Updates: Linux, Beauty, Global Game Jam
Good news everyone!
- The Linux version of World of Goo is well into beta. Thanks to Maks Verver for helping us with the port and running the beta program. He’s also the genius behind the translation project, and the tower visualizer.
- John Walker did an interview with us for Eurogamer, and The Reticule has a sexy new redesign and has a multipart tea time with us here.
- The Global Game Jam is at the end of this month! Anyone can participate. The idea is for talented and curious indie game people to come together from all around the world, to their respective locations (listed here on the left), and make a game, all on their own. From the site: The global Game Jam will start at 5:00PM Friday, January 30, 2009 through 5:00PM Sunday, February 1, 2009, (all times local). All participants in the Global Game Jam will be constrained by the same rules and limitations, with each time zone having one distinct constraint.
Should be a fun time. I highly recommend participating in a game jam, especially if you’ve never done it before. I’ll be keynoting it via a short video message. My topic (tentatively) is “How to Make a Game in 48 Hours”.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
As a Linux user and a World of Goo lover, I’m currently enjoying World of Goo under Wine. However, I’m excited for the native Linux version to come out (mainly so I can hear the lovely sound without audio issues!). Will there be an easy way to transfer my saves from the Wine install to the native install? If not, it would be delicious agony to play the levels over again. ;)
-Rebecca
January 16th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
That was a great interview. It’s always nice to hear from you guys. And I took particular interest in your mention of releasing some early stages of World of Goo. That would be pretty dang cool.
January 17th, 2009 at 3:03 am
Hurrah! I’m looking forward to my second playthrough, and it’ll be great to be able to do that in Linux :)
January 17th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Good news! I will buy the day the linux version is out! :)
January 17th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Great news about the Linux beta. I’m playing through the Wii version slowly, but I look forward to giving you guys my money a second time.
January 17th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
So, do you guys need any beta testers? :)
January 17th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
@Rebecca: transfering your progress will be a matter of copying a file from WIndows to Linux, so that should be no problem for most users (although replaying the game is hardly a chore).
@Cam and others willing to beta test: currently we have a lot of testers, but we could use a few more people using ATI video cards on Linux. If you’re a Linux user with an ATI card and would like to help, send me an e-mail: maksverver at geocities.com
January 18th, 2009 at 7:44 am
[…] Linux users will be able to dig into the World of Goo very soon, according to the official 2D Boy site. […]
January 18th, 2009 at 8:06 am
Is it also possible to continue the progress from the demo in the full version?
January 18th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I’ve been waiting for the native Linux version to actually come out before I buy the full game, thanks for the progress update. I went on a Buy-Indie-Games-That-Support-Linux shopping spree over the holidays and grabbed a few titles from the Greenhouse and Introversion, I kept wishing WoG was available. Been looking forward to this. Thanks for taking the time to make a proper port!
January 18th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
@the Linux folks,
WoG runs perfectly under wine. To eliminate the sound issues (which usually happen because of pulseaudio) you can switch wine to the OSS sound driver, install alsaoss and run the game with “aoss wine WorldOfGoo.exe”.. BTW: This helps with a lot of other games, too.
NB: When I bought the game the mail said I would be able to download the Linux version as soon as it is released. So no reason not to buy now ;-)
January 19th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
My interview with Ron and Kyle, much better than Walker’s :D
January 19th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
@Rawfan:
Wine != Linux. Even if it runs well (I know, I played the Demo on Wine) it’s not the same.
If PulseAudio is a problem, your setup is most likely broken. Sadly, many distributions still don’t integrate PA correctly. But this will change :)
January 19th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Great news, as soon as the official version for linux fate, I buy direct the game .. Thank you.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:43 am
[…] Linux version of World Of Goo is not out yet, but it will be very soon (I had the chance to play through the beta yesterday). […]
January 20th, 2009 at 6:52 am
You can’t imagine how happy I am to hear this :)
I love you, 2D Boy!
I love you, Maks Verver!
January 21st, 2009 at 7:57 am
Rawfan, buying the Windows version of a game in anticipation of its port to Linux is a great way to make developers say to themselves, “Wow, our Linux port’s sales have really sucked. We don’t need to do that again.” I remember the people at Loki complaining about “delayed port syndrome” not long before they went out of business.
I mean, do what you want, but I don’t even own any machines running Windows, so it’s kind of important to me to support publishers who do native ports in such a way that they actually realize I’m supporting them. I saw WOG in a retail box in Sam’s Club, and I really wanted to buy it (even though I bought the Wiiware version, I like physical things) but when the same game comes out for multiple operating systems, every dollar is a vote whether or not you consider it to be so.
January 21st, 2009 at 9:25 am
I share your position, raindog, but as I don’t own a Wii the only way of playing World of Goo (and I needed it) was either pirating and waiting to buy the Linux port, or buying the Windows version. And as the Windows version purchase was automatically giving me rights to get a Linux version, the choice was clear.
About the “making the developers realize I’m supporting them”, in this case instead of counting purchases (which are “multiplatform”) they can only count number of Linux client downloads, and I’m sure I’ll be one of those :)
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:06 am
As a Linux user I am also running the demo under WIne and waiting the release to give you honest 20 bucks for your awesome work!
I had no fun playing in the computer – I am more a Playstation 2 guy – since ages!
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:09 am
Also I forgot to ask: will World of Goo run in small form machines such as an eeePC 701?
I have lots of games that do not run on it simply because they use as minimal resolution 800×600 and the eeePC 701 is 800×480 :-(
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
How to monitor developments and to know the release date for the Linux version ?
Excuse my English, I’m French! :)
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Good!!Very interesting game~~O(∩_∩)O
January 25th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Funtastick game! i’m love it :D
January 26th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Thanks for making a Linux version!
I have just heard of “The World of Goo” but will be playing it on Linux the minute I can :)
January 26th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I’ll buy it as soon as the Linux version is out, but not a moment sooner. Why, you ask? Look at UT3.
January 27th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Great to know that you guys are seriously supporting Linux. Now how about Wii-like 4 player support via Xinput 2 (Multi-pointer X)? :P
Add me to the list of people who bought the Windows version because it has a pretty box, but really wants the Linux version.
January 28th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Looking forward to watching your keynote in GGJ Ankara, Turkey… Thanks for the tips for our participants in advance… :)
February 1st, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Wine sucks with intel graphic chipsets. I baught and played on my girlfriends computer with a nvidia card for some hours.
Please get the game ready for Linux :-)
February 3rd, 2009 at 6:12 am
Yay!! I’ve been waiting months for this. Pre-ordered a while ago and played it half through but didn’t have the heart to finish until the native linux version comes out. So excited!!
February 3rd, 2009 at 7:18 am
Thanks, waiting on the native version :)
February 3rd, 2009 at 1:51 pm
I’m glad that World of Goo demo works good under Wine. I promise i’ll purchase when the Linux native version goes out.
Thanks for that fantastic game! Me and all my partners are fascinated.
February 5th, 2009 at 8:22 am
I keep reading it’s an awesome game. Can’t wait for the Linux release then so I can see that :P
Very good news for Linux indeed, first with Eschalon Book 1, then Defcon and PoxNora running on Linux, now World of Goo…. Woo!!!!!!! :)
February 10th, 2009 at 4:34 am
Great news guys. :)
Distributing a proprietary program for Linux must be pretty tough given many Linux users prefer to install things only through their package managers, as well as libraries potentially complicating things.
I don’t know specifics, but I guess license issues often complicate things too, meaning that someone couldn’t package a script which handled the installation and place it in Debian’s contrib repository. I don’t know how this would work in practice, but I guess you don’t want to host WorldOfGoo.tar.gz in a publicly accessible location. :)
I’ve yet to buy a copy, though I think I will when the Linux version is released.
February 12th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
@Tom: Hopefully that problem will be sorted out by klik (http://code.google.com/p/klikclient/) when it gets stable (it’ll allow users to execute applications without even installing them), but for now there are some graphical Windows-like installers available, like Nixstaller.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:22 am
…patiently awaiting the release of the native Linux version so I can give 2Dboy some money…
Hope the bankruptcy announcement doesn’t mean this isn’t going to see the light of day.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Hurgh. The front page says READY! YAY!
March 15th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
This may not be revelant but i figured i’d post this anyway. If you’re using ubuntu 8.10 you may be in for some issues with the network manager. For some unknown reason it stops functioning. You will need to manually set you’re resolv.conf with your ISP’s DNS servers. That file is located in /etc/network/resolv.conf
May 7th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I wonder if is it possible to continue the progress from a demo in a full version?
March 11th, 2010 at 11:00 am
I think this game is one of the best computer games I have tried so far. It is because of the nice graphics. But unfortunaly no pc game is better than CoD MW 2 on playstation, so I am returning to the sofa now ^^ In some days my brother will borrow me this game once more, so maybe I will return to my pc then :)