Ron Gilbert is a name most in the game industry will know from the likes of Thimbleweed Park, and earlier works like The Cave while at Double Fine and they were even the producer on my all-time favourite RTS Total Annihilation. More than that, Gilbert was also the creator of the classic Monkey Island and it appears they're now attempting to switch to Linux.
Terrible Toybox, the actual team behind Thimbleweed Park are working on a new game and game engine too. They released Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure in May 2020, as a small standalone title that acts as a prototype for their newer game engine. They even put up the source code for the Delores game on GitHub, although it's not under an open source license. It doesn't support Linux yet but that appears to be planned.
So what's the fuss about? They're switching their development flow to Linux and they've started blogging about the adventure too with a first post about their new hardware a few days ago. Seems they've settled on a Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu Budgie. The question is: why are they doing it? As they said in the post:
My goal is to see how far I can get developing my new game on directly on Linux and not the Mac (I haven't developed on Windows in years). Can I ditch the Mac and go 100% Linux?
For working on the "game", this shouldn't be a problem once the engine runs on Linux. The few custom tools I use (Wimpy, for example) and all built from the same code the engine is, so once it's working under Linux, they should compile as well.
It's quite interesting to see more developers try out Linux, although not too surprising with how Apple is now again moving CPU architecture. Not just that though, as Apple have been getting more hostile for indie developers, with all sorts of extras being needed now and that's on top of the "Apple tax" that forces you onto their hardware. Gilbert mentioned this as well, with Apple being 'more paranoid and authoritarian' as time goes on.
Since their initial blog post it seems it went mostly okay, and they're continuing to learn and find the software they want. Will be fun to see how it all goes. Good luck, we're here if you need us Mr Gilbert and our Forum is always open. We're always happy to help game developers on Linux.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Perkeleen_Vittupää Jul 27, 2020
Quotewe'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!?)
Quoting: mylkawhy does he need a new engine? just use godotI 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.
ObsidianBlk Jul 27, 2020
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.
Quoting: Alm888The fact we are starting to see Mac refugees on Linux means something truly terrible have happened there. Normally that crowd would swear by MacOS.
Quoting: ObsidianBlkAs 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.
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.
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