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Quoting: vipar"People are paying more attention to Linux"

Nah...Linux is just a better alternative to Windows 8 according to Gabe Newell :)

I have extreme doubts that Gabe's words have really swayed anyone. Fact is more people are looking at Linux, the amount of games coming like this speaks for itself really.

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"People are paying more attention to Linux"

Nah...Linux is just a better alternative to Windows 8 according to Gabe Newell :)

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By the way, I've added a new column to the Ongoing projects table of the wiki so anyone interested can easily check any project that he/she might have missed. ;)

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Hey, thanks for all of your comments and suggestions. I'm still not entirely sure about what to do, but I'm gonna summarize my thoughts on the subject:

· Keeping track of active projects isn't the matter here, really. As I may have stated before I'm a wee bit OCD-inclined and I like to check the KS and IGG pages at least once a day. That's why I began collaborating in the wiki in the first place. So anyway, you could say I've got a pretty good idea of how most of the relevant projects are doing anytime.

· I think the real problem is that, mainly because of what I said in the previous paragraph, I don't really know what most of the games are about. Sure, I first check if they'll be available for Linux and if so I put them in the wiki after collecting the data I need for it. The exception being, of course, the 3~5 games that really get my attention and that end up in the Top5 of the list.

· When time comes to write the article (after the initial procrastinating phase :P) I go over all the past week's new projects again to choose the 10~12 other ones to be featured in the column.

· Plus, English is not my native language and my writing is not as fast and fluent as I'd like. I think over almost every sentence before actually writing it, because I dislike repeating the same expressions and structures over and over ("this project was funded", "it reached its funding goal", "reached the base goal of..." ).

· So I usually end up spending a lot of time struggling to write paragraphs about games that I don't really care that much anyway. And, more often than not, at the expense of sleeping hours.


So, I think I will restructure the articles a bit:

1) I'll try to reduce the explanations about canceled and finished campaigns. They're finished after all, so there's no need to elaborate much on them.

2) Next, an equally brief update on the status of interesting projects (i.e. previous Hidden Gems and the like)

3) Yet another brief summary of not-so-interesting new projects (e.g.: name, genre, goal, Linux support... basically the info already in the wiki)

4) And finally, a detailed review of the (fewer) games that I liked or I found highly interesting, both Biggies and Hidden Gems.


Let's see how it goes this way. :)

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When we first heard about Linxu support being considered for this last year, there was lots of excitement in our house! I didn't realise it was so close to being released. Can't wait :D

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I used to love making Abe fart and then him going "hehe", amusing.

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Quoting: muntdefemsThe main problem is, of course, where to draw the line. Which projects do get to be treated preferentially and which other don't? Because what I'm not going to do is keeping track of every single game I comment on the column. Mmmh... I'll give it a thought.

My suggestion would be to track anything you're personally interested in plus whatever people express an interest in in the comments (to encourage participation/feedback).

Perhaps keeping the repeat summaries down to a single line each, showing their current status and growth since last time, would help short work of it. If anything has a big update that would have an impact on how relevant the project might be to Linux gamers, then it could be pushed back up into the main article content for extra exposure.

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The main problem with that guideline of covering projects early and then after close is that it contributes to the mid-project slump; the game falls off the front page or even couple pages, so people who had a busy week during the first week would likely miss it rather than digging back far enough. It's not good to be posting updates about a particular project here too often or readers would get annoyed, so I had envisioned the weekly roundup as a sensible place to put little comments about how the notable projects are faring. As opposed to one mention early on, then falling off the radar until the result is known -- too late to make a difference, for those who missed the initial mention but would have been interested!

The point about being more work to track games from week to week is quite valid, but maybe you could assign somebody to do a little kicktraq research and see which games from last time are in that middle state of not yet funded but not nearly hopeless. I could help with that for instance...

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Looks wonderful! Congrats :)

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Quoting: muntdefemsHey s_d, thanks for sparing me most of my answer! ^_^

However, I think Speedster's got a point. There are some campaigns, e.g. Armikrog., that could certainly use every bit of help we give to them. And I could definitely put up a couple of lines to update the status of particularly interesting projects that had already been featured.

The main problem is, of course, where to draw the line. Which projects do get to be treated preferentially and which other don't? Because what I'm not going to do is keeping track of every single game I comment on the column. Mmmh... I'll give it a thought.

Sure thing, buddy!

Where to draw the line is perfectly easy!  As much as this is Liam's site, it's also ours (or at least the editors;  I don't believe I am one).  Preferentially treat games we're passionate about.  I, personally, care more for Armikrog than I do for Stonehearth (for example).  Both look good, but my preferences are what make me, and what inspire my writing.  You may be very excited about something else, and Hamish about something, and Liam himself about yet something else.

That said, simply a bump for "hey, this project we said was cool before... is still cool, please to be pledging now" ... is probably disrespectful of the readership (ha!).  It's good to kind of think out "journalistic integrity" before it becomes an issue, and I'd be pleased to offer up for consideration a loose policy for crowd-funding projects;  the editors only permit a follow-on article if it's something worthwhile and relatively detailed.

Anyone can go watch the pitch video and read the main KS/IGG page.  The short paragraph you write in The Funding Crowd is a good introduction and sufficient to introduce a reader to the concept, and encourage them to check it out for themselves.  However, in regards to a project already covered, nothing short of a nice in-depth long-format article is (in my opinion) worth posting an article for.  If one is a very dedicated supporter of a campaign, surely it's not too much work to collate & rephrase information from other press, note any interesting or relevant creator comments on their own KS thread, or perhaps link in some image & video content from updates.  An editor could ask the creator for an interview, for example.  In other words... if one wants to bump a project, they better care enough to make the article worthwhile.  

Exceptions could include an editor saying "But.. but... it's cool and I'm allowed to post articles, so I'm gunna!"

Anyway, I'll propose that as a loose policy, or convention, rather than a hard guideline.  It makes no sense on a small site to make hard and fast rules, when we all (sort of) know each other and basically get along :)

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Am I the only one who thinks that this may the game with the best/funniest voices ever? Can't wait to see it on linux!

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oh…my… god
instant buy for sure… I was using wine to play the pc version of Abe's oddysee I got on a bundle, and now wow… I'll just wait, but how?! I can't !! This is too big lol

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I can't wait either!

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Hey s_d, thanks for sparing me most of my answer! ^_^

However, I think Speedster's got a point. There are some campaigns, e.g. Armikrog., that could certainly use every bit of help we give to them. And I could definitely put up a couple of lines to update the status of particularly interesting projects that had already been featured.

The main problem is, of course, where to draw the line. Which projects do get to be treated preferentially and which other don't? Because what I'm not going to do is keeping track of every single game I comment on the column. Mmmh... I'll give it a thought.

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Hello Speedster!  Actually, Armikrog. was featured in The Funding Crowd Goes Fourth (the previous edition of this column), in The Biggies section.

Muntdefems covers each project of interest twice.  Once to announce it, and once when it succeeds, or fails for some reason (e.g., campaign runs out without funding, cancellation by creator, or suspension by KS).  So, we shouldn't expect to see Armikrog. appear in each Funding Crowd article.

It is a bit different than Kickstarter Katchup over at RPS, in that respect, but it reduces the overhead & time required by Munt to do all the work by himself.

That said, I'm strongly promoting Armikrog., have backed it myself, and would dearly like to see it succeed!

Edit:  Looks like DoE was also featured prominently near the lead of that same Funding Crowd article, as well :)

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Thanks for posting Mr. Sharp. Very nice Interview, I look forward to more. =)

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Wait, you skipped all the ones I've been keeping an eye on!

Please bring back Armikrog as one of the "biggies" as they still need funding, and have a good chance to make it in the final big push. Very excited about this one; their claymation art is awfully impressive and helps it stand out from the crowd, plus these guys have a great sense of humor and have some great voice actors signed up to do the humorous dialog justice (Rob Paulsen, Michael J. Nelson of MST3K/Rifftrax for instance). A lot of people are thrilled about the sound track by Terry Taylor too.


For hidden gems, I'm still watching Dungeon of Elements which you also mentioned in the previous edition, and again still needs more funding to make the goal, let alone stretch goals which have now been announced ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/frogdice/dungeon-of-elements/posts/503937 ). They added Linux support not as a stretch goal after confirming the upgrade to Unity 4, which should be encouraged, and they are in general friendly to Linux due to its use on servers for their other games (like ThresholdRPG, a classic MUD which has being going strong for 17 years! That's worth some old-school RPG rep in my book)

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I'd like to address a few of the questions, though Max did a pretty good job of answering it. 

As for the GUI - yes, that is being worked on by Max, and he's doing a fine job.  In fact, it's rather UE3-like in some ways.  It's not that we've ignored it and just focused on "shiny, pretty" stuff.  We can only address so many things at once.  If we didn't do the shiny, pretty stuff, we'd be criticized on the game being ugly.  Trust me, been there, done that.  For the past year we've focused on rendering, and particulary the speed, to the point where we are the fastest rendering of any of the Quake-based engines. 

The Physics - Like Max said, the Quake II physics were the among best physics of any arena-style FPS.  We have made subtle changes and improvements along the way.  We also have ragdoll physics(note, the ONLY quake based engine using them), using the ODE physics engine.  So quite honestly, I'm a little perplexed by the question.  Maybe if the specific deficiency was pointed out, it would be useful.  As for how bullets travel out of the gun, again, that's a bit vague.  Are you talking about how the chaingun is a hitscan type weapon?  That's something that is particular to arena shooters, changing those to actual bullet projectiles would cause unnecessary server lag, and anger pretty much anyone who tried to play it.  There is a reason that most, if not all arena shooters do it this way. 

Map Format - The BSP format is somewhat limiting.  We are implementing, as Max mentioned, things to remove some size restrictions to create much larger maps, but this would be more useful for AA: Tactical and Alteria than classic Alien Arena.  The tendency of third party mappers is to make everything far too large and far to open, so maybe we are opening a real can o' worms here, I dunno :D  Detail wise, there are really no limitations for us.  Like Unreal, we tend to use static meshes for our intricate detail in heavy doses, probably far more than most of the other Quake-based shooters out there.  The main deficiency we have right now is our terrain-rendering, and that's on the to-do list for sure.

Lighting - 100% real-time lighting doesn't make much sense for a game that relies on very good framerates.  Of course we do a significant amount of real time lighting as it is, with shadowmapping, stencil volumes, etc, interacting with our sun and dynamic light objects.  It's something we have considered though, and keep our eye on.  But, for that, you are going to have to sacrifice visual quality, and that's not something I am personally too keen on.

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There are 2 things which really bugs me in wine

1) DirectX 10\11
2) .net 3.5/4.0 support

this will make everything I currently need wine for to work ;)

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Quoting: AnonymousIf anyone else needs help installing serious sam classic first and second encounter, just say so on this thread and I will respond with detailed instructions

Looks like there's someone having trouble with it: http://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/352

Could you please give him the details to run Serious Sam II natively? Thanks!

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I was going to start asking about what might be the situation of DirectX10/11 in Wine, but then I saw your summarized biography. Chicken chicken chicken hahaha couldn't stop chuckling when I first saw it :D

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If anyone else needs help installing serious sam classic first and second encounter, just say so on this thread and I will respond with detailed instructions

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Pretty sweet when a Linux port helps you fix errors in a Windows port ;)

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Quoting: AnonymousYes that is correct, you cant play the HD titles, but as I was saying earlier you can play the included serious sam first and second encounter classic editions which are included in the bundle if you beat the average. So you can put them back on the list but switch the word HD for Classic. I can even make an install guide if that helps.

No need really. Since they are included with Serious Sam 3 BFE, I've just updated that sale to mention these two games.

I'd like to edit the last Cheapskate's Corner to explain all this issue in detail but unfortunately I'm still struggling with this week's (already overdue) The Funding Crowd column, so I don't really have the time... :(

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Quoting: muntdefemsAlright, I removed the HD 1st & 2nd Encounters from the sales list. I just hope we didn't induce anyone into buying the bundle under false expectations... :S:

Yes that is correct, you cant play the HD titles, but as I was saying earlier you can play the included serious sam first and second encounter classic editions which are included in the bundle if you beat the average. So you can put them back on the list but switch the word HD for Classic. I can even make an install guide if that helps.

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Serious Sam 4? I'll be buying that one up, asap! :)

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If the game will not be avaliable outside Steam, then I won't buy it.

Sorry, but I pay for own a game forever, not for rent it.

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Interesting, since they're saying it won't have launch day delays I'm assuming there's quite a bit of incentive. They must have had pretty ok sales from the Linux side of things on Steam, or maybe just that sales overall jumped when announcing Linux support for SS3. Things sound pretty good :)

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Alright, I removed the HD 1st & 2nd Encounters from the sales list. I just hope we didn't induce anyone into buying the bundle under false expectations... :S:

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Yeah!  I spent a few hours last night playing the beta.  The soundtrack (by @dannyBstyle of Meatboy, Binding of Isaac, Canabalt) has the right kind of haunting solitude for a very lonely exploration/trading game like this one.  Anyone who killed weekend playing Wing Commander: Privateer will feel right at home in this one.

In fact, anyone who played that game and was disappointed that it lost replay value, due to feeling fairly static, will be pleased with all the awesome procedural generation in Drifter.  The galaxy, star systems, planets, asteroid fields, and mission list, are all procedurally generated.

In this beta, there are definitely some rough edges, however.  The menus are very spartan, and some features are missing in them (such as a way to display the descriptive text of some equip-able items and cargo-hold contents).  The options menu provides little in the way of performance tweaking for lower power machines. There are no cutscenes/movies at present.  What exists of "story" is largely nonexistent at this point.  Graphically, it is very pretty and serene, with the exception of some fairly severe aliasing (which can be readily seen in moire patterns in planetary rings during movement, in the trailer).

It is a pretty solid demonstration of core mechanics, including combat, asteroid mining, ship customization, upgrade & purchasing, mission acquisition & completion.

The game's prefs file contains some hidden options, including AA, full-screen mode, and resolution selection.  I've tested full-screen mode, at default resolution, and it works great.  Unfortunately, default resolution is smaller than my screen, so the game appears with small letter and pillar boxes.  I'll try monkeying with resolution and AA (which, of course, will kill my poor integrated GPU, I suspect).  In any case, it's a very strong beta, and is already fun to play.

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