Hello Giants!
Five months ago I’ve setup the Bearded Giant Store as a mean of distributing my games to the world without having to worry about spreading my resources too thin on 3rd party platforms and stores. It’s also back then that I wrote the Linux 1st Initiative – the driving force behind this website existence, and made public my desire to have Linux as a 1st class citizen on this website. At the end of the manifesto I also mentioned that I’m interested in bringing more games to Linux as a platform and now, just five months later, that part of the initiative bore fruit!
Why bring a premium Match 3 to Linux?
When most people think of premium games they don’t usually think of Match 3 or casual games so when I announced I’m porting and publishing a game in the aformentioned genres some eyebrows were raised. Honestly there are multiple reasons for partnering with RVL Games and bringing Farm Life to Linux but here’s my favorite one:
Linux as a platform is growing! We know that from Steam’s Hardware reports, from the amount of Help and Hello posts (mostly titled with “Migrated”) on reddit and heck, even Linux Tech Tips started paying more and more attention to Linux. As more and more people jump on the platform and we get some growth so does the variation in taste and types of games. What I’m saying is that amongst new users there are those who love and want casual games and if we, as a platform, can’t fulfill their needs they might just go away. So if you ask me why I’m porting and publishing Farm Life well, here it is: There are barely any quality Match 3 games for the platform and a demand for them might start popping up soon! Heck it looks to me like an underserved niche.
Besides, if the game performs well (and in time it should), I might get some more work porting and bringing new titles to the platform from developers who otherwise would not have it on their radar. In case of RVL Games this is a good tryout and if they like it they might bring more of their catalogue of games here (not necessarily to the BGG Store) . We keep looking at Triple A studios and asking them to bring their big titles over but what about the smaller guys and their audience?
The Linux 1st Initiative doesn’t just mean that I’m exclusively making games for Linux and that’s that. It’s about putting Linux first and doing my best to help it grow. In exchange for that I hope to make a decent amount of revenue to keep me going for as long as possible. Hopefully till there will be no more need for me to do this but hopefully longer.
What’s up with Farm Life?
The port is done. Last RC is being tested on the Bearded Giant discord server but things are looking sweet. I know from the Steam Hardware survey that there are a lot of low to mid-end machines on Linux so part of my tasks during the porting process was optimizing the game for those machines. The lowest spec I tested the game on is my NAS machine with a Intel J1800 CPU and Integrated Graphics at a smooth 40+ FPS. In order to make sure the game runs on low spec hardware and with Farm Life being a unity game I had to play around with a ton of things ranging from Unity Terrain support, particle effects, shaders and more. It wasn’t as hard to port as it is to make a new game but it did have it’s challenges. Heck I even used my experience in designing match 3 games from my time at Mobility-Games to update some levels a bit for those of you playing through the classic mode of the game.
And the game is great. When I signed with RVL Games I knew they had tons of experience designing casual games but I did not expect to enjoy Farm Life so much. The levels are fun but the storyline and the minor details on the Farm Area of the game are amazing. When I refer to the game as a Premium experience I don’t mean that it just doesn’t have In-App Purchases. I mean the whole package is premium. From the characters and their bios to the birds flying around and the cars stopping near the farm with a subtle halt that imitates a cartoon car braking.
I’m actually happy the original developer decided to take a risk with me and my little store as I believe many will benefit from the game being here (in terms of satisfaction). I really hope the game does well on Linux as that might mean more developers like RVL Games might join the fray (again, not necessarily on the Bearded Giant Store – any new game natively brought to Linux is a WIN for ALL OF US).
So when is the game coming out you ask? On Tuesday, April 23rd. Sometimes at noon in Europe. I want to celebrate the launch with a beverage in my hand and my cats will likely kill me if I start drinking before 5 PM. It’s going to cost you 6.99$ and you’ll get around 10+ hours of fun (likely more if you don’t just skip through the story) and working fullscreen support (learned my lesson with Ebony Spire thank you very much). Ogh and building up the farm is pretty fun. The game looks great, in my opinion at least.
So join me in discord for any last minute drama that’s normally bound to happen with my releases. Worst case you’ll just see Sheo pestering me about something non-essential and get a laugh out of that. Or in case socializing on the new mass-appeal discount-irc discussion system isn’t for you drop us a follow on the Store’s Twitter page to stay up to date. Or just refresh your browser every 10 seconds like I did for the Dragon Age Origins launch a decade ago (no really, I almost broke a keyboard back then waiting for it to launch).
P.S. Some screens from the game