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Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

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Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#11
post #3

Is that the guy who was unable to install Ubuntu properly, so he declared that supporting Linux versions of his game is not worth the effort? Color me disinterested. "No Tux, no bucks."

> Is that the guy who was unable to install Ubuntu properly...

Frankly, Ubuntu 15.04 and 15.whatever_the_last_release_was have been really, really, really bad. I say this as a gamer, Linux power user, and sysadmin who's been using various flavors of Linux for ~fifteen years and who's quite happy managing his Gentoo Linux boxes, but really happy when he finds a largely-hands-off distro, because that means he can recommend a distro to his friends.

What's more, if you are using Ubuntu 15.latest, Steam doesn't work out of the box. It won't start. You get no error messages or anything. You have to move a bundled copy of -IIRC- glibc out of the way before Steam will work. Reports on the interwebs indicate that the moved file comes back when the Steam client updates itself, so this isn't a permanent fix!

Maybe Valve can't be arsed to target anything other than SteamOS, but it's not a good sign when the company that's -arguably- doing the most good for Linux gaming out of anyone out there doesn't ship a client that works on the latest version of one of the more (if not the most) popular Linux distros.

I'mma have to make a note to go back and remind myself about how dynamic linking and .so versioning works on Linux. I had thought that the tools to make this shit work correctly were widespread and relatively easy to use, but the state of Linux gaming leads me to question my memory. :/

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#12
post #3

Is that the guy who was unable to install Ubuntu properly, so he declared that supporting Linux versions of his game is not worth the effort? Color me disinterested. "No Tux, no bucks."

I agree. Here is a relevant Reddit discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/3c508j/my_...

Sounds like people are shifting the blame for JB's frustration with linux onto hardware vendors for not providing drivers ... that's not really going to be acceptable to a perfectionist like JB.

"Oh here's my game on linux, please address any questions or problems to those shitty hardware vendors"

No, he's just going to release it on a platform where he can guarantee compatibility and functionality with minimum effort on his part.

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#13
post #3

Is that the guy who was unable to install Ubuntu properly, so he declared that supporting Linux versions of his game is not worth the effort? Color me disinterested. "No Tux, no bucks."

This is going to be one of the most popular games of 2016, and is releasing for Windows and PS4. Compared to those platforms, do you think that the time it would take to get a Linux version up and running would be cost-effective? There are some Linux sales figures kicking around [1] and they generally show that the Linux share is under 3%. [1] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/sales-statistics-for-...

And OSX. Apparently Macs are the fastest growing segment of the desktop/laptop industry, but they are often the last to get the big games.

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#14
post #3

Is that the guy who was unable to install Ubuntu properly, so he declared that supporting Linux versions of his game is not worth the effort? Color me disinterested. "No Tux, no bucks."

This is going to be one of the most popular games of 2016, and is releasing for Windows and PS4. Compared to those platforms, do you think that the time it would take to get a Linux version up and running would be cost-effective? There are some Linux sales figures kicking around [1] and they generally show that the Linux share is under 3%. [1] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/sales-statistics-for-...

Of course, the cost/benefit ratio has to be evaluated by the developer, and I don't want to force anyone into anything. I'm just aware that plenty other developers have no problems making their games available on the OS I am running. And since their games are more than enough to fill whatever free time I have for computer games, I won't be missing this one.

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#15
post #2

Although it's tempting, this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about (if you are ever going to play it). Vi Hart, who has been playtesting the game for months, said: > Tips for playing The Witness: give yourself a week or two, no hints, no reviews. Sleep on it. Take breaks. It's a big game. Nothing like it. > If you can't spend all day every day playing The Witness, give yourself months. Engage deeply with…

> Although it's tempting, this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about

Agreed, definitely don't want spoilers.

I've set up a subreddit specifically for spoiler-free gentle hints: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWitnessHints/

The main /r/TheWitness sub is starting to get quite spoilery.

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#16
post #3

Is that the guy who was unable to install Ubuntu properly, so he declared that supporting Linux versions of his game is not worth the effort? Color me disinterested. "No Tux, no bucks."

That is a pity. We had to wait a few years for Braid to come out on Linux, but now that it's here it works well. Presumably the graphics requirements for The Witness are a lot higher. I'll keep an eye out for The Witness to make it to my desktop.

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#17
post #2

Although it's tempting, this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about (if you are ever going to play it). Vi Hart, who has been playtesting the game for months, said: > Tips for playing The Witness: give yourself a week or two, no hints, no reviews. Sleep on it. Take breaks. It's a big game. Nothing like it. > If you can't spend all day every day playing The Witness, give yourself months. Engage deeply with…

> ...this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about... I couldn't possibly agree more. But, just so others don't end up making (or not making!) a blind purchase, I present a spoiler-free summary: It's a puzzle game. I'm likely not nearly done with the game and the puzzles have ranged from trivial to really, really, rather hard. The guy who made Braid is the designer of and one of the programmers of this game…

Do you think it will be possible to turn it into a mobile game?

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is going to be one of the most popular games of 2016, and is releasing for Windows and PS4. Compared to those platforms, do you think that the time it would take to get a Linux version up and running would be cost-effective? There are some Linux sales figures kicking around [1] and they generally show that the Linux share is under 3%. [1] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/sales-statistics-for-...

And OSX. Apparently Macs are the fastest growing segment of the desktop/laptop industry, but they are often the last to get the big games.

The main reason these days is that Macs don't have good GPUs for games.

Re: Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, is out

#19
post #9
post #2

Although it's tempting, this is a game you really don't want any spoilers about (if you are ever going to play it). Vi Hart, who has been playtesting the game for months, said: > Tips for playing The Witness: give yourself a week or two, no hints, no reviews. Sleep on it. Take breaks. It's a big game. Nothing like it. > If you can't spend all day every day playing The Witness, give yourself months. Engage deeply with…

Ugh. Sounds interesting, but I'll probably be saving it for retirement.

I'm looking forward to the inevitable steam sale / indie bundle in a year or so. Plenty of things to play beforehand.
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