Category: Game Dev

Want to develop for the Steam Deck / SteamOS and get testing? Now it's a whole lot easier, as Valve has now put up the tools needed under open source licenses.

Valve's new handheld PC the Steam Deck is starting to ship out but there's going to be a long wait for some, and others might not be able to get one at all for various reasons - I'm here to help.

Back in November 2021, NVIDIA released their free and open source Image Scaling SDK for game developers to add in a spatial upscaler that can run on any modern GPU - and they've continued improving it.

Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) is one of the most important pieces of open source for Linux gamers, as it's the tech used by various game engines and games. It's also about to continue changing the game for the Linux desktop in the upcoming version.

Even more Vulkan goodness came recently with OGRE (Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine) releasing Ogre-Next 2.3.0 Deadalus just before Christmas.

Want to make retro games? How about making games on Linux that can be played on a Game Boy or the upcoming Analogue Pocket? GB Studio is your new best friend and a huge new release is out.

Open 3D Engine (O3DE) from the Open 3D Foundation is what was once Amazon Lumberyard, now open source it's just had a first major stable release.

With the Steamworks Virtual Conference: Steam Deck over now, Valve has put up their own official set of answers to various common questions.

The free and open source Godot Engine recently had support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution merged into the code, ready for the next big release.

Looks like cross-platform game development with SDL is going to get easier, as Ryan Gordon (also known as Icculus) has confirmed an Epic MegaGrant and details what it will be used for.

With the Steam Deck delayed until February 2022, Valve has produced new developer documentation giving a helping hand to devs interested in testing ready for it using Linux.

Recently with the Vulkan 1.2.197 specification update, a new extension popped up that has plenty of developers happy with Dynamic Rendering and now The Khronos Group has formally announced it with a more detailed explanation.

As we approach launch for the Steam Deck in December, Valve has begun ramping up their info for developers with the announcement of a Steamworks Virtual Conference.

DXVK Native is the fork of the original translation layer DXVK, the part of Proton that translates Direct 3D 9 / 10 / 11 to Vulkan but this is meant for Linux native builds and a new release is out now.

GDQuest, a well-known name in the free and open source Godot Engine land has launched a new crowdfunding campaign aiming to get you to go from zero to hero with Godot programming.

Coding History: 3D from Mode7 to DOOM is a Kickstarter campaign from game developer Eniko, founder of Kitsune Games (Kitsune Tails, Super Bernie World, MidBoss, and more) to create a special tutorial series about how to replicate 3D effects seen in classic retro 3D games from the 80s and 90s.

Back in early August we wrote about how YoYo Games were introducing the GameMaker Studio 2 editor for Linux, well as of the latest official update the Beta is actually out.

At the Game Developers Conference 2021, multiple developers from Red Hat attended and gave a talk titled "Open source in games: How to save your studio time and effort".

While Epic Games are currently working on the next generation with Unreal Engine 5, they're still upgrading the previous major version with Unreal Engine 4.27 out now.

For developers looking to bring their games to Linux officially, DXVK Native can be a good option to help reduce the time and complexity involved in doing so.