Vanguard Princess, a 2D fighting game that features an all-female cast is coming to Linux

Someone over at reddit's linux_gaming is claiming that it is CodeWeavers who is doing the port, which in theory would make sense given how well this runs on WINE. But no real source I guess.

Edit: digging around a bit more it seems to be based on: "I am listening to BoilingSteam Podcast right now and the president of Codeweavers even mentioned Vanguard Princess" post by the same user on Steam. Haven't got around listening to that podcast myself though.

Interesting would be to see who did the MacOSX port that is already available (which also seems to be a wine bottle according to some commenters).

Edit2: However it seems that originally they wanted to port this game to a multiplatform engine as Linux support was already promised >2 years ago during the Greenlight campaign.


Last edited by Julius on 7 July 2016 at 2:51 pm UTC

This game has been showing up in my Linux library despite missing an executable for quite some time now. I was wondering when they would get around to actually getting us a release.

I also heard it on the Podcast that the Linux version is being handled by CodeWeavers. I'm probably also the guy who posted it on Reddit and Steam ;). Add the fact that the executable on SteamDB is literally called "bin/cxsteamwrapper" and it's pretty much confirmed to be a wrapped "port" by CodeWeavers.

I play SKullgirls from time to time, but it's too "busy" on screen. It's a solid game i think, but not so much my taste.

I'd prefer to see a Mortal Kombat-like title coming to Linux. I played a lot of MK1 to MK3 on my Sega Genesis / Megadrive 16bits back in time.

Sweet! Linux is badly lacking in legitimate Japanese and Japanese-style games of... every genre actually. I noticed this years ago and it looked like fun just for the art style.

The only thing that bugs me now is I already have the game in my Steam library from a Humble Bundle that I bought a while ago for other (Linux compatible) games in it! Now my purchase can't count for Linux! I've never actually installed the game because I was already off of Windows by the time I bought it. Did we ever get any concrete word on the rumor that the OS under which the first X hours of playtime is logged on Steam will give some credit to that OS, even if it was a Windows only game at the time of purchase?

Quoting: Linas

Quoting: JuliusHave been playing this with WINE (platinum support) quite a bit...

As far as I know, it will be a Wine "port", so nothing will really change here.

Um... I take serious issue with this comment. A real Wine port done by professionals is much, much better than just "running a game with Wine."

1. A lot of people who are inexperienced with Wine configuration (like myself!) will not be able to troubleshoot and hack around problems that come up when running a game in Wine, and games that work perfectly with no configuration at all in Wine are very rare in my experience. A good Wine port solves those issues for the user, rather than making the user solve it themselves.

2. Most important: A Wine port can be bought on Steam/Humble/GOG and count as a Linux purchase, thereby helping our OS get more games in the future!

I personally do not use Wine to play games, unless it's an official port, because it's too unpredictable. I could sink hours into a game I'm running in Wine myself, but then have an error with Wine compatibility ruin all the progress I'd made. At least with a real Wine port there is some assurance of compatibility and quality control. There are some bad ports of course, but even the bad ones are usually fixed later, and it's at the very least a much better bet than the crap shoot that is playing games with Wine yourself.

I don't care how it's ported as long as it runs well. However, I remember reading something that says Codeweavers offers lots of options for porting: from using WINE to native.

I prefer to only play more "progressive" games.

So typical that there would be a all female game, when will people remember men's rights and produce a all men arcade fighter /sigh

#EqualRights #Equality #MenCanBeAsGoodAsWomenToo

Quoting: InverseTelecine

Quoting: Linas

Quoting: JuliusHave been playing this with WINE (platinum support) quite a bit...

As far as I know, it will be a Wine "port", so nothing will really change here.

Um... I take serious issue with this comment. A real Wine port done by professionals is much, much better than just "running a game with Wine."

Was not my intention to sound demeaning. I do think that Wine is an amazing piece of software and I have great respect for Wine developers. Yet I do not consider Wine-wrapped games to be proper ports, just as I don't consider software running in DOSBox to be Linux software. Simply because it still runs non-native code, makes non-native system calls, and generally does not interact with system libraries and services the way native software is expected to. This can lead to all sort of hard to diagnose problems, and imposes limitations on how much you can take advantage of the native system.

That is not why I dislike Wine-wrapped "ports" though. My main issue is that this method is very Windows-centric from the developers point of view, and does not encourage proper cross-platform development practices. That is why so many developers choose to use technologies that are inherently incompatible with Linux, such as DirectX 11, and then write off Linux ports as unfeasible.

Quoting: InverseTelecine1. A lot of people who are inexperienced with Wine configuration (like myself!) will not be able to troubleshoot and hack around problems that come up when running a game in Wine...

That is exactly what projects like PlayOnLinux and Winetricks do. Also we are talking about a game that already has a platinum rating in Wine, therefore I cannot see how it is much more than just running it in Wine.

For the sake of argument let us say that the game really is problematic and cannot simply be run in Wine. Would you not rather have all that effort put into a proper port instead of making workarounds for the non-native software?

Quoting: InverseTelecine2. Most important: A Wine port can be bought on Steam/Humble/GOG and count as a Linux purchase, thereby helping our OS get more games in the future!

That is a fair point. Although I believe that Wine ports will lead to more Wine ports. Which can do wonders for older games, but new games may prove problematic. For example Alien: Isolation has a garbage rating on Wine.

What we really need is more developers getting into Linux as a first-class development platform, and not as an afterthought. And that in my mind means going native.

Quoting: liamdaweProper fighting games is something we lack

Er...Skullgirls, maybe? ;-)