50% reached in less than one week; Work on Leadwerks for Linux begins

Entry posted by Josh · June 21, 2013

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Wow! We crossed the 50% mark in less than a week. At this point, the campaign has shown enough strength that I am willing to begin allocating resources to the development of Leadwerks for Linux. (To be clear, we will only deliver a Linux product if the entire target amount is met.) Kickstarter has been fantastic because it allows us to gauge demand before we do the hard work of supporting a new operating system, so we can figure out in advance whether it's worthwhile. Fortunately, it appears there's a lot of Linux users (and people who would like to move to Linux) who want native game development tools for Linux.

We're able to develop Leadwerks for Linux at a relatively low cost because our game engine and editor were designed from the start to be cross-platform compatible. We abstract away any OS-specific code. When porting to a new platform, we just need to replace those OS-specific bits, and past a certain point the rest of the engine will just work. The image below shows how I visualize the code base:

It's interesting that as popular technology is becoming more locked-down, from the Windows 8 closed app store to the increasing DRM requirements of the new consoles, people are responding by showing a new interest in open systems like Linux and Valve's upcoming SteamBox. I'm a hardcore PC gamer, and it's disappointing to me how Microsoft has treated games on Windows like an unwanted child for so long. Games could be the niche Linux uses to gain greater market share. Many people have told me that Leadwerks running natively on Linux would be the last application they need to stop dual-booting and switch completely over to Linux.

So let's make it happen!

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