Project Bossanova, established to launch the first ever 3D game exclusively for Linux, today announced a new competition aimed at finding that game. Here's how it works:
- Are you making an indie game?
- Do you want to have your entire game development team sponsored?
- If yes, submit your idea via the button below:
- After two weeks, the project will select three of the top submissions
- The audience will then vote on which team wins sponsorship
To help promote the game, we have joined forces with OMG Ubuntu who will be promoting Project Bossanova along with ModDB, IndieDB and Desura. For us this partnership makes a lot of sense, as the interest in a game digital distribution on linux is significant and we want to bring Desura to Linux. After all the Humble Indie Bundle has twice proven how passionate Linux gamers are.
"We are excited to work with Desura in this joint venture as they have established themselves as the name in independent gaming," said Project Bossanova lead Benjamin Humphrey. "As we have stated before, this is an ambitious project, but with the Desura partnership in place, we feel that we are one step closer to achieving our goal."
So GAME DEVELOPERS, submit your game as an entry to the contest directly to Projectbossanova.com. Remember, you must commit to making the game available for Linux only, profit sharing with the project, and will also be encouraged to publish the game's code under an OSI-approved license. Questions? Ask away, this is a massive opportunity for a game developer so remember you only have 2 weeks to apply!
This sounds really awesome, but I don't think a lot of indie developers would do this, simply because they want the widest audience to play their game. Also why is it 3D only? Good luck though!
"3D" was probably not the best terminology to use in hindsight. :-) By 3D, we don't mean the cool, put on your glasses 3D, but rather the old school Duke Nukem 3D, 3D. We just wanted to imply it would be built on a modern engine and not be a simplistic game.
I know that, I mean you won't allow 2D side scrolling games?
There is Wolfire, who make sure their games are compatible on all computer platforms.
Yeah, but here they're talking about Linux only. It's one thing to release for Linux another to release for Linux only.
Platform exclusive games are bad, really bad. What we need is "cross platform" games not "locked platform" games.
Totally agree, but linux needs a kickstart, a success story I suppose and trying something different is required in this situation.
So long as perhaps after a decent run of being linux exclusive, they port it across other platforms, I agree with you.
I think it's an interesting enough initiative, but the exclusive part of it makes it very tricky, and somewhat against the ideals of open source and GNU/Linux in the first place. It doesn't make any sense if the game could be effortlessly distributed on Windows and maybe even Mac as well. I think it would be best if they turned this around and made Linux the 'main target' instead. Maybe they could make a jokeful in-game statement, e.g. anyone not playing via linux would get silly skins and that sort of thing.
Take it to the extreme level, and you also apply "nerfs" to players on closed platforms, like throwing bluescreens of death in their faces, and kicking them out of games because they don't comply with the just-introduced "player agreement".
You mean like nag-screens? Like for windows players every half minute a message box pops up reading "you are on the wrong side of the force!" :P
I agree. When I first heard about this a small part of me said "Yeah, we should stick it to Windows users because of all of the Windows-exclusive games that come out"...but then I realized that it's not the fault of the gamers.
Well a problem with cross platform is exactly that, having to develop a game for multiple platforms. If you don't have the time and money to go multi-platform it makes sense to stay on one. Trying to do so could damage the overall product.
Not if you have the right game engine under the belt. With a true 0day portability engine the question about what platform it runs on does not even have to bother you to begin with. So you develop for one platform but it runs out of the box on all others without you even knowing what these are. That doesn't hurt the final product.
>What we need is "cross platform" games not "locked platform" games.
Easier said than done
Project Bossanova sounds BADASS
Interesting idea. Although as many have mentioned above many indie dev's want to distribute their game to the widest audience possible. Creating a game exclusive to a platform really goes against delivering an interactive experience to as many people as possible.
While I cannot speak on behalf of the organizers (we are just helping with promotion), I believe they want the game to begin its life as a linux exclusive, and are open to releasing it on more platforms later down the road. They are open to negotiation.
Secondly, I'd say 99.99% of games only reach a handful of gamers even if they are released on every single platform known to man. Focusing on a niche can sometimes help you reach many many more people than "releasing everywhere" will. Especially when you'll have all Linux sites and press coverage organized for you (really hard to do yourself!)
Spot on!
I don't know, I mean, I'm passionate about Linux, but I like things opened platform.
I was hoping something like this would happen, going to let myself be surprised by the submissions x]
Well, we are already working on a rather serious RPG project that will come to Linux as well. But we are going to release to Windows as well, so I guess that's a no go?
Submit your entry anyway. =)
Fair enough. We'll prepare a presentation and submit then. Thank you for the quick reply!
We're still open minded, so by all means if you have an awesome 2D game that you think we'd be interested in, please submit it!
Why only on linux? Oddest thing to do.
I agree.
Yeah, I (as a big Linux-fan) don't like this, too. It somehow feel like getting a game that do under Linux what I do not like at programs/games under Windows.
I think a kind of "first just on linux with the abilitie to release on ehat platform you want 3 months after the Linux-release" would be something I would accept, but this "only Linux" is... It do not feel right for a user like me and I think especially for the developers this is not a good promotion for this event...
Need a thumbs up button!
I would be happy to announce this in the jMonkeyEngine community, but "unfortunately" the games created with our engine are inherently cross-platform... Does that automatically disqualify any jMonkeyEngine-powered game?
Are jMonkeyEngine games cross-platform executables, or are they simply easy to compile/package for any platform?
Something like cross-platform executables doesn't exist anyways so what's the question? And up to today there exist no (not yet) true 0day game engines anyways (except VMs, but they are not suitable for a full blown project).
jMonkey uses Java, so theoretically a single binary would run without any changes. I'm just asking if that's how it works since I don't know much about Java.
Typically doesn't need changes per-OS. Key word being "typically".
You mean a "jar" file. Jars are not an executable. They can not run on their own but need a VM which runs them. And as mentioned below the key word is "typically". I've experienced quite a lot of troubles with jars being it that it throws exceptions (and not running) or requiring dependencies not included or require funny classpath... also something I've seen unfortunately. But yeah, Java based stuff would go into the cross-platform bin although personally I avoid Java whenever I can (as user as well as developer) :D
Ah, got it. My bad. :) Yeah, I'm a C++ guy myself...Java gave me too many problems back when I first started out.
go for it, encouraging more games to be built for linux is the primary objective after all
A boldly move for the Linux OS plataforms; I eager to see what good games might come out from it.
Congrats and good luck to all how join the endeavor.
Time to get Linux.
Also, good luck for who tries.
This has my support 100%. Hell, I'd even like to donate towards the winning team. Will you be setting up a way for donations, or do you plan on funding the winner on your own? :P
i get it, but i dont get the linux exclusif
I am actually starting to work on a 3D RTS Indie which is Aimed towards Linux.. but yeah the exclusive part is tricky, as for atleast my game I am planning on Windows releases a week or so after the linux releases favoring linux.
Though I don't agree with platform exclusivity, I definitely would like to boot into Debian more often to play games simply because I've taken so much time to customize the OS to my liking :D
It's enough SONY and Microsoft being sneazzy and wanting to have their own exclusives, we really don't need that sort of competition on PC too.
While i fully support a competition for developers to make their games work on both Linux and on OSX (besides the usual windows) and make these OS shine along side windows, i simply can't accept a plataform exclusive game, just like i can't accept 'later ports'.
Sorry if this sounded harsh and offensive, it wasn't my intention, it's just a bit frustrating to see someone is trying to divide the public evan more with 'exclusives', when they should be trying to get the maximum 'community' base possible.
Again, i fully support cross-plataform and wish to see linux shine in the dark windows era, but exclusiveness is not the way to do it.
So after so many Linux gamers feel hard done by the fact games are generally Windows only the best way to move forwards is to try and do the same to anyone not using Linux?
If anything this goes against the basic idea of Linux as being open.
you're saying that as if building a game for two different OS is a trivial thing. Well, I can assure you it is not. Linux is all about being open, but it doesn't say anthing about working twice as hard to make something available to other Operating Systems
I am really looking forward to this, i would help but i don't know if my minor c++ experience and crappy photo shopping is enough to be of use
Go make a MMORPG!
A very good MMORPG on Linux! :D
I look forward to this, I hope a quality product is produced. It'd be cool if your team could really focus on graphics in the sense that the end product would be visually comparable to a modern commercial game. It's a lot to ask but I think Open Gl can do it with a dedicated team. If the system requirements are high, I think that's alright because so many games for windows have high requirements and thus many gamers have powerful pcs.
this is a rather disapointing comp. for a start the game "Breath" is not a linux game, "Avaneya" has no screenshots or videos to judge it one leaving only two choices. (I voted other in hope there might be more to choose from if enough people do so)
I agree...Breath is using UDK and the screenshot they provide is straight from Unreal Tournament 3. I'm personally hoping for Avaneya (even though I waited too long to vote) since they're going to be Linux-only anyway.