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Am I The Only One?

linux game development rant

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#1 Beefster

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Posted 25 September 2014 - 12:18 AM

For the last 2 months, I have been trying out so many different game engines, looking for an editor that works well on Linux and provides all of the functionality I need. So far, the best matches are Monogame and Love2D, but neither of them have level editors or anything like that. Well, actually, they're just frameworks, which means I have to do a lot of work on my own. Monogame seems to be the better of the two, as C# gives a heck of a lot more power and control than Lua.

 

I tried out Unity, getting it working on Wine... sorta. Some things don't work quite right, like the asset store. This basically means I have no reference for making a 2D platformer. Unity also feels like a 10 ton hammer for doing what I want. Too many features. Steep difficulty curve.

 

Stencyl is still weird. Now they use Haxe for their language... well, that is when you choose to program. It has weak joystick support, is arbitrarily limited, and just doesn't provide what I need.

 

I really want to use Cocos2D-x, but apparently the developers don't think that anyone wants to develop games from Linux, so they have no editor support whatsoever for Linux (even though it can deploy to Linux). Am I really the only one? Am I too picky?

 

I don't want to have to boot into my Windows side just to work on my games. I can't run the other side on VirtualBox, due to some ridiculous licensing restrictions on Windows (plus it's buggy and stuff). I don't want to run my Linux in a VirtualBox because that totally defeats the purpose of having Linux if it's just running inside Windows- plus I use Linux 95%+ of the time these days.

 

But heck, if that's the only way I can get anything done, it might come to that... :-/

 

Does anyone else share my frustrations or am I the only one?



#2 Avaro

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Posted 25 September 2014 - 06:45 AM

 Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I've been there too. Making games and being creative is something i really like and I found it frustrating that there was no editor that would fit my needs (I'm using windows btw). But then I found Zelda Classic :)



#3 Zacron

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Posted 25 September 2014 - 11:53 AM

Truth is, even in Windows you are limited. One option you may have seen floating around is the Axis Game Factory. It is not free, but goes on sale quite often.

 

As far as Cocos2D-x, it may be that they don't know enough about Linux to support it properly. But I do agree that the lack of cross platform tools is depressing.

 

I am a C# Programmer, and Monogame is pretty good, until you design a level. Honestly, I'd get used to Unity or UDK if you are serious about it, as they are industry leading, and even if they have more features than you will ever need, learning it can help you down the road.


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