Latest Comments

I'm considering doing some stuff for this.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 4058, member: 122"Bumadar, do you have a source for Basilisk's negative experiences that you can share?

Actually, it is me who had posted about that. Here are some quotes:

QuoteMany of you may also remember our efforts earlier this year to get Humble Bundle to give us a spot. We are still trying to convince them that we'd be a great addition, so don't be afraid to send them an email to let them know you want to see us included in the next bundle.

http://www.basiliskgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5363

QuoteI'll say it again: keep pestering the Humble people!! We'd love to be part of the next Bundle and we'll put in some cool extras. We just need to convince them.

http://www.basiliskgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=41230#p41230

All of this being patently bizarre, since these are well thought out, high production, genuinely Indie games that have exceptional cross-platform support. The fact they have had to beg their case to even consider getting the nod seems kind of insulting.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I actually have to agree... the original Trine was a lot more sober and felt more methodic. It also felt like it trusted you more to figure things out by yourself.

Trine 2 (at least in the beginning) is all flash and it takes a little while to get used to that. I also felt like my hand was being guided a bit much early on, although this improved after you first encounter Rosabel and start to go after the goblins.

From that point on I was back to doing the same weird physics tricks I ended up doing in Penumbra (especially Requiem). My favourite method in this case being going halfway back through the map to find the one wooden box (or explosive barrel!) that Amadeus could transport to atop a high ledge so that I could get Zoya to so inelegantly (and often painfully!) grapple on to it. Or throwing down a sacrificial Pontius to knock out a certain wall for the others with his hammer before falling into the abyss.

As Yahtzee actually put it in his Trine review, "Am I making some puzzle designer cry?". :D

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I love these kinds of competitions... :cool:

View this comment - View article - View full comments

For anybody who's interested, the [URL='http://cheesetalks.twolofbees.com/humbleStats.php#update']article[/URL] has been updated with some extra quotes from a top Humble Bundle contributor. The update also adds a couple more charts and tables, covering "separate price" values for games in the bundles, the impact of bundle frequency on total revenue, and some extra thoughts on what the Linux averages might mean (I don't believe that they're indicative of Linux users paying more - dun dun dun!).

[LEFT][URL='http://cheesetalks.twolofbees.com/humbleStats.php#update']A Humble Update[/URL][/LEFT]

In answer to Liam's question, I don't think I have as many concerns regarding the Humble Bundle promotions as I did when I sent a lengthy email to the Humble Bundle guys and got a lengthy reply from Jeffrey Rosen that addressed all of the issues that I saw as ways in which the Humble Bundle promotions had diminished over time. The biggest problems at the moment are branding issues. I think that at the moment, we're in a similar situation as we were when the Introversion bundle came out and everybody was asking themselves whether or not the Humble Bundle guys had changed and whether things were still moving in the same directions. As it turned out, the biggest problem was that people were trying to compare the branded, "non-indie" bundles with the Humble Indie Bundle promotions when the intention is that they are smaller, less prominent bundles that fill in the gaps. Likewise, we've had two Android bundles, and I've seen a lot of people saying that Humble Bundles don't have the same calibre of games anymore, which (to me) seems a little premature, since we haven't had a proper Humble Indie Bundle since last year, and we've had the Mojam event, which (again, to me) was a fantastic change of pace and a great initiative, even if cross-platform support was a little lacking.

As for the quality of the titles in the Android bundles, I am absolutely over the moon to be able to play Edge and Toki Tori natively, and (in addition to those two) Anomaly: Warzone Earth is a title that could stand proudly amongst any title that has been included in a Humble Indie Bundle. The second Android bundle had less titles that appealed to me, but I'm very happy to have discovered Zen Bound 2 (I'd never heard of the first game), which is a great game with high production values that stands out amidst the titles included in previous bundles. Remember that the focus for the Android bundles is getting these titles to the Android platform, so whilst I'm happy to admit they have comparatively small value to me (I don't have a phone), they do seem pretty worthwhile offerings in that respect.

The Desura keys thing is pretty disappointing, but I think it's up to us as members of the gaming community to tell developers that Desura is a platform that we want. The Humble Bundle guys don't require Steam support of any of the games that are included in promotions - it's just coincidence that most of them have been, and for them to dictate distribution methods means that they'll be exerting an inappropriate level of control over the game vendor/distribution industry. That said, it really would be nice to see a bit more co-operation between them. I've been told that the Humble Bundle guys actively worked with the Desura guys to try to get titles onto Desura in time for inclusion in bundles, but that doesn't seem to be happening anymore.

The only other concern I have at the moment is that games don't seem to be being maintained, but that's awfully hard to track as I don't normally remember to visit the Humble Bundle download pages to check for new versions, and when I've organised a workaround, I stop thinking about fixes (perfect example is And Yet It Moves, which has or had some problem with profile paths and capitalisation. A quick edit of a config file fixed the problem for me, and I completely forgot about it until I had to install it again six months later). Again, I think that's something that gamers need to be putting pressure onto developers for, not the Humble Bundle guys.

Bumadar, do you have a source for Basilisk's negative experiences that you can share?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: "liamdawe, post: 4039, member: 1"So what do you all think of the HIB's nowadays, have your views on them changed? Have your purchasing habits changed since the sudden flow of games being ported?

I personally have grown somewhat disillusioned with the bundles over time. This is mainly for 2 reasons:
-Lack of Desura Keys
-Buggy Ports which are never updated

I am pretty sure these 2 issues are actually connected. Even though Linux brings in quiet a bit of money for the HIB (more than Mac apparently) it still feels like its a third class citizen for many of the developers. I am pretty sure some of them have no interest in linux aside from being able to get their game in the bundle. This leads to a port which is never updated, and not available anywhere after the bundle is finished. Quiet a few HIB games have had some issues on my system for which thankfully a workaround or fix is available on icculus bug-tracker, but is never fixed in a follow up release of the game. *Note that this is not meant as a criticism of icculus, who does an astounding number of ports in a quick time frame, but at the developers who have no plans of ever supporting their Linux release. This is also probably the reason most of the games never end up on Desura, where people would expect more support post release.*
I don't know or really care how much bad blood because of the Indy Royale Bundles also contributed to the lack of Desura Keys, but the way I understand it Desura doesn't make money from having their keys handed out, and are still very much willing to have them included in the HIBs.

I have still bought all the bundles but have been contributing less (still always above average), and have been giving more to charity and less to HIB and developers. The last 2 bundles I basically only bought for my android tablet and I will probably skip the next bundle and only buy the games when (if) they get a Desura release.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

From what I understand, it's the same engine, but heavily overhauled.

Personally I preferred the puzzle design and combat from the first game. The second game is perhaps richer, but the first game feels more elegant (to me). They're both great though :D

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Yeah, best of luck to Nekro. They will port to Linux no matter what though, but they still deserve the money if you can spare.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

The engine is new? :eek:

It certainly does not feel like it. :D

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Yeah they sent it to me too ;)
The sound problems were fixed after somehow I've reinstalled ALSA (like 10 times) and restarted my machine (although my "support" kept insisting that I do not need to restart my machine in order for ALSA to work).

The game is great, but it feels like more of the same good stuff we had in Trine1.
And even trough they say the engine is new, it feels very similar (apart from few small things).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

So the Shadowrun returns Linux port is confirmed now that they passed the 1 Million mark, the 1.5Million mark price (a backers only mission) seems bad and many including me don't like that idea.

Now it's time to try to help the Nekro project : http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/343838885/nekro
They still haven't reach their minimum goal of $100,000 and their project well deserve it and much more.
The major reason for their failure to raise more money is bad timing, they started the pledge at the same time other great projects started it, and while I did contribute a fair sum, many don't have the money for another pledge this month.

I hope that even if they fail to raise the money, they finish the game and we could buy it later on.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Besides the competition, which would be good if they did linux games, the humble bundle themselves are getting to frequently released and thus removing some of the "special" from it. I also feel that mixing android and desktop games, or maybe should I say apps and games, won't work in the long run. There are some exceptions like the Cogs which works great on tablet or desktop but others like Snuggle Truck are best for a tablet while Avadon is simply best played on a desktop.

It's sad to hear Basilisk has the same problem as Kot had, good for KoT though that he does not stand alone anymore in this.

As for Liam's question, has my view changed, it has over time, a few things contributed to that:
- KoT story
- the dropping of desura keys (yes its the developers thing but HiB tells them to make a linux client so it can tell them to also add desura)
- to many bundles to little standout games in them

And lets not forget kickstarter eating into my gaming budget.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I do think we are moving a bit beyond Humble Bundle at this point... though we should not get ahead of ourselves. We still have a lot to prove.

However, the Humble Bundles are no longer what they were a year ago. They are definitely not the only game in town. And, as Alex has said, they do seem to be getting kind of narrow minded lately. I learned recently that Basilisk Games has been having the same troubles that Kot-in-Action Creative Artel did in trying to get the Bundle guys to put their games in a bundle and to take them seriously. This is happening despite the fact that (and lets be honest) they have taken on some rather stupid ideas when it is Jeffery Rosen's friends that were behind it.

And it is true that if we are going to grow we need to expand beyond the bundles. And we are doing that. There are all those titles that Cheeseness mentioned, as well as some he did not including Deep Black: Reloaded, Depth Hunter, Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, and other less flashy entrants. We just need to keep the mommentum going.

The Bundles are still a large part of that of course. But I am happy for the diversity. :)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: "liamdawe, post: 4039, member: 1"So what do you all think of the HIB's nowadays, have your views on them changed? Have your purchasing habits changed since the sudden flow of games being ported?

A rough translation of a Serbian street-saying: "Money isn't a problem; can't be when we have none" :rolleyes:
So to answer the latter question: I still buy only when I have something to spend, and I will spend on what I believe I will be playing. Doesn't mean I wouldn't support a developer's game in some other way; like promoting, providing feedback or whatever. It only means I can't be expected to buy ever single one of em, especially those pricier ones. That would be just silly, and would encourage them to be lazy imo, knowing that something will sell just because it has a Linux port.

As for the HIBs, I'm honestly a bit worried. The diversity of the included genres seems to have diminished since Android got involved. When talking specifically about Linux, there has been some talk about developers not updating their games in the store, but I haven't researched enough to confirm this. However, taking into account that so many of them haven't responded to the constant asking for Desura keys even though their games are already there, and yet they still provide Steam keys, then it's understandable why I'm so sceptical. It was a good start, yet where it's heading... I just don't know... :(

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I would be the one to contact at [email protected]

Oh and thank you Andreas. I'm glad you approve of our take on FPS play! When I said that in the forums, I meant games after Ensign. We'll definitely try and make the FPS sections in Ensign-1 as good as we possibly can!
Although after that, yea I'm hoping to focus on other types of games. Rusty and I have been thinking about a few 3rd person types of games we'd like to make.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Is there a way to get involved in affiliate marketing of this game?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Looks better and better!
I'm not sure, but I think I read a post from you saying you want to stop adding fps to your games.... I hope you were joking, because this is one of the most promising indie-fps I've ever seen... ;)

As always: Sorry for my bad english and thanks for bringing more great games to linux!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Just a thought we are both right as i doubt you use Ubuntu as i know Ubuntu has different permissions on files than other distros. Wine comes to mind you have to change exe executable on Ubuntu but other distros you don't.

I will be sure to bear in mind that on some distros certain steps may not be needed.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I tried it before posting, i unchecked the executable file, right clicked open with java and it tells you to make it executable...try it yourself.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: "liamdawe, post: 4017, member: 1"If you run it via GUI rather than terminal it has to be made executable.

No you don't, right click it and choose 'open with java'. Or go to its properties and set it to always open with java as standard.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: "MyGameCompany, post: 4025, member: 68"Congratulations on the alpha release! That's a big step forward!

Thanks appreciated!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Congratulations on the alpha release! That's a big step forward!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Once they have finished their test releases on their forum.

They are getting close.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

When will they finally update on desura, this is redonculous.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

If you run it via GUI rather than terminal it has to be made executable.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Well they had fair reasoning, their tools didn't support Linux but they now do after discussing it over with the tools developers.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Ah sweet, looking forward to getting it up and running :D

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Well i checked my emails to catch up on stuff...and oh what's this...frozenbyte sent me a collectors edition trine 2 gift from humble bundle....well now...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Hopefully later today or tomorrow. Once the next patch goes out.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Sweet i was going to ask the same question about that, any idea when we will get them?

View this comment - View article - View full comments