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Marketing? I played the Darwinia demo for linux about a year ago I think. Loved it. So, there I was last Saturday standing in front of game titles; ready to plop down a Jackson or a Grant on whatever struck me. I glanced over a few titles and stumbled upon Darwinia. Great, I thought. Another title to add to my linux collection. As I read the back cover, the only operating system listed was Windows. What a shame. What happened from the demo to the shelf? So, a bit disheartened, I grabbed the latest expansion pack to CIV4 instead.

While I agree that this is a real shame, there's no numbers available for how many people are:
1) Downloading the game, and thereby stealing a sale from you
2) Downloading the game, that never would have bought from you anyways
3) Downloading the game, and being excited about a cool indy developer and buying the game from you.

Now, I've got no idea what the ratio of 1:2:3 is.. and neither do you. But I'll say this: I steal music, but I'd NEVER steal from an indy developer. In fact, I'll go ahead and plug the two most recent indy game purchases I've made, both HIGHLY recommended:

Enigmo - a friggin' great puzzle game (mac only unfortunately)
http://www.pangeasoft.net/enigmo/index.html

Darwinia - http://www.darwinia.co.uk/

Darwinia definitely has the kind of graphics you're talking about. CGI used for style, not just for kicks.

I guess you know you're trolling, and that why you posted AC. I'm going to bite anyhow, even though I know better.

Yes, Linux is not entirely user friendly yet. No denying that. But maybe you mean 1%, as you said... It's not really a good troll your way.

And yes, apt-get is a -lot- easier. Why? Because you left the steps out on the Windows side where you search for some utility on the web and have to wade through search results that mean nothing and attempt to find what you want, or you could just apt-get install it. 1 step, not several.

As for your game installation example, maybe you should pick something actually made FOR Linux, instead of hacked onto it later. Darwinia, for example: http://www.darwinia.co.uk/downloads/demo_linux.htm l

Check out those complicated instr... err, no. You just download and run the file. Okay, you have to make it executable first. Just a bit of security there. At least it didn't ask you 'cancel or allow?' about 5 times.

Including the steps to set up video properly is a bit disingenuous unless you include the steps for Windows as well. Including finding and downloading the proper drivers for sound, video, motherboard chipset, etc. Is it easier on Windows? A bit, yes. But the steps still exist.

Off-topic, but Uplink is a great game. If you like Introversion's style you should check out Darwinia, which is another game by them. Beautiful graphics and awesome gameplay!

Sim City 3000 (happy penguin pay)
Tremulous: http://tremulous.net/ (Repositories free)
Legends: http://legendsthegame.net/ (download free)
Uplink: http://www.uplink.co.uk/
Darwinia: http://www.darwinia.co.uk/
Defcon: http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/

Don't assume they're all rubbish till you've actually played them. Preferably on Linux. (Except Sim City. Thats rubbish.)

Exactly. Release a game worth playing, at a reasonable price point ($40 per game at max?), and I'm sure people will just flock to it. Release a GTA-clone for $80, with a buggy engine, long load times, and a multitude of other problems, and sure, the people who like playing GTA will probably pirate it. It's been my rule. If a game is truly worth playing, I will always support the developers. Games like Darwinia.

I actually don't really understand our obsession with "hits". There are good indie games out there for anyone who wants to look, and there are indie developers making a living off their games, as far as I can tell. I recently had a ball playing Darwinia, and Rag Doll Kung Fu.

I've made games, movies, and music, and I think it's just about artists and audiences getting over their obsession with being a big hit and dominating the world. Many of my favorite things are smaller scale things that touched me personally, and would not necessarily appeal to the mass market. And I think that's okay.

On the consoles it is far more limited, but I feel that is just an issue of openness. I mean, there wasn't much indie music on minidisc either. But the music in other formats exists, and games on the PC or online exist, and anyone with the talent and skills can still make something cool. And if they can't dominate the world and make millions like EA or Sony... oh well. I still appreciate it.

Cheers.

Great, next someone writes a virus based on a genetic algorithm and as the virus propagates across the world, by the time it reaches back to ground zero it's a totally different species! Or, erm, yeah, something like that.... viva la Darwinia!

Actually, from what I hear GTA is a great all-around game, and is much more than just a violence fest. Having not played it I can't really say. But I think a lot of people get a distaste for violence after 25 or so. I know I did. I can still stomach it fine -- I enjoyed Kill Bill, and even Hostel, but I don't seek the stuff out like I used to. So while I might enjoy GTA if I got into it, it's just not what I'm attracted to. I have a limited amount of time for gaming, and I'm far more inclined to try something with a less overtly violent tone, like Darwinia.

But to each their own. Enjoy what you like :)

Cheers.

Come on, this is a whole event. Can we talk about something other than the most violent game there?

What about Darwinia http://www.darwinia.co.uk/? How about Tribal Trouble http://tribaltrouble.com/? Crazy Ball http://www.atomicelbow.com/?

let the entire competition shine, not just the one crappy flash game that gets media attention!

You have to wonder how the indie scene is doing, with big-named publishers pushing re-hases of last year's hit title. Hopefully this symposium has proof that the indie developer isn't dead. You can get some really invovative titles from them, such as Darwinia.

When you plug multiple monitors into a new Nvidia or ATI card (or cards in SLI or Crossfire), they actually show up to the OS as additional monitors. This is actually the perfered behaviour because it lets you use monitors with different resolutions and sizes together and in non-traditional arangements. Unfortunatly, it means that actual multiple monitor support has to be specifically coded into games.

I think the apparent multiple monitor support is often a useful abstraction - I get the impression that it can be just one big framebuffer shared between multiple displays.

At least, I quite accidentally got a 2560x960, dual-screen Darwinia when I first ran it on Linux with my GeForce 6600. It looked pretty amazing, but was a bit too difficult to control thanks to the split down the middle. I eventually added a screenmode which ignored the right-hand monitor for gaming purposes...

I'm sure there's still a couple of independent games around

Movies take several years to generate two hours of content. Games are often ten times that long, with a much smaller budget. How can they possibly be of comparable visual quality? and why do people try?

I would much rather have games that concentrate on art instead of graphics. (Rez and Darwinia come to mind as examples of visually impressive games with non-realistic styles. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work well in terms of sales...)

Four. You just have to read the system requirements that are next to each game on the original page (or copied into this thread). Barring any errors in the listings, the 4 Linux-running games are:

• DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold
• Professor Fizzwizzle
• Darwinia
• Tribal Trouble

So 40% of the games in the top 10 run on Linux. And cross-platform indie developers report about 10% of their sales come from Linux games. So don't bitch too much.

10) New Star Soccer 3
System Requirements: Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
http://www.newstargames.com/

9) DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold
System Requirements: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP, Linux, Mac OS X
http://www.caravelgames.com/Articles/Games_2/JtRH. html

8) Professor Fizzwizzle
System Requirements: Windows or Linux, Mac OS X
http://grubbygames.com/

7) Darwinia
Windows 98/XP/2000, Linux, Mac
http://www.darwinia.co.uk/

6) Democracy
Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
http://www.democracygame.com/

5) Mexican Motor Mafia
Windows 98/Me/2000/XP
http://www.scienceoftomorrow.com/mmm_main.htm

4) Tribal Trouble
MacOS X / Linux /Windows NT/2000/XP
http://tribaltrouble.com/

3) Zombie Smashers X2
DirectX 8+
http://www.totallyscrewed.net/newsite/home.htm

2) Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/digital_eel/weird_wor lds/1.htm

1) Oasis
Windows 98/Me/2000/XP
http://www.oasisgame.com/

Now that's news!

A solid innovative product that people actually want to buy helps a company turn a profit!

Now if only the rest of the gaming industry (I'm talking to you, EA!) would catch up, we might be able to escape the FPS monotony we've fallen into.

It seems that the popularity of a game is solely determined by the level of hype surrounding it. Halo specifically comes to mind. I'll concede that it's a solid FPS, but the level of hype surrounding the launch of Halo 2 was obscene.

I'm sorry, but there are just so many things about the gaming industry that irritate me. The companies. Overinflated prices. Overinflated gamer egos. Lack of innovation. Hype. Obscene system requirements.....

Here's what I've been playing in the past year:
-More SNES/N64 games than you can shake a stick at. I'll probably buy a gamecube because Nintendo's games seem to have the greatest degree of innovation/replayability right now (and yet they're the least popular, go figure)
-Liero (hailing all the way from 1993)
-All of these downright bizarre arcade-style shooters that are strangely addictive
-Wulfram. One of the first good online games back from 2000. It's finally being actively developed once again...
-Darwinia. Another great non-photorealistic game. (Could be better to tell the truth, but a solid game nonetheless)
-Escape Velocity Series -- they've been around forever for the mac. A few have been ported to Windows. Go see what the PC world has been missing out on for over a decade!
-Freespace 2 -- One of the best space shooters ever made. Period. Made by a major studio, but enjoyed little commercial success. I can't even begin to fathom why....

Darwinia will STILL HAVE A STEAM-LESS VERSION. If you'd read the site you'd know that.

Thay are not. Linux downloads and Linux/Win32 boxed versions will still be available from their site, http://darwinia.co.uk/. They are just using Steam to get the Win32 version of the game more exposure.

You could always visit their website:

http://darwinia.co.uk/exposure/index.html

Plenty of reviews linked from there.

There's a native Linux version of Darwinia, availiable directly from Introversion. The Steam deal only covers online distribution of the Windows version of Darwinia, IV are still handling retail boxes of Windows and Linux versions, and the Mac version is availiable from Ambrosia software. Here, have a demo

Introversion claim to be "the last of the bedroom programmers".

They've released two games so far, Uplink & Darwinia. I bought 'em both, and thought they were great - definitely not the sort of games a company like EA would release.

For the unitiated, Uplink is a "hacking" game, intended to replicate the experiences of hacking you see in the movies. It's also littered with references to movies, and other computer games (I particularly liek the Frontier-style bulletin boards!) Darwinia is a little harder to classify. It's sort of part RTS, part God Game, tied together with a stylishly done 80's-video-game feel. (That's a rubbish explanation - you'll have to try the demo to see what I mean.)

At the end of the day, I suppose it all comes down to acceptable risks. EA have got so used to raking it in from their annual updates to the NFL, NBA, NHL, FIFA (etc. etc.) series that they can't see the benefit in trying out anything that isn't a sure-fire-money-spinner (read, anything that isn't highly derivative of something they've done before). For the little guys to get noticed, I suppose they have to come up with something new/unconventional.

I know which I'd rather play...

Introversion claim to be "the last of the bedroom programmers".

They've released two games so far, Uplink & Darwinia. I bought 'em both, and thought they were great - definitely not the sort of games a company like EA would release.

For the unitiated, Uplink is a "hacking" game, intended to replicate the experiences of hacking you see in the movies. It's also littered with references to movies, and other computer games (I particularly liek the Frontier-style bulletin boards!) Darwinia is a little harder to classify. It's sort of part RTS, part God Game, tied together with a stylishly done 80's-video-game feel. (That's a rubbish explanation - you'll have to try the demo to see what I mean.)

At the end of the day, I suppose it all comes down to acceptable risks. EA have got so used to raking it in from their annual updates to the NFL, NBA, NHL, FIFA (etc. etc.) series that they can't see the benefit in trying out anything that isn't a sure-fire-money-spinner (read, anything that isn't highly derivative of something they've done before). For the little guys to get noticed, I suppose they have to come up with something new/unconventional.

I know which I'd rather play...

I am a voice in their choir ... the Many sings to us ...

Argh! I really liked how the fear-factor in SS2 worked on numerous levels - there was the usual darkness-with-monsters, zombies and so on, but also the horrible sense that you were utterly alone, surrounded by the subverted, horribly repurposed shells of your former colleagues. Most disturbingly, they were obviously still conscious of what they were doing, but the Many had turned them completely... Ugh.

As for a game making me cry - the closest any game has got so far is Darwinia. Yeah, its age rating is '7+', but learning about what had happened to the victims of the Soul Destroyers at the end really got to me. There's also a piece of text in one of the intros (a modified Conway's game of life with built-in, guaranteed extinction) which made me shiver. Something along the lines of 'it was agreed by all on the Darwinia Digital Life project that the Darwinians should be taught as soon as possible the meaning of their own mortality', with the writhing grid of green Darwinians in the background slowly fading away to nothing...

Sorry, who the hell modded this informative?

Ok, the first part is insightfull, but this part is utter crap:

>'It's interesting, but it hasn't had the press scores and coverage'

Really?

Read:
http://www.darwinia.co.uk/exposure/index.html
- PC Format: 90%
- PC Gamer: 90%
- PC Zone: 84%
- IGN.com: 88% (8.8 out of 10)
- Others, never dropping below 70% (7/10)
Read:
http://www.darwinia.co.uk/exposure/webreviews.html
- All but three reviews scored the game at 80% or higher (some gave it 100%).
- The scores that were not over 80% slated the game for bugs that are fixed in the 1.2 patch, so their scores are a bit outdated.

Next time you say the game hasn't had press scores, check your sources.

NeoThermic

Sorry, who the hell modded this informative?

Ok, the first part is insightfull, but this part is utter crap:

>'It's interesting, but it hasn't had the press scores and coverage'

Really?

Read:
http://www.darwinia.co.uk/exposure/index.html
- PC Format: 90%
- PC Gamer: 90%
- PC Zone: 84%
- IGN.com: 88% (8.8 out of 10)
- Others, never dropping below 70% (7/10)
Read:
http://www.darwinia.co.uk/exposure/webreviews.html
- All but three reviews scored the game at 80% or higher (some gave it 100%).
- The scores that were not over 80% slated the game for bugs that are fixed in the 1.2 patch, so their scores are a bit outdated.

Next time you say the game hasn't had press scores, check your sources.

NeoThermic

Points 1 and 2 are already being addressed in a patch currently in beta testing, which gives you the option between two control methods.

Point #3 - I like it, if you want to inform the developers that you don't like it, post on the forums instead of on slashdot. You can also rebind the keys, IIRC, but I can't remember if the mouse is configurable.

Graphics - Introversion are a 4 man team. They tried realistic graphics, decided that they couldn't do them well enough, so instead decided to go for the retro feel. It was probably more complex to write extra code for the Darwinian sprites than it would've been to make crude models and use the existing model handling.

Story - I liked it, but a storyline isn't integral to having fun in my opinion. Sure, they can add to a game (and in Darwinia's case, I feel that it strings the game together nicely).

As for not recommending it, well, you seem to be against the majority.

Points 1 and 2 are already being addressed in a patch currently in beta testing, which gives you the option between two control methods.

Point #3 - I like it, if you want to inform the developers that you don't like it, post on the forums instead of on slashdot. You can also rebind the keys, IIRC, but I can't remember if the mouse is configurable.

Graphics - Introversion are a 4 man team. They tried realistic graphics, decided that they couldn't do them well enough, so instead decided to go for the retro feel. It was probably more complex to write extra code for the Darwinian sprites than it would've been to make crude models and use the existing model handling.

Story - I liked it, but a storyline isn't integral to having fun in my opinion. Sure, they can add to a game (and in Darwinia's case, I feel that it strings the game together nicely).

As for not recommending it, well, you seem to be against the majority.

Is it just me or is there a nod to tron in one of the screenshots? http://www.darwinia.co.uk/screenshots/t_image6.jpg

Either its a sarcastic stabb at linux, or an attempt at a joke, but either way I'll throw in my two pence.

There are plenty of games avalable for Linux, including great titles such as Uplink (http://www.uplink.co.uk/), Darwinia (http://www.darwinia.co.uk/), and a many others.

You just need to look about more often :)

NeoThermic

Look, the truth is that the reason game publishers are sticking to the "tried and true" methods and genres is that that's what most people will buy. Also, personally, I like the sweet graphics of today's games (I think that how fun the game is is more important, but still. . .) Plus, the programmers don't really have anything to do with the game's textures - the artists do all that - and the modeling. And there are still games that don't follow this "tried and true" method - for example, Darwinia. Problem is, not enough people like these sorts of games - from what I hear, the game's maker, Introversion Software, is pretty broke and considering filing for bankruptcy.

If you wanna see some more creative games, check out open-source games. Although I think you'll find that a lot of the most popular ones are a lot like today's proprietary games (or at least proprietary games from a few years ago).

it is not economically feasible for a couple guys in their garage to make a massively popular game

Well it might still be popular to make a moderately popular one. Here's a pretty good review.

A team of graphic artists creating textures and 3D models does not necessarily a good game make.

You did buy a copy of Darwinia, didn't you? How about Uplink?

Schwab

since... always, as far as I know :) Unlike Uplink they didn't put the linux version on the CD, but just download the combined patch and Linux installer from here.

Darwinia has the most awesome soundtrack ive heard in a game in ages.

Sort of 8bit infulenced progressive.

http://www.darwinia.co.uk/store/soundtrack.html

Sure. On none of these games do you actually have to type with both hands. So I'd say they are primarily mouse driven.

If, in these games, you actually had to use both hands on the keyboard (aka. getting fragged while chatting with your teammates), then you'd probably start complaining about reaching for the mouse, and finding it only a split second after chunks of your now dismembered player decorate all of the surrounding walls :-)

(OK, so the first time I beat doom I was just using the keyboard, but that's because I didn't have to worry about aiming up the vertical axis.)

Actually, an interesting game comes to mind: Darwinia actually uses mouse gestures to spawn new creatures within the game. Right click, draw the creature you'd like to create, and it pops up. I'm not sure this is the most efficient - but it was neat.

I was pleased to see Darwinia in the list - it's easily the best game I've played this year. And I'm not usually that keyed in to the world of independent games, so I'm definitely looking through the list for other things I might like...

It's a big grey area, and I would never do what he did personally, but it's not at all inconceivable that the person is very sane and has an understandable motivation for doing it--shock value, for instance.

I haven't actually looked at the site in question, but it's a pretty fun moral question regardless - can a collection of bits and bytes really be considered 'alive', and can it really 'suffer'?

I think one of the aspects which will make it seem like 'torture' is the apparent response of the computer program, both visual and aural. If all it had was just a plain set of numbers on the screen to indicate the current weightings in its neural network or whatever, I'm sure people would have few objections - I imagine it's more the apparent realistic responses to suffering that the human brain responds to...

There's a really cool game I played recently, Darwinia, which has some characters which really affected me.

*SPOILERS AHOY!*

Visually, they're identical, non-animated green stick men, but the sounds they make are absolutely perfect. Happy chirruping if they're 'happy', mewlings, wails and screams if they're injured or killed - and given there's some utterly fearsome battles in the game against some hundreds of Virus-infected Darwinian clones, it kind of gets to you after a bit. Seeing the clouds of red and green souls rising above a battlefield is bad enough - but the utterly dead, destroyed, no-chance-of-resurrection ghosts of Darwinians killed by a Soul Destroyer are just awful. It's probably the closest a game has ever got to making me cry...

But they're all just aspects of a computer program, with incredibly simplistic AI. Probably even simpler than the Little Computer People of The Fabled Article. But still... ;-)

There's already one out there...

http://darwinia.co.uk/

Don't forget Darwinia and Uplink as decent indy games.

well, try that one: http://www.darwinia.co.uk/ it's a game, ok. but there is a demo and if you ever wondered what is really happening when you start your fav antivir-O-mat, try it.

The problem, has the "burn the house" schandal spred its that concept, genre. A sucesfull game become a genre. What its RTS? RTS its dune2. The Game. I have played that game for years and years with slighty different names for the spice. Often as tiberium, metal, mana, wood or gold, but the same mechanic.
Its the concept of RTS that stop people.
Anyway I see a solution: Indy guys. You can make AAA titles with a few guys on a creative idea. A simple one. If you can achive a wonderfull world, you can beat the big fat guys.

I have received a instant message about the topic.

GAMES ARE NOT DEAD. repeat. GAMES ARE NOT DEAD.

Here the proff:
http://www.darwinia.co.uk/

Darwinia!

It's even got full Linux and MacOS X support! Seriously thought, it's a game that is addictive and original (no, simply using references to older games does not count as a ripoff). Go buy!

I agree, Darwinia is an amazing game, essentially written by one guy on a laptop in his bedroom, and marketed by him and 2 other guys... out of their bedrooms.

Think Tron, Centipede, Space Invaders, and Cannon Fodder all rolled into one RTS-style game with a unique mouse gesture interface.

http://www.darwinia.co.uk/

Care to point the last truly _original_ game (that does not suck)?
http://darwinia.co.uk/
suprise, suprise - their development department is bigger than their marketing department, I guess (unlike others *cough* EA *cough*)

Most of the posters just don't seem to remember back far enough to see the real genre defining moments.

For adventure type games it simply has to be Zork. Everything after this has simply added pretty graphics and different user interfaces. Fun though Sam & Max and Day of the Tentacle are, they both show heritage back to the earliest text based games.

Racing games. How has no-one mentioned Pole Position? Or for the more simulation oriented how about Revs? Which directly lead on to the Grand Prix series of games. Everything since has just added more cars, more tracks, better graphics and better physics. The games aspect of getting round a course a quickly as possible hasn't changed.

First person shooters. Wolfenstein 3D - no doubt. Choice of weapons, ammo levels and health. Doom was a better game, more fun but still clearly an evolution from Wolf3D, as is quake, unreal and half-life.

Platform games. Manic Miner on the Sinclair Spectrum. The basic elements of collecting things and getting to the exit are there. MM has each room as an individual levels to be completed, the sequal Jet Set Willy had an enormous map of connected rooms but still the same basic principle. Mario and Sonic are just the same really - they all trace back to Manic Miner.

Puzzles - Tetris. Nothing else needs to be said here.

Space simulators. This is the one that has amazed me the most - NO ONE HAS MENTIOED ELITE!!! The original space flight / fight / trading games from the BBC Micro. That has spawned enormous numbers of versions and countless derivatives.

Innovate games are getting very very rare now. I personally think this is a great shame. The most innovative game I have played recently is Darwinia which combines aspects of several other genres to make something unlike most other games.

Its still not truly innovative though.

I wonder if we will ever see anything utterly new again.

Darwinia, made by the same guys responsible for Uplink is mind-bogglingly awesomely fun... I really can't heap enough superlatives and praise onto it.

I'm pretty curious about this one and I haven't seen many reviews about it. Would you mind doing a bit of a writeup about it?

Well I would, but apparently expressing a positive opinion about some random, recently released game is a definite no-no on Slashdot. One must winge, grumble and bear grudges indefinitely - cynicism and paranoia are the only acceptable behaviours!

...

Ahem!

But anyway, there's a couple of reviews on Gamerankings and there's the demo for download somewhere. I imagine it's a bit of an acquired taste - there's an interesting article from Edge magazine explaining in part why the game's so utterly peculiar.

I think I'd better shut up now, lest anyone accuses me of yet more dodgy activities... ;-)