Stealthy platformer Kiyo in need of Linux testers

Has a Mark of the Ninja vibe, which is a good thing, though the game art looks a little basic.

I love how they consider this a feature:

> Proprietary engine.

I love how they consider this a feature:

> Proprietary engine.

It's different word usage from people who aren't familiar with open source. For us, "proprietary" is specifically contrasted with "open source," and rings all sorts of alarm bells. For people outside our ecosystem, "proprietary" just means "comes from the manufacturer themselves," like a screen wash or a paint primer or similar.

It is, obviously, a really bad choice of word when the thing you're intending to describe as "not a repackage of someone else's thing" does touch on the open source community... for example if you wish users of an open source operating system to test your game.


Last edited by CatKiller on 26 Feb 2024 at 2:18 pm UTC

So, are we going to participate? They do support native Linux...

Hi everbody,
I'm one of the developers of Kiyo.

I love how they consider this a feature:

> Proprietary engine.

It is a feature worth mentioning, in an age where 99% of the developers use Unreal, Unity, GameMaker, etc...
It allows us to support a bunch of innovative features, while Unity games tend to look all alike.

It is, obviously, a really bad choice of word when the thing you're intending to describe as "not a repackage of someone else's thing" does touch on the open source community... for example if you wish users of an open source operating system to test your game.

I don't get your point. Do you mean that every game developer who releases on Linux should make their games open source? If you go down that route, then I can guarantee you there will be no professionally-made games on Linux at all.
"Proprietary engine" is a pretty precise choice of words, because we designed and wrote it from scratch. It doesn't even depend on SDL, but yeah, it's not open source ATM (but I'm open to the idea).

I think it's more that just saying it's a "Proprietary engine" by itself isn't really a selling point, it doesn't really explain anything and to most people it won't really mean anything.

And no, no one expects games or the game engine to be open source at all.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 26 Feb 2024 at 3:07 pm UTC

I think it's more that just saying it's a "Proprietary engine" by itself isn't really a selling point, it doesn't really explain anything and to most people it won't really mean anything.

And no, no one expects games or the game engine to be open source at all.

Yeah, I guess it's true that to most people it wouldn't mean anything, but to other gamedev nerds like me it will :)
We might reword it to "Custom engine", and move it to a different section of the description to make it clearer.

I'll take this opportunity to mention a couple of details about the current version:

1) Intel video cards below IRIS (min spec on Steam) will probably have trouble running the game
2) Joypad support is not there for Linux yet, but we are working on it

Thanks to everybody who'll give it a go, it means a lot to us and all the info we gather will help improve the game.

It is a feature worth mentioning, in an age where 99% of the developers use Unreal, Unity, GameMaker, etc...

[...]

I don't get your point. Do you mean that every game developer who releases on Linux should make their games open source? If you go down that route, then I can guarantee you there will be no professionally-made games on Linux at all.
"Proprietary engine" is a pretty precise choice of words, because we designed and wrote it from scratch. It doesn't even depend on SDL, but yeah, it's not open source ATM (but I'm open to the idea).

The point is, that there's different interpretations of "proprietary".

In my understanding, Unity is proprietary, too. It is owned. (I don't know by whom, probably some Unit Inc.? Ah, ok, "Unity Technologies".)

Other people, especially those caring for open source, take "proprietary" as the counterpart to open source. If you take that interpretation, it's not saying you should open-source your engine. But it wouldn't be some advantage of the game saying "... and it's not open source!"

I'm no native English speaker and don't have a cool better proposal, but "proprietary" to me doesn't express what you want to express. "Self-made" probably would, but it doesn't sound very cool to me (although it absolutely is!).

In the end, it's great you support Linux, and it's great you have made your own engine, and all is fine with not open-sourcing it. This is just about about the optimal wording.

I don't really pay too much attention to this. About 99.9 percent of my games are closed source, my AMD 6800XT and two Steam Decks are running an open source driver, but I believe the firmware is still closed source. And my NVIDIA 4060ti runs on a totally closed source driver.

More interesting I find the question what exactly needs testing?

I'm a developer and I can always appreciate precise parameters so I can focus on the important bits.

One thing I would want to test myself is how the game behaves on Fedora Linux.

Great BTW that you guys choose to support Linux.

Edit: Other than testing the game on both the LCD and Oled Steam Deck, maybe it's worthwhile to test remote play too.


Last edited by tfk on 26 Feb 2024 at 3:28 pm UTC

...
More interesting I find the question what exactly needs testing?

I'm a developer and I can always appreciate precise parameters so I can focus on the important bits.

One thing I would want to test myself is how the game behaves on Fedora Linux.
...

I'm glad you asked!
We're interested in the following:
1) Issues that seem OS-related. For this reason, just validating the basic functionality (if the game even starts at all) on as many distros as possible, especially anything that's not Manjaro or Ubuntu (used during dev). So Fedora would be great.
2) Issues that could be graphic drivers related. We did a good amount of testing on different GPU vendors and model for Windows, but not on Linux.
4) Trying on Steam Deck would be also very interesting, as we don't have one at the studio. But I foresee input problems with that one for the time being
3) In addition to that, any feedback about any aspect of the game itself will be very useful :)

A good way to report something, or simply tell us whether you like the game or not, is the Feedback page integrated in the game's main menu. Otherwise you can post something here, or contact us at "support at pixelrats.com"


Last edited by mitridas on 26 Feb 2024 at 3:38 pm UTC

I don't get your point.

No, you really don't.

Do you mean that every game developer who releases on Linux should make their games open source?

Of course not. What a ridiculous thing to ask.

What you should do is avoid the use of the word "proprietary," since that has a specific (different to the one you're thinking of) meaning in an open source context. Just like other words in common usage have a different specific meaning in a scientific context, or a legal context. Unless you are specifically intending to convey "ha, ha, you can only play our game how we want, not how you want," of course, which is what that word says in the open source context.

We might reword it to "Custom engine", and move it to a different section of the description to make it clearer.

That would be a much better choice.


Last edited by CatKiller on 26 Feb 2024 at 4:11 pm UTC

...
More interesting I find the question what exactly needs testing?

I'm a developer and I can always appreciate precise parameters so I can focus on the important bits.

One thing I would want to test myself is how the game behaves on Fedora Linux.
...

I'm glad you asked!
We're interested in the following:
1) Issues that seem OS-related. For this reason, just validating the basic functionality (if the game even starts at all) on as many distros as possible, especially anything that's not Manjaro or Ubuntu (used during dev). So Fedora would be great.
2) Issues that could be graphic drivers related. We did a good amount of testing on different GPU vendors and model for Windows, but not on Linux.
4) Trying on Steam Deck would be also very interesting, as we don't have one at the studio. But I foresee input problems with that one for the time being
3) In addition to that, any feedback about any aspect of the game itself will be very useful :)

A good way to report something, or simply tell us whether you like the game or not, is the Feedback page integrated in the game's main menu. Otherwise you can post something here, or contact us at "support at pixelrats.com"

Ok. I'm off work in a few hours. I'll do some testing then.

What you should do is avoid the use of the word "proprietary," since that has a specific (different to the one you're thinking of) meaning...

Yes, I am aware that the same word has different meanings in different contexts. For example, "Proprietary engine" in game development is a normal way to describe an in-house engine, and it has nothing to do with the old closed source vs open source debate.
Moreover, 99% of the audience on Steam doesn't know and care about that debate either.
We only want to get some people to try our game on Linux, that's all.


Last edited by mitridas on 26 Feb 2024 at 4:35 pm UTC

Yes, I am aware that the same word has different meanings in different contexts.

And yet you bravely leaped from "you should maybe pick a different word" to "AlL GaMe eNgInEs sHoUlD Be oPeN Source!!11One."

Ok sorry my little joke turned into a bit of a chaos. (Come on CatKiller, be nice)

The point of the joke was that as others pointed out, it was an unfortunate choice of words when presented to a community with strong open source values. I get that it meant "not using someone else's".

But on a more serious note, I realize you must be proud of doing the engine, I would also totally write my own engine if I ever get to make a game, but you should know boasting it is not actually helping as you might think. Basicaly what it tells me (gamer), is that I should expect bugs, rough edges and issues with buggy drivers.

From one developer to another, I'm happy you had fun and were succesful in writing an engine. But my advice is to keep that information to yourselves and not scare away gamers who have been burned many times.

Thanks for supporting Linux nevertheless :)


Last edited by ShabbyX on 27 Feb 2024 at 11:05 am UTC

Basicaly what it tells me (gamer), is that I should expect bugs, rough edges and issues with buggy drivers.

That's a good point :/

Besides, it was hopeless from the start... how can a CatKiller like a game about a feline?

Come on CatKiller, be nice

I'm plenty nice.

Perhaps this developer should consider getting a community manager if they can't otherwise help themselves from leaping in to antagonise people that they'd quite like a favour from and/or to get money from.

I'm plenty nice.

Perhaps this developer should consider getting a community manager if they can't otherwise help themselves from leaping in to antagonise people that they'd quite like a favour from and/or to get money from.

But they weren't??? They got confused about what you meant and responded appropriately. Someone else has now clarified and the developer is considering changing the description. Nobody got antagonised here.

But they weren't??? They got confused about what you meant and responded appropriately. Someone else has now clarified and the developer is considering changing the description. Nobody got antagonised here.

Of course they're antagonistic. After four separate people pointed out the issue with their choice of words, them acknowledging that the choice of words is problematic, and deciding to change it, they're still insisting that their choice was the correct one, and they've managed to throw in a rant about Linux being a niche platform, and a dig about someone's username. All of that was completely unnecessary: all they needed - and what someone experienced with community management would do - is just give a "thanks for testing our game, you guys are great!" and maybe some blurb about how great the game is and how they made it.

hello guys i did some testing and game installs but no game window shows? i tried using proton and didnt work, tried protonfixes and didnt work. What should i do?

hello guys i did some testing and game installs but no game window shows? i tried using proton and didnt work, tried protonfixes and didnt work. What should i do?

Hello :)
The game does not need Proton, as it runs natively on Linux. Did you try it with the specs that you have here under "View PC Info"? If you use Discord you can join our server here for faster troubleshooting.
Thanks!