklist and then escape the house...
The game is designed to be neither easy or hard, and slightly different every time you play. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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13 comments

Beamboom Dec 27, 2014
What a wonderful concept for a game!
Tak Dec 27, 2014
It uses Unity, which is a shame. But I haven't noticed any bad performance or glitches

So ... why is it a shame?
StianTheDark Dec 27, 2014
So ... why is it a shame?

Unity has very bad Linux support compared to other engines and is closed-source. They also dont have a Linux editor :/
Tak Dec 27, 2014
Ok, in what way is the Linux support bad? You mentioned that you didn't experience any problems...
StianTheDark Dec 27, 2014
Ok, in what way is the Linux support bad? You mentioned that you didn't experience any problems...

Not with this game. Unity has a lot of black-screen issues, but I rarely play Unity games. Just Duck and you'll find a few issues.
Beamboom Dec 27, 2014
I share the authors opinion about Unity. Based on pure experience it's ironic that the most platform independent framework should also be behind the buggiest releases for Linux. Whenever I hear something is built on Unity I halt the purchase until I've read the Steam forums carefully and get confirmed it's actually working as intended on Linux.

Also, for some reason, the visual output just isn't up to par with the other serious competitors out there (like Unreal, to name but one obvious example).
dubigrasu Dec 28, 2014
Oh yeah, Unity is both a blessing and a curse for Linux gaming.

Blessing because we have so much more games because of it, and a curse because it rarely works as it should.
Mouse issues, vsync issues, gamepad issues, graphic issues...you name it.
And above all and the most painful, performance issues.

Every time I hear about a new Linux game I pray: please, please, please be not an Unity game, please, pretty please.....oh crap, IT IS an Unity game...
Tak Dec 28, 2014
Mouse issues, vsync issues, gamepad issues, graphic issues...you name it.

Sure, bugs are understandably frustrating - I just don't get it when there's still bashing in cases where there are zero issues.

Fortunately, problems like the one you mentioned above are getting fixed as they get reported - the mouse look problems have been resolved, vsync (which was initially disabled on some WMs to work around a bug in Compiz/Unity DE) has been reënabled on all WMs, etc.
Additionally, Unity 5 takes a more SDL-like approach to gamepad support (see Fight the Dragon), meaning that things should be more likely to Just Work, and it should be easier for users to override them if they don't.
StianTheDark Dec 28, 2014
Mouse issues, vsync issues, gamepad issues, graphic issues...you name it.

Sure, bugs are understandably frustrating - I just don't get it when there's still bashing in cases where there are zero issues.

Fortunately, problems like the one you mentioned above are getting fixed as they get reported - the mouse look problems have been resolved, vsync (which was initially disabled on some WMs to work around a bug in Compiz/Unity DE) has been reënabled on all WMs, etc.
Additionally, Unity 5 takes a more SDL-like approach to gamepad support (see Fight the Dragon), meaning that things should be more likely to Just Work, and it should be easier for users to override them if they don't.

Still doesn't weigh up the fact that its closed souce ;) (the engine) This itself is a huge negative for me.
EKRboi Dec 28, 2014
I too usually cringe when a game I am interested in is Unity based. While some of the glaring issues such as game pads and vsync may have been worked out the overall performance of the engine in Linux (and windows really) is pretty low most of the time for what is actually being output to the screen. It is simply not a very optimized engine. The old saying "a Jack of all trades and a master of none" comes to mind when I think about the Unity engine.. it may be one of the most platform independent engines out there.. but it isn't optimized well for ANY of them. Why this is? I don't know, it is simply what I have observed after playing many Unity based games in both Linux and windows.

I have high hopes for UE4, its cost to developers and it being a damn powerful engine will hopefully bump Unity from its top spot on the charts of engines used by smaller devs in the coming years.
dubigrasu Dec 28, 2014
Fortunately, problems like the one you mentioned above are getting fixed as they get reported - the mouse look problems have been resolved, vsync (which was initially disabled on some WMs to work around a bug in Compiz/Unity DE) has been reënabled on all WMs, etc.
Additionally, Unity 5 takes a more SDL-like approach to gamepad support (see Fight the Dragon), meaning that things should be more likely to Just Work, and it should be easier for users to override them if they don't.
If they're fixed in the engine it doesn't reflect in the Unity games I have.
I still see the mouse look bug (more recently in Interstellar Marines were was previously working), I still can't enable vsync and the gamepad is working correctly in very, very few games.
adolson Dec 29, 2014
Ziggurat is a great Unity game, including gamepad support and everything. I dunno which version it uses. But still, doesn't fix the fact that the older games are broken (Among the Sleep is still unplayable for those of us who bought it for the "Full Controller Support" and can't play it with the defacto standard Logitech F710, pictured on the majority of "Steam Big Picture" banners). And of course, still no Linux editor.

For my own games, I use Godot, since it's both open-source and has a Linux editor (in fact, the main devs are Linux users). It'd be nice to start seeing some games release that use it, but it's still very new and documentation needs some work, and the renderer is mobile-focused (great for 2D, though hopefully it will change in the future so 3D games can compete on the visual front).
Guest Dec 29, 2014
Mouse issues, vsync issues, gamepad issues, graphic issues...you name it.

Sure, bugs are understandably frustrating - I just don't get it when there's still bashing in cases where there are zero issues.

Fortunately, problems like the one you mentioned above are getting fixed as they get reported - the mouse look problems have been resolved, vsync (which was initially disabled on some WMs to work around a bug in Compiz/Unity DE) has been reënabled on all WMs, etc.
Additionally, Unity 5 takes a more SDL-like approach to gamepad support (see Fight the Dragon), meaning that things should be more likely to Just Work, and it should be easier for users to override them if they don't.

I actively avoid Unity3D games, as well, and the reason isn't *just* that it can be buggy. Does anyone remember how long it took for the mouselook issues in Interstellar Marines to be *confirmed*, let alone fixed? The bug, itself, is a small problem in comparison to how long it took the Unity3D team to discover its existence. I don't trust developers who can't *confirm*, let alone fix, a bug like that within a month at the absolute most.

On top of that, their *most* requested feature is a linux-native editor, but they ignore it because they *believe* most of the votes are from average linux users, not game developers. Thing is, even devs who don't mind programming in a Windows environment (something I can't comprehend) seem to want the linux editor so that, when they're working out linux bugs, they don't have to build on Windows, transfer to linux (via rebooting or transferring to a second computer), check for the bug, and repeat. The Unity3D devs actually don't seem to understand that.

Basically, the way the Unity3D team operates strikes me of incompetence, and giving them money (implicitly or otherwise) leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That doesn't mean that I *won't* buy Unity3D games, but whenever a game uses Unity3D, my interest in it is reduced - and it's often reduced enough to keep me from purchasing the game at all. I would have pre-ordered Pillars of Eternity already if it weren't using Unity3D.
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