He never fails to make me laugh :)

Thank you for the link, I didn’t know the inner workings of it :)

I’m using Ubuntu myself to develop actually so I’m kind of doing that all the time. The problem is, my machine isn’t everyone’s machine, my drivers aren’t anyone’s drivers, and so on.

In the end I think that I’ll try to give Linux builds to testers to see if they report a lot of bugs or not and decide at that moment if it’s too much work or not.

Haha problem is I have a kid to feed, and I fear that cutting myself from 90% of my potential player might be a bad play if I want to be able to continue feeding him

Yes my bad haha I had trouble to find another way to write that title which wasn’t too long but would mention Steam

I was going to do it anyway, but your answers gave me even more confidence in how important it is! Thank you :)

Well, it’s not a quick game made in 3 months and then I go on to the next. I fully intend to support it and give my players the best experience I can. So it’s not as simple as “click the export button”, I have to actually commit to support the builds.

Well, I’m using Godot which can target all three big OS, though clicking on the export button and actually supporting a platform is not the same.

In the end I think I’ll try to make builds for all OSes and have testers for each platform, and estimate the viability of the builds from the amount of bugs they give me back.

I didn’t know there was such a demand for GOG. Thanks to this post, your and others’ answers, it’s on my radar now :)

Glad to count you aboard then :) don’t hesitate to subscribe to the newsletter (https://uncharted-sectors.com/) to be informed. It also registers you to have an access to the closed beta

I’ve found some communities on Lemmy indeed, I’ll share progress when I’ll have interesting things to show

The initial goal was Steam but it looks like some people prefer GOG so I’ll study that possibility too :)

Yes that seems to be the consensus in the end. Thanks for your answer :)

For the docs I’ve found this for Proton common issues: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/proton?l=english And this for Steam Deck compatibility: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/recommendations I’m sure there are other resources, but if someone finds the thread later and needs a starting point, here they are

Noted, thank you :)

Good point indeed. Thanks :)

I think it’s what I’ll do indeed. And for the Steam Deck I intend to make the game fully compatible with it as I’ve read a lot of time how it enabled people with otherwise few opportunities to play to get a bit of “me time”. Being a dad I empathize a lot with that struggle haha

Proton it will probably be then :) The game is Uncharted Sectors, I don’t have a Steam page public yet, but you can subscribe to the mailing list if you are interested (https://uncharted-sectors.com/)

I’m not that familiar with GOG, I’ll take a look at it. Does it have a similar Linux compatibility layer? Because if not I do need to make a native build then

They make an OS too, which is for example running on their Steam Deck portable gaming platform, but nobody has to use it specifically :)

Yes I had a similar experience with Paradox Games, where the native build delivers very poor performance over the Proton-run version. It seems to be the consensus. If I don’t receive other real counterpoints I’ll follow your advice.

You actually don’t need to install or touch the Steam OS yourself. If you use Steam you can just enable Compatibility Mode in the settings of your non-Linux (or even Linux-compatible) games and it will use Proton to run them.

I’m trying to gauge where is the line between “always welcome” and “needed” though. From my own experience and the ones I’ve heard around Proton works well (sometimes even better than native builds as others have pointed out), and if it’s the general consensus, spending more time on the game itself and not have a linux version is better for my players and for me.

Yeah I agree, it’s honestly impressive how well it works. As soon as I have the possibility I’ll take a Steam Deck and try to make my game compatible with it, I’m sure if I manage to make it work on it that should eliminate 90% of Proton compatibility-related bugs if I don’t make a native build.

I’m still seeking for answers from people for whom it doesn’t work well or who have bad experiences with it, because I’m sure there are cases where it doesn’t work