Ron Gilbert, developer of Thimbleweed Park is switching to Linux

Oooh, exciting! I wonder how well that goes, especially since coming off OSX he should feel more comfortable with a terminal already

we're here if you need us Mr Gilbert and our Forum is always open

Oh yes! Please feel free to ask about anything and everything Mr. Ron Gilbert! You have provided us unforgettable life content

(i'm sure he knows about GOL!?)

why does he need a new engine? just use godot

why does he need a new engine? just use godot

I like Godot but it's not the answer to everything and it doesn't fit everyone's needs. Why does anyone make their own stuff? To learn, to have full control and know exactly what it's doing. Just telling a developer to "use x game engine" isn't particularly helpful.

Hopefully terrible toybox have patience to learn how to use Linux and not let the possible setbacks to discourage them. I think all the means are there to make games using Linux. Probably it's a question of learning. Tomorrow will tell us more.Good luck to them and hopefully results are good!

The fact we are starting to see Mac refugees on Linux means something truly terrible have happened there. Normally that crowd would swear by MacOS.

As cool as this news is, my take away is more an interest in what's happening with MacOS development?!

I've been tinkering with getting a (used) Mac recently so that when I make some of my Game Jam games, I can test and release them on Mac... but if Apple is going to have me jumping through hoops just to get a program released on their system, I'm wondering if I should even bother investing.

The fact we are starting to see Mac refugees on Linux means something truly terrible have happened there. Normally that crowd would swear by MacOS.

As cool as this news is, my take away is more an interest in what's happening with MacOS development?!

Apple has always been very restrictive. Demanding apps to be signed with certificates that you have to pay for, banning apps from the AppStore if they deem them to be competing with Apples' own products, not allowing other browser engines in iOS, and so on and so forth. Add to that them generally not caring about gaming by having crappy outdated OpenGL drivers, not supporting Vulkan, and instead pushing their proprietary Metal API, then dropping 32-bit support.

Building software in any professional capacity is a pain, because you are not allowed to run macOS on a virtual machine. You instead need Mac hardware to do any sort of continuous integration and automated testing. Except Apple do not make servers, so you have to buy some overpriced desktop machine, or an underpowered Mac mini that you stuff somewhere in the corner of your server room while trying not to trip over it.

And of course don't forget that you will need to equip your developers with MacBooks or iMacs that will set you back thousands of dollars. And they will still need their Windows machines.

With Linux, you just install it and run it.

Apple is moving to Arm with their computers, this may have something to do with all this.

They do lots of questionable things, but they currently have the only useable phone platform which strives to respect their users’ privacy. Take a look at the recent buzz around the new iOS version finding out all the apps that have been accessing people’s clipboards and cameras behind their backs. I’m sure the same apps do the exact same thing on Android but there’s nothing to notify you about it there. I guess Apple’s overpriced products don’t push them towards trying to monetise their users’ info or something.

Anyway, this is an interesting development. I wonder if Mr Gilbert manages to make it work for him.

MY
S U P E R H E R O,
I LOVE HIM.

why does he need a new engine? just use godot

I like Godot but it's not the answer to everything and it doesn't fit everyone's needs. Why does anyone make their own stuff? To learn, to have full control and know exactly what it's doing. Just telling a developer to "use x game engine" isn't particularly helpful.

why does he need a new engine? just use godot

One engine does not rule them all.
Their existing tooling, setup, asset management, etc, would have to change to use a different engine, and that can be quite a hefty bit of work - if the engine is even suitable for what kind of game they want to make.

yeah i know, but his games arent really that complex
i understand it for cyberpunk or other huge open world games, but a pixel style point and click.... i dont know... doesnt seem to by very economically

The fact we are starting to see Mac refugees on Linux means something truly terrible have happened there. Normally that crowd would swear by MacOS.

As cool as this news is, my take away is more an interest in what's happening with MacOS development?!

Apple has always been very restrictive. Demanding apps to be signed with certificates that you have to pay for, banning apps from the AppStore if they deem them to be competing with Apples' own products, not allowing other browser engines in iOS, and so on and so forth. Add to that them generally not caring about gaming by having crappy outdated OpenGL drivers, not supporting Vulkan, and instead pushing their proprietary Metal API, then dropping 32-bit support.

Building software in any professional capacity is a pain, because you are not allowed to run macOS on a virtual machine. You instead need Mac hardware to do any sort of continuous integration and automated testing. Except Apple do not make servers, so you have to buy some overpriced desktop machine, or an underpowered Mac mini that you stuff somewhere in the corner of your server room while trying not to trip over it.

And of course don't forget that you will need to equip your developers with MacBooks or iMacs that will set you back thousands of dollars. And they will still need their Windows machines.

With Linux, you just install it and run it.

There are few options for mac rentals and virtual OSX, though:

https://www.macincloud.com/
https://www.hostmyapple.com/

I agree with you with all the other things.

yeah i know, but his games arent really that complex
i understand it for cyberpunk or other huge open world games, but a pixel style point and click.... i dont know... doesnt seem to by very economically

Look at it from the other side. For someone developing many different styles of game, gaining some knowledge of, and competence in, a general-purpose engine like Godot, Unity, or Unreal makes a lot of sense. But they're jacks of all trades. If you're sticking to one style, the knowledge and control of the codebase a custom engine gives you tends to outweigh the flexibility of a general-purpose one. And because the games aren't that complex, it isn't too hard to do. (It's beyond me, but if you know what you're doing...) I've seen single-person studios making point-and-click adventures in their own engines.

Apple is moving to Arm with their computers, this may have something to do with all this.

They do lots of questionable things, but they currently have the only useable phone platform which strives to respect their users’ privacy. Take a look at the recent buzz around the new iOS version finding out all the apps that have been accessing people’s clipboards and cameras behind their backs. I’m sure the same apps do the exact same thing on Android but there’s nothing to notify you about it there. I guess Apple’s overpriced products don’t push them towards trying to monetise their users’ info or something.

Anyway, this is an interesting development. I wonder if Mr Gilbert manages to make it work for him.

Sorry but you're so wrong, Apple is like the others, and of course gather personal data too.
Don't forget Apple participated in the NSA global surveillance program PRISM, we can't trust them, I don't trust them and you shouldn't.

But about to know "what do these apps on my phone" is an important thing, and speaking of Android there are guys out there who are working on it.
I highly recommend you Exodus Privacy.

Exodus Privacy is a French (1901 law) non-profit organization. This organization is managed by hacktivists who want to protect privacy everywhere.

And about Apple:

What about iOS apps?

Apple’s DRMs strictly forbid us to investigate so we can not say. However, the applications of both OS are often made by the same teams/agencies and the trackers’ SDKs are often available for both Android and iOS. The suspicions are therefore strong that the trackers of one are also in the other.

So I repeat, we can't trust Apple.

why does he need a new engine? just use godot

I like Godot but it's not the answer to everything and it doesn't fit everyone's needs. Why does anyone make their own stuff? To learn, to have full control and know exactly what it's doing. Just telling a developer to "use x game engine" isn't particularly helpful.

It always bothered me about Debian that they have a "Don't break Debian" policy in the background. Why not? Breaking Linux and learning how to fix what I broke has gotten me more involved than I ever was in Windows. If I mistype something in /etc/fstab, it's my mistake to fix. I would hope that developers are always seeking to find the game engine that suits their needs best while giving them the required openness about bugs they encounter so they don't have to search through 12.000 lines of code just to find the missing ;...

yeah i know, but his games arent really that complex
i understand it for cyberpunk or other huge open world games, but a pixel style point and click.... i dont know... doesnt seem to by very economically

Look at it from the other side. For someone developing many different styles of game, gaining some knowledge of, and competence in, a general-purpose engine like Godot, Unity, or Unreal makes a lot of sense. But they're jacks of all trades. If you're sticking to one style, the knowledge and control of the codebase a custom engine gives you tends to outweigh the flexibility of a general-purpose one. And because the games aren't that complex, it isn't too hard to do. (It's beyond me, but if you know what you're doing...) I've seen single-person studios making point-and-click adventures in their own engines.

As a game developer in a AAA games company, and although we have our own game engines, I am still not convinced that doing your own game engine is a good thing. Game engines have become beasts, it is not just a matter of graphics, it is also about sound, AI, inputs, physics, animation, data management, etc.. and, on top of that, a whole editor for the game devs and artists to integrate their stuff in the engine. That why it is preferable to talk about "game editor" rather than "game engine". The engine is just a small part of the whole piece.

Developing these kind of game editors cost millions of dollars a year and it is, of course, never finished. On the other side, if you choose to use an existing game editor (Unity, Unreal, Godot, ...), you get all the new fancy features with each upgrade and you can focus only on what's important: your game.

As a developer, I understand the urge to own and control your own code but, to make a poor analogy, developing your own game editor to make your game is a bit like developing your own Photoshop to create your textures.

Edit:
I would add that open source is, to me, the perfect compromise. You don't have to develop everything just by yourself, but you still have control over the code. When Godot will get to a point where it would compete with Unity and Unreal, I think this will be a game changer (pardon the pun )


Last edited by Creak on 27 July 2020 at 6:37 pm UTC

This is great! Let's hope they will gain the same experience (uh, not just me) that a linux-developed software runs far more easy on other platforms than the other way round, as most of the tools and libraries that are first choice in Linux will work on various other platforms as well.

As a game developer in a AAA games company, and although we have our own game engines, I am still not convinced that doing your own game engine is a good thing. Game engines have become beasts, it is not just a matter of graphics, it is also about sound, AI, inputs, physics, animation, data management, etc.. and, on top of that, a whole editor for the game devs and artists to integrate their stuff in the engine. That why it is preferable to talk about "game editor" rather than "game engine". The engine is just a small part of the whole piece.

Yes, I understand that, but you're doing AAA. As I said, for small-scale developers doing a particular style of simple game (I've seen indie point-and-clicks come in at under 300Mb, and there's really not a lot going on in these things; they're rarely even properly realtime), it probably does still make sense. The amount of time you spend wrestling a general-purpose engine/editor into working in your style might as well be spent writing one from scratch. Or almost from scratch. Something like SDL can handle the low-level stuff.

That goes double if you already have one, which is what it sounds like with Gilbert/TT. Sure, there's going to be maintenance required, but again: simple games, simple engine.

As a developer, I understand the urge to own and control your own code but, to make a poor analogy, developing your own game editor to make your game is a bit like developing your own Photoshop to create your textures.

Great analogy, actually. If you're doing fixed-palette pixel art, Photoshop is overkill. I don't know if Gilbert does, but in principle it's the same idea: You've already decided that you aren't trying to keep up with modern trends, so as long as your simple in-house tools still work, why change?

What are the Linux alternatives to Apple's Xcode? Last time I used it, was easy and fast to use - with incredible search capabilities. (This was years ago in Tiger.) I can't really find a comparable IDE for Linux.