CONSCRIPT from Jordan Mochi/ Catchweight Studio and publisher Team17 is a promising looking first world war survival-horror that was crowdfunded back in 2020. Now the developer has cancelled the planned Linux and macOS versions.
"CONSCRIPT is an upcoming survival horror game inspired by classics of the genre - set in 1916 during the Great War. CONSCRIPT will blend all the punishing mechanics of older horror games into a cohesive, tense, and unique experience. In CONSCRIPT, you play as a French soldier searching for his missing-in-action brother during the Battle of Verdun. Will you be able to search twisted trenches, navigate overrun forts, and cross no-mans-land to find him, and ensure a home goes unbroken?"
Since getting a press email about a new demo arriving, and remembering following this along during the Kickstarter, I shot off a message to their PR team a few days ago, and today they got back in touch and the developer has now also published a post directly on Kickstarter where they said:
Linux and Mac Notice
Linux and Mac versions were part of the original Kickstarter campaign, and unfortunately I have to announce that these two platforms will no longer be natively supported. Back during the Kickstarter campaign in 2020 I naively promised things that I had never done before and so I did not realize how much work they were for so little trade off. For me to support these versions, I would likely lose money because the user base is just not there (both of these platforms account for roughly 0.6% of all my Steam wishlists).
Massive apologies for this cancellation, although I hope the announcement of the game on all these other platforms at least softens the blow a little bit.
If you were an original Kickstarter backer who was expecting a Mac or Linux version, feel free to reach out to me via Kickstarter DM and I can organize a refund for you out of pocket.
The wording is a bit odd there with the developer saying it will be "out of pocket". Well, people gave their money to the project for something it's not doing now. So it's only natural to return it. Kickstarter though is very much a gamble on if you like the idea enough.
Sad to see for backers of the project, much like what we saw with Nightdive Studios remaked of System Shock doing the same. We also saw the developer of Blazerush recently announce their ending of Linux and macOS support too. Once again, for macOS it's a bigger loss, since they get nothing, but at least for Linux players (and Steam Deck) it should hopefully be playable with Proton.
Direct Link
CONSCRIPT will be available on GOG and Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
slaapliedje May 30
Quoting: jams32231. 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.
Dana Souly May 30
Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: Purple Library GuyI 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.
Quoting: LoudTechieI 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.
Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: CatKillerTack 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.Quoting: Purple Library GuyI 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.
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.
Quoting: PenglingThnxQuoting: LoudTechieI 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.
Quoting: PenglingIt 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)".
Quoting: LoudTechieDon't let the WINE devs hear you say that Pengling.But that's precisely what's so good about it!
They'll be all like: "that's emulation(translating processor instructions to other processor instructions), W(h)INE(Wine Is Not an Emulator)".
I say it with the highest praise.
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
Quoting: razing32I'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.
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