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God is a Cube - Programming Puzzle Game - Porting my game to Linux before launch
King Kadelfek Dec 10, 2015


Hello everybody,

I am a video game developer who wants to support Linux before launch, and to do that I have to be sure it's working on as many configurations than possible. I'm talking to various Linux communities, and today I'm coming here (got The Boss permission for a topic) to show you my game and gather feedback, both on Linux specific issues and the game itself.

Following earlier Linux users feedback, I had to change 3 times some of the technology used by the game (which relies heavily on data access such as SQLite) to allow maximum cross platform compatibility. It represents several years of work avoiding all external dependencies, especially all those easy and ready to use Windows DLL.

I am now looking for people confirming me the game is working on their Linux configuration. If you can go up to the tutorial without any problem, so it means it should works fine until the end of the game.

For those interested, it's a programming puzzle game called God is a Cube, involving nanomachines (small robots): you use simple symbols to program those robots and make them do stuff.


Using a wall detector and logical gates, the Divine Cube turns right when he encounters a wall.


Detecting if there is a floor below, the Divine cube creates matter to make a bridge.

View video on youtube.com

The game is in a late Alpha stage, and there are around 50 levels split up into 5 different themes with their own difficulty curve.
You can see more stuff at the official website:
http://www.godisacube.com


Download
You can download the game here:
http://godisacube.com/latest_linux
(and here for Windows and Mac

Besides the Linux porting test, I'm interested in any feedback (gameplay, ergonomics, art, etc). Everything is work in progress and the game is still unannounced, so everything can be done better.

Thanks in advance. :)

____________

Bugs and Issues
Here is a copy pasta with issues found thanks to all Linux gamers.

Screen Resolution
Unity on Linux is missing the pre-launch window allowing you to change resolution. But you can specify the resolution with the line command arguments:
-screen-width 1440 -screen-height 900

Tutorial Bug
There is a small bug you can encounter in the tutorial. If you follow the instructions you will be fine (use right click to delete the first Rune). But if you got stuck, you can click on the "skip" button, then open the menu and choose "See the tutorial" to restart the tutorial.
Note: I'm totally at fault here, I will correct this bug for next build.

Invisible texts
If texts are missing (invisible font bug), you can "install ttf-ms-fonts from the AUR".
If you encounter this bug, please provide your specs / distribution.
Note: Looks like there is a way to force in the Unity code a font to be used. I will correct this bug for next build.

Execution permissions
If the game asks to be flagged as an executable, you can do a chmod:
chmod +x giac.x86_64
chmod +x giac.x86

Note: Working on Windows, I got some feedback about how to run a virtual machine (which should be better than settings permissions on server). I will look at it for next build.

Black window crash at start
A few people got a black window at launch, with the game crashing immediately. Installing "lsb-release" fixed the problem.
If you encounter this bug, please provide your specs / distribution.
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