Linux game porter Ryan 'Icculus' Gordon is looking for new games to bring to Linux

I know someone who could make that happen. Had a nice drink with him in the pub a while back. You know who you are. Most of us Linux peeps are very cool and love your ports

I have no idea who it is. I've been out of the Linux gaming loop for a while.

How expected and completely useless all these responses with games people wish for are. That doesn't help him at all. He needs devs or at least people with connections to devs. Unfortunately, I can't help him in that regard.

I thought the point of the comment section for the articles was for people to discuss things related to the article. It's not off topic for people to talk about what games they wish had a good port.

I know someone who could make that happen. Had a nice drink with him in the pub a while back. You know who you are. Most of us Linux peeps are very cool and love your ports

We need the name :)

It's not off topic for people to talk about what games they wish had a good port.

I would move on step beyond: It's important as a community to discuss within GOL our wishes and aggregate a clear message for the developers, one or two games that would make the consensus (vote in Liam award session? something like "Best desired port") to be argued in lobbying sessions. A sort of kickstarter backward: people would like to see this and that, and deposit a promise to purchase if this is done.

Knights of the Old Republic I
Sam & Max Hit the Road
The Secret of the Monkey Island 1-4
X-Wing Alliance
The Witcher 3
Cuphead

Skyrim? Maybe? No seriously please? Bethesda why you do this?

Knights of the Old Republic I
Sam & Max Hit the Road
The Secret of the Monkey Island 1-4
X-Wing Alliance
The Witcher 3
Cuphead

Sam & Max hit the road and the three first monkey island games work in scummvm although I believe the remakes don't. You can get sam&max and curse of monkey island on gog, but I don't know if anyone sell the original MI and MI2.

I thought the point of the comment section for the articles was for people to discuss things related to the article. It's not off topic for people to talk about what games they wish had a good port.

Since nobody asked for wishes, it's not relevant at all. Relevant would be to discuss how to get porters like Ryan Gordon in contact with developers that might show interest in having their game porter. Wishing for skyrim has been done a thousand times and adds nothing to the subject of this article.

Cyberpunk 2077, it's good to have them 'the' Linux porter from the start

Sadly, your wishes are of no use. What Icculus needs is permission and source code. Unless you do have access to these of the games you name, don't even bother.
See here: https://twitter.com/icculus/status/1005951766414921728

Well, there needs to be some sort realism and rationalism in terms of Linux port expectations. First of all, there are certain companies that reject to support Linux at all due to financial or contractual reasons. Because of that, forget about ZeniMax, Bethesda and id Software related titles like Skyrim, Doom, Fallout, Wolfenstein, etc... Secondly modern AAA games are the products of 100s (if not 1000s) people's work; even though they are complete and might support some general libraries and APIs like OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL, etc, it takes enormous effort to port and test these by one man. That said, expecting The Witcher 3, GTAV, Far Cry 5 isn't reasonable even slightest; not to mention publishers' tendency to ignore Linux most of the time.

So, here is the resume of Mr. Ryan C. Gordon.

https://icculus.org/resume

It should be beneficial to check his recent "client" ports to Linux in order to find companies open for Linux port proposals.

Night Dive Studios seems to open for any proposal for a long time. My suggestions are;

- Native System Shock: Enhanced Edition
- Native System Shock 2

Some old Loki games that Ryan C. Gordon has already worked on few of them would be nice:

Human Head Studios:

- Rune Classic

Square Enix:

- Deus Ex

Firaxis Games:

- Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

2K Games:

- Railroad Tycoon II

Epic Games occasionally becomes Linux advocate, so that porting or re-porting some of old games would be their interest if right offer presented.

- Native Jazz Jackrabbit
- Jazz Jackrabbit 2
- Unreal
- Unreal 2
- Unreal Tournament
- Unreal Tournament 2004
- Fortnite

Following are the some Linux friendly Linux publishers and their products that I wish to be ported to Linux;

Sega:

- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 1 (cross-platform multiplayer)
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

2K:

- Borderlands
- BioShock
- BioShock 2

LucasArts:

- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (Classic, 2005)
- Star Wars: Republic Commando
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Mysteries of the Sith

Square Enix:

- Thief
- Thief II: The Metal Age
- Anachronox
- Deus Ex: Invisible War

CD Projekt RED:

- The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

Interplay:

- MDK
- MDK 2
- Kingpin — Life of Crime
- Earthworm Jim
- Earthworm Jim 2


Last edited by rea987 on 11 Jun 2018 at 4:01 pm UTC

If I was him and if I had hes knowledge and time to do what I really love, I would contribute to something from what the benefits for Linux gaming would be the biggest. In my opinion, it would be the work to make Unreal Engine for Linux to become in the best possible shape. I agree completely that he's totally wasting his talents and time to something totally insignificant. Also and again, if I was him, I would consider finding other people that would like to join me, people that love porting games to Linux (and Mac maybe) and would try to do the same thing like Feral is doing. He's obviously a master in this branch and he could profit from it and make the real success story from it.

KOTOR 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TQcmo4atic

- Anachronox

I mean I'd love for it to happen, but... seems... rather unlikely right now.

How about the entire Spiderweb Software back catalogue?

Oh god yes, and he'd only have to do it once because they all pretty much run the same engine. He'd probably have it all done in an afternoon.

KOTOR 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TQcmo4atic

Coming along really well! Great work.

I would move on step beyond: It's important as a community to discuss within GOL our wishes and aggregate a clear message for the developers, one or two games that would make the consensus (vote in Liam award session? something like "Best desired port") to be argued in lobbying sessions. A sort of kickstarter backward: people would like to see this and that, and deposit a promise to purchase if this is done.

Sure, but seeing the amount of ports people want it would be a ton of options in a ton of rounds to get down to a few popular winners.

Speaking of The Witcher 3. I was quite surprised to see how much WINE has progressed sine I last ran pure Linux, and I didn't know there was a library to translate dx11 to vulkan. Getting TW3 to start was a simple to install the gog version (wine64 bottle), patch the wine bottle with dxvk, csmt and windows 10.

I haven't tested running the game beyond the menu, but other people using the same method have reported little fps drops from Windows, although some options should be toned down or turned off, like hairworks and no ultra settings.

I have to see if I can install at least one mod, one that removes lvl restrictions, or I won't have some equipment equipped.

Well, there needs to be some sort realism and rationalism in terms of Linux port expectations. First of all, there are certain companies that reject to support Linux at all due to financial or contractual reasons. Because of that, forget about ZeniMax, Bethesda and id Software related titles like Skyrim, Doom

Doom runs great in WINE. You just gotta enable vulkan in the launch options.


Last edited by Aryvandaar on 11 Jun 2018 at 4:15 pm UTC

I think pushing the idea that Gordon should be doing AAA games because that's what Linux needs is really not thinking clearly. That's something a team should be doing, not a soloist. As mentioned already, his work on Rocket League was enough to convince him that it's not a good use of his time or passion, and he is far more effective porting medium and small games. That way he can do a lot without burning out or losing his passion for the work, both of which would likely happen if you saddled him with big AAA projects.

Not to mention, the idea that porting good games that aren't necessarily the kind of stuff Feral ports is a waste really misses how good some of the stuff he works on is, and how appreciated by Linux users who aren't necessarily into big budget flash.

Sure, Linux needs more AAA games. But the right tool for the job, people.

Since nobody asked for wishes, it's not relevant at all. Relevant would be to discuss how to get porters like Ryan Gordon in contact with developers that might show interest in having their game porter. Wishing for skyrim has been done a thousand times and adds nothing to the subject of this article.

People sharing their wishes is relevant, it shows what Linux gamers want. It may not be as relevant, but it is a bit relevant.

Hearthstone, it is Unity Engine already
World of Warcraft (yea unlikely, but still). Rumor has it the basics were done internally already once.
This War of mine. Small Company , nice game and rendering errors in Wine still ;)

This War of mine. Small Company , nice game and rendering errors in Wine still ;)

I can fulfill the last wish...
https://store.steampowered.com/app/282070/This_War_of_Mine/

There are plenty of indies out there that would probably benefit from a pro like Gordon, but can they pay? I have no idea of the costs involved in freelance porting work like this. I'd say that Gordon's best bet is to leverage an outfit like Humble to hook him up with the indies that have a project they can use him on, and publicise his fees up front.

Would love to see him getting involved in some of the smaller indies with the bigger titles - Subnautica, Scrap Mechanic, A Hat in Time, They Are Billions or The Solus Project.