Dev of crowdfunded WW1 survival-horror game CONSCRIPT cancels Linux and macOS versions

And one more time, don't pre-order anything. The warnings are there for anyone to see.

Yeah, I have given up on backing any video games at all on kickstarter. The only things I consistently back (because they consistently deliver) is anything by Gaming Ballistics LLC, and SJGames. They both are excellent at delivering within the same year, usually. Any others seem to not have the basic development even started, so it takes years to show up at my door...

Hell, even ordering something from Limited Run games... I ordered Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken at the same time, a friend of mine ordered the latter, and it already showed up. It took them longer to get Maniac Mansion put together... but last I checked (a few days ago) it said it was ready to ship... but hadn't shipped. Not even a kickstarter, but a pre-order issue... Once a company has your money, the incentive for delivering the goods seems to diminish...

lol another crappy game i wont play... and another crappy company i wont buy from... i need to figure out how to block this stuff on steam.

I mean, people need to remember that Kickstarter isn't a store. When you send money you haven't bought anything really, not in the sense that it's for goods anyway.

No, what you're really doing is something closer to gambling. Could be Gatcha and you get something else, could be something less then you expected for your tier level at the higher-stakes table, might be exactly what you hoped and you "win", might be nothing at all and you "lose". Might take 10 years instead of 6 months. Point is, all of these should be expected potential outcomes. It's a gamble, and if you're not comfortable with it, pay for it when it comes out instead. A lot of projects don't even give discounts to backers anymore and you're basically paying retail/pre-order prices for games that aren't even made yet.

Stretch goals for Linux/Mac should almost never be believed. I can practically guarantee the majority of the ones that promise that as stretch goals are vaguely aware that Unity, or .Net whatever, and/or their engine of choice has "linux" support and think that with some extra effort they could figure out how to build for the extra platforms. They don't realize until mid-development that that was a bad assumption and that they needed to target the other platforms from the beginning so they make better, more compatible, choices. Frankly, some of the blame absolutely lies with engines/frameworks that lead people to believe that in the first place. If you do want to believe it, it's probably best to pay attention whether the developer has a history of actually releasing things on those platforms.

Personally I do still use Kickstarter, but I back selectively and only when I'm of the mindset of wanting to support something. I would like a return, but I don't necessarily expect it - a little mental trick to "not be mad, bro". Though if they don't deliver, you can bet I wouldn't trust them again.

Kind of a stupid premise. Like, if I were in the trenches with this guy and he said he was going to go looking all over for his brother who was "missing in action" I'd tell him, "My friend, how long have you been here? He's not 'missing in action'. He's dead. What makes him 'missing' is that a shell hit where he was and they couldn't find any recognizable pieces. If you go wandering around the front instead of sitting tight and keeping your head down, you'll end up the same way and your family will have two less sons instead of one less. Unless they execute you for desertion when you leave your post. Just sit down. Look, I do feel bad about your brother--you can have a piece of my chocolate bar."

I have this feeling that there has been a shift over the years when it comes to this stuff. Some time ago, when someone cancelled their promise of a version of the game for an OS, they would just cancel the Linux version but they'd usually still do the Mac version. These days, they cancel Linux and MacOS if they're going to cancel at all. I'm not sure that's good, misery loves company maybe? but it's different.

Kind of a stupid premise. Like, if I were in the trenches with this guy and he said he was going to go looking all over for his brother who was "missing in action" I'd tell him, "My friend, how long have you been here? He's not 'missing in action'. He's dead. What makes him 'missing' is that a shell hit where he was and they couldn't find any recognizable pieces. If you go wandering around the front instead of sitting tight and keeping your head down, you'll end up the same way and your family will have two less sons instead of one less. Unless they execute you for desertion when you leave your post. Just sit down. Look, I do feel bad about your brother--you can have a piece of my chocolate bar."

Haha. That version of the script for "Saving Private Ryan" was really not very good and failed to pull audiences in ;)

I have this feeling that there has been a shift over the years when it comes to this stuff. Some time ago, when someone cancelled their promise of a version of the game for an OS, they would just cancel the Linux version but they'd usually still do the Mac version. These days, they cancel Linux and MacOS if they're going to cancel at all. I'm not sure that's good, misery loves company maybe? but it's different.

It's not really good, no. In the old days, avoiding platform-specific lock-in and having an OpenGL render path got you Linux and Mac. Ditching Linux but keeping Mac was a specific "we love those turtle necks, but fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks." Now, Mac work doesn't help Linux work at all - if you can avoid single-platform stuff and use Vulkan for both Windows and Linux you still need an entirely separate render path for Mac. And Mac has a smaller share than Linux. Making a Mac build but not a Linux build (which people still do) is quite misguided. So we get "fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks, and fuck those turtle necks: we're perfectly comfortable with Microsoft having a monopoly on the platform we can be bothered with" instead. Macs using Vulkan and not destroying their share of the gaming market would have been much better for us.

I have this feeling that there has been a shift over the years when it comes to this stuff. Some time ago, when someone cancelled their promise of a version of the game for an OS, they would just cancel the Linux version but they'd usually still do the Mac version. These days, they cancel Linux and MacOS if they're going to cancel at all. I'm not sure that's good, misery loves company maybe? but it's different.

I have a growing theory that a lot of these are actually being canceled by publishers who want deals with Microsoft or Sony... The amusing thing is that Linux users/developers have worked their way around such exclusivity with Wine based solutions. Apple on the other hand... basically depend on those same Wine-devs even to the point to incorporate Crossover into their Game Porting Tool (or whatever that thing is called).

I recently was having the conversation about Valheim, which is apparently developed on a Linux system (which explains why it supports OpenGL or Vulkan) and there is no Mac version. After Apple dropped all 32bit support and more or less killed support for vast swaths of games with that move, I can't imagine anyone else really trusts Apple to do good for gamers in general. So, it's no surprise that publishers/devs are dropping Mac support. They also figure 'Proton will let Linux users play the game' which is why some believe Proton is dangerous to the Linux ecosystem. I think Proton serves it's purpose (as older games for sure would never be ported) but I still maintain most newer games should be cross-platform.

I have this feeling that there has been a shift over the years when it comes to this stuff. Some time ago, when someone cancelled their promise of a version of the game for an OS, they would just cancel the Linux version but they'd usually still do the Mac version. These days, they cancel Linux and MacOS if they're going to cancel at all. I'm not sure that's good, misery loves company maybe? but it's different.

It's not really good, no. In the old days, avoiding platform-specific lock-in and having an OpenGL render path got you Linux and Mac. Ditching Linux but keeping Mac was a specific "we love those turtle necks, but fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks." Now, Mac work doesn't help Linux work at all - if you can avoid single-platform stuff and use Vulkan for both Windows and Linux you still need an entirely separate render path for Mac. And Mac has a smaller share than Linux. Making a Mac build but not a Linux build (which people still do) is quite misguided. So we get "fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks, and fuck those turtle necks: we're perfectly comfortable with Microsoft having a monopoly on the platform we can be bothered with" instead. Macs using Vulkan and not destroying their share of the gaming market would have been much better for us.

Tack onto that the move to ARM for Macs... so not only have they isolated themselves by not supporting Vulkan/OpenGL anymore, but currently supporting two architectures... Plus their ditching of 32bit kind of lends itself to believing that Apple will just drop some other support (like X86_64) some point soon, and you have developers just not wanting to support it.

At this point, supporting a Mac is probably similar to trying to support your game on the Switch, or PS5, etc. But at least the PS5/Xbox is still the same architecture as most computers.

1. I'm here to explain why they're scrapping the Linux and macOS ports. It all comes down to the GameMaker engine. There are some controller bugs that prevent certain controls from being mapped properly, and unfortunately, this issue has never been resolved. Releasing the game with a Linux port could potentially lead to controller problems. That's why titles like Pizza Tower and Katana Zero don't have a Linux port. The game itself runs on the GameMaker engine. I've talked to several developers who use this engine, and they all agree that the only version without these issues is the older one, which is quite limited and not ideal for advanced gaming unless you're working on 2D flash games.

1. I'm here to explain why they're scrapping the Linux and macOS ports. It all comes down to the GameMaker engine. There are some controller bugs that prevent certain controls from being mapped properly, and unfortunately, this issue has never been resolved. Releasing the game with a Linux port could potentially lead to controller problems. That's why titles like Pizza Tower and Katana Zero don't have a Linux port. The game itself runs on the GameMaker engine. I've talked to several developers who use this engine, and they all agree that the only version without these issues is the older one, which is quite limited and not ideal for advanced gaming unless you're working on 2D flash games.

Hmm, so the bug reports should be sent to the GameMaker Engine? Controller support on Linux, while quite excellent, still does not support (natively) newer controller protocols like xbox one. By natively, I mean "Module is not included in the kernel". There's an external module you can download and compile for your kernel, and it works great, but it's still an extra thing to install.

It's nuts that the engine is that broken on the other platforms though.

All companies want the best of us: the money.

I have this feeling that there has been a shift over the years when it comes to this stuff. Some time ago, when someone cancelled their promise of a version of the game for an OS, they would just cancel the Linux version but they'd usually still do the Mac version. These days, they cancel Linux and MacOS if they're going to cancel at all. I'm not sure that's good, misery loves company maybe? but it's different.

I have a growing theory that a lot of these are actually being canceled by publishers who want deals with Microsoft or Sony... The amusing thing is that Linux users/developers have worked their way around such exclusivity with Wine based solutions. Apple on the other hand... basically depend on those same Wine-devs even to the point to incorporate Crossover into their Game Porting Tool (or whatever that thing is called).

I recently was having the conversation about Valheim, which is apparently developed on a Linux system (which explains why it supports OpenGL or Vulkan) and there is no Mac version. After Apple dropped all 32bit support and more or less killed support for vast swaths of games with that move, I can't imagine anyone else really trusts Apple to do good for gamers in general. So, it's no surprise that publishers/devs are dropping Mac support. They also figure 'Proton will let Linux users play the game' which is why some believe Proton is dangerous to the Linux ecosystem. I think Proton serves it's purpose (as older games for sure would never be ported) but I still maintain most newer games should be cross-platform.

The name of the "game porting toolkit" is literally "game porting toolkit" I thought it was ROSETTA, but that's not the name Apple uses in its announcement.
They also have a Direct3d to metal converter, a shader recompiler and a wayy to slick video trilogy.
It's actually quite funny.
They treat the developers as they would treat their users, little real information, slick interfaces, great marketing and acceptable underlying products.
Also they're a status symbol, so your game is in the marketing consistently a "high-end" game.

I thought it was ROSETTA, but that's not the name Apple uses in its announcement.

Rosetta was the tool used when Apple moved from PowerPC to x86 in 2006. It was invisible to the user, and from what little I understand was fairly similar in principle to what we know on Linux with Proton today, but it wasn't gaming-specific.

I have this feeling that there has been a shift over the years when it comes to this stuff. Some time ago, when someone cancelled their promise of a version of the game for an OS, they would just cancel the Linux version but they'd usually still do the Mac version. These days, they cancel Linux and MacOS if they're going to cancel at all. I'm not sure that's good, misery loves company maybe? but it's different.

It's not really good, no. In the old days, avoiding platform-specific lock-in and having an OpenGL render path got you Linux and Mac. Ditching Linux but keeping Mac was a specific "we love those turtle necks, but fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks." Now, Mac work doesn't help Linux work at all - if you can avoid single-platform stuff and use Vulkan for both Windows and Linux you still need an entirely separate render path for Mac. And Mac has a smaller share than Linux. Making a Mac build but not a Linux build (which people still do) is quite misguided. So we get "fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks, and fuck those turtle necks: we're perfectly comfortable with Microsoft having a monopoly on the platform we can be bothered with" instead. Macs using Vulkan and not destroying their share of the gaming market would have been much better for us.

Tack onto that the move to ARM for Macs... so not only have they isolated themselves by not supporting Vulkan/OpenGL anymore, but currently supporting two architectures... Plus their ditching of 32bit kind of lends itself to believing that Apple will just drop some other support (like X86_64) some point soon, and you have developers just not wanting to support it.

At this point, supporting a Mac is probably similar to trying to support your game on the Switch, or PS5, etc. But at least the PS5/Xbox is still the same architecture as most computers.

Nah, with switch support you're quite certain the current config will stay supported.
With Mac support you can only speculate what will be dropped next.
I predict the next one will be the current screen proportions.
Also here is an example of something everyone(including consoles) supports except Apple: direct syscalls.
It's explicitly unsupported(you're supposed to use Apple libraries instead) and as such they often include or deprecate syscalls.

I thought it was ROSETTA, but that's not the name Apple uses in its announcement.

Rosetta was the tool used when Apple moved from PowerPC to x86 in 2006.

Thnx

It was invisible to the user, and from what little I understand was fairly similar in principle to what we know on Linux with Proton today, but it wasn't gaming-specific.

Don't let the WINE devs hear you say that Pengling.
They'll be all like: "that's emulation(translating processor instructions to other processor instructions), W(h)INE(Wine Is Not an Emulator)".

Don't let the WINE devs hear you say that Pengling.
They'll be all like: "that's emulation(translating processor instructions to other processor instructions), W(h)INE(Wine Is Not an Emulator)".

But that's precisely what's so good about it! I say it with the highest praise.

I'm done.
No more kickstarters for games that promise linux.
I really hoped this one being a solo dev would care about his backers but guess not.
Guess in the end now that he has Team 17 backing those console ports are more profitable than Linux , right? So screw those people who backed years ago.
sigh

I'm done.
No more kickstarters for games that promise linux.
I really hoped this one being a solo dev would care about his backers but guess not.
Guess in the end now that he has Team 17 backing those console ports are more profitable than Linux , right? So screw those people who backed years ago.
sigh

This is exactly one of the things that bugs me most about this sort of thing. It harms other developers who fully intend to deliver on such promises. It erodes trust in such a way that other developers simply won't see as much (or any) money from Linux or Mac users who would have otherwise donated. These ass-hats aren't just screwing over the people who donated, but also other developers who might have created something actually worth donating to.

Kickstarter backing always sounded like one of those first-world people things, a concept a couple steps away from something like donating to twitch streamers; a total waste of money.