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.
Quoting: slaapliedjeHa, yeah, they call it the 'Game porting toolkit' and I put that in quotes because it's not really porting the game, but is more like how Wine works... literally being based on Crossover/Wine. Though I'm assuming it mixes Rosetta in there for some of the CPU translation layer. I'm not sure how much of that is the open source stuff from Wine, or how much is just Apple code though...
It also can't be used for any actual released games; it's for internal demonstration purposes only.
Quoting: PenglingQuoting: elmapuli know we had some star projects like might n9 (cough cough) ,I was one of the idiots who backed this one...Luckily I only threw in a fiver, but yikes, what an embarrassing mess that whole thing turned out to be! At least people came out of it wiser about Keiji Inafune being a credit-stealing glory-hound (the claims of him having created something he didn't were basically how he duped fans of the sorts of games he was aiming to create a spiritual-successor to).
Lesson learned right there.
never blame the victim.
you werent an idiot, and didnt had any good reason to suspect anything.
Quoting: elmapulnever blame the victim.I take responsibility for my mistakes, though, and due to previous industry knowledge I should've known better.
you werent an idiot, and didnt had any good reason to suspect anything.
Really, I can laugh at myself for this - and I think most people who backed it can, since they gave us the choice to not attach our real names to it and most of us chose that! 
Quoting: M@GOidAnd one more time, don't pre-order anything. The warnings are there for anyone to see.
hear hear
RandomizedKirbyTree47 Jun 1
I've been a happy backer of many Kickstarter campaigns for books, comics, tabletop games, film, music, and live theater. But I categorically refuse to pay for crowdfunding or early access video games, because it seems way too risky. I also don't go through video games very quickly and have a massive backlog, so having fewer games to choose from is not a problem for me.
Quoting: fleskNot so strange that only 0.6% of Linux and macOS users wishlisted the game when it's listed as Windows only on Steam though?Self-fulfilling prophecy, or convenient get-out?
Quoting: PenglingKinda both, but I don't think it really matters.Quoting: fleskNot so strange that only 0.6% of Linux and macOS users wishlisted the game when it's listed as Windows only on Steam though?Self-fulfilling prophecy, or convenient get-out?
It just proves what I always say: Platform support as a KS stretch goal just makes no sense whatsoever, as it is not a flat amount of money to be paid and then it's done, but it is a constant maintenance, which WILL add up to more than the meager amount almost always asked in these goals.
QuotePorting costs would exceed 20k easily. Then you have QA costs that inflate the budget even more.Exactly that. He might be wrong about the low income from Mac/Linux if there were ports, but it's fairly clear it wouldn't cover the initial porting + additional maintenance & QA cost.
Because this has been a 7 year development and I’m a solo developer on my first game, the priorities had to change and I hope that’s understandable. Once console ports started becoming a possibility, the priorities shifted towards those 5 extra platforms instead of 2 platforms that will generate $2k between them if I’m lucky.
QuoteThis is definitely a failure of mine, I own it and I’ll take it on the chin. I should have organized the initial campaign with a little more foresight into the market and how things were trending.And he's right with this, as well.
He made a mistake and owns it. Fair enough, really.
That's my big issue with a lot of KS, though - devs who clearly did not do any research other than "how to have my KS page look and make a video".
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 2 June 2024 at 7:00 am UTC
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