Indeed! At the risk of boring you, jcl, could you please confirm that you've understood our concern and you've re-read the (updated) first post? Thanks!

I confirm that I read the first post and understood it.

Good.

As you've read the first post, there is a relatively high demand for a game engine that at least runs on those systems, even if you keep the editors Windows-based. In the foreseeable future there will be a game development suit that features "complete" PC support, because the rivals never rest.
This is my last post in this thread, I will stop bothering you for now, but please think about this concern again when you're done with the Android port.

I was wondering about this as well. I want my games to run on Mac and Linux, but I don't care about the editors. Any cross-platform developer will have a Windows PC anyway. We'd need Mac and Linux compilers, but that's it.

I'm sure jcl is getting quite bothered by this thread being bumped over and over, but... well, I was thinking about what it'd take to have Lite-C and GS work on other platforms...

A renderer rewrite, for sure. But they're already porting to Android, so they know how to deal with an OpenGL renderer. SDL 1.2 is a stable, fast, free, low-level (within reason) layer for compiling the same code on Windows, Mac and Linux. It gives access to OpenGL, sockets, multithreading, sound, gamepads, keyboard and mouse input, all without dealing with OS-specific details. Super Meat Boy, Dwarf Fortress, Lugaru, Overgrowth, Penumbra: Overture, World of Goo, Doom 3, FreeSpace 2, Quake 4, Unreal Tournament (and 2003 and 2004), Sim City 3000, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and many other games use SDL (some of them just for the Linux or Mac version).

The compiler makes things a bit more complicated, of course. But it could also make things simpler: Lite-C is effectively C/C++ minus some really nice features users have been requesting for a while, plus wait(1) and some automatic pointer-stuff with parameters for functions. We could get the best of both worlds if Lite-C just used GCC (thus supporting all the nice C++ features if we want them) with a pre-compile stage that dealt with pointers in parameters and inserted some stack-walking function calls to provide wait(1) functionality (this is probably where I sound extremely naive ). It'd also have to rename our main function so that your main rendering/stack-building loop was being used instead of ours, of course.

Shaders, as we've mentioned before, could be compiled with Cg, which is pretty much identical to HLSL.

The last hurdle is the editors, and this is probably the biggest one since they probably rely a lot on the Windows API for all their menu shizzle. At a guess, this could be the reason we're getting GS Android and not GS Linux -- no one expects the editors to actually run on Android. But, as Superku mentioned, we just want our games to run on other platforms, not the editors. A Linux compiler and a Mac compiler would be all we need. We're not arguing for game dev on Mac and Linux. We're arguing for gaming on Mac and Linux. Dejobaan didn't leave to make games on Mac, they left to make games that run on Mac (to grossly simplify things).

In short, given the editors don't need to be cross-platform, and an OpenGL renderer of sorts is already in the works for Android, I believe the compiler is probably the only real obstacle between Windows-only GS and "PC gaming" GS.

I think that the non-suitability for Linux and Mac applications is the biggest impediment for Gamestudio (along with the editors). Fact is: Even small publishers with the focus on adventure, casual and low-budget simulator games expect full PC support (PC+Mac and sometimes Linux) from their developers nowdays. They particulary demand it because it increases the target group.

There`s a reason why many Gamestudio developers are seriously thinking about moving to other game engines. It`s not the engine itself and it`s not Lite-C, but in most cases the bottleneck with the platforms.


I`ve got some feeling that they`re working on exactly that. Click-your-game-together and develop small Android apps on your Android tablet PC and smartphone. Could be a market niche .

For Mac development you need a Mac to test the game on.
(If you think that you dont need a testmachine, then you are not taking the development seriously anyhow)
That limits the userbase quite a lot (a big argument for not investing into it)

Linux is cool, but not a musthave for development.
(a "tested on and optimized for Wine" sticker can be a workaround if you really must have it working there too)

Mobile development is a totally different playfield, tech and preformance wise.
Most here cant even make a game on the PC without some impact on FPS.
Dont want to imagine how it would run on a smartphone.

Its a different approach. I dont see the advantage of the gamestudio concept or tools for mobile development.
It would have to be totally different then, wich
basically is just wishing for a new gameengine and toolset then.
But there are tools out there already for that purpose for quite some time..

FWIW, the Mac AppStore is full with games "ported" via Wine bottles. For example The Witcher, which runs astonishingly good on my MacBook Pro (granted, its the latest one =/).
So yeah, you can have Mac Support if you want.

I'm well aware of this, and I kinda assumed everyone was. GS markets itself to beginners and professionals. Professionals will buy a Mac without blinking if they need it to test their game properly. I know I will -- there's been enough demand for KarBOOM from Mac users to justify the expense.

Also, indies often get friends or random people on the internet to help test their games, so even a beginner who refuses to buy a Mac would have no trouble getting their game tested if the Mac compiler ran on Windows.

I had assumed that a Mac would be necessary for compilation. If that is the case, I think very few people are without access to a Mac (a friend or family member, for example). If it's not the case then even better!

Just going to add my 2 cents... A port to other operating systems would with out a doubt break most code that has been done so this would not be a good thing for those of us that are doing this to break into the industry. If your that interested in other platforms (and yes I am interested don't get me wrong here) then there are other established platforms that cover mac android Xbox and iPhone. If you want to do a multi platform game that go that route. I may do that for some games but I would not do that for all games and therefore this development package is well suited for that market. Also the "other" game platform has a tenancy to crash... In the market I am in a crash is not acceptable in any circumstance (game audience is 65% women 22-45). Also if you don't know this type of information then you may want to find out. While this may change in the future if you want to be successful at this then you need to know your audience and what platform they want to make an informed decision. Asking for new platforms just because it would be "cool" is just a waist of everyone's time. The only platform that 3DGS would be good to port to would be Xbox. And the way to get that done is to create a fund to pay for it to be developed... If I remember correctly it would take about $70k to get jcl to do this. I for one would pledge $100 for doing this. Now if you really want this to happen then as the say down here in the south usa... "buck up or shut up"

It'd only break your code if you're using DirectX functions AND GS stops using DirectX for Windows versions. Yes, Windows.h wouldn't work on other platforms either, but there's no reason those using WinAPI functions can't stick to Windows-only if they want.

Have another read through the thread, look at the pictures, and make sure you understand the first post. That should address any concerns you have about knowing our audience, how relevant XBox and iPhone are to the discussion, and whether any of us are exploring other options.