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I'm 100% sure Jonathan Blow can install Ubuntu. He is writing his own programming language. For a game like that, it just isn't economically feasible to develop

I'm 100% sure Jonathan Blow can install Ubuntu. He is writing his own programming language. For a game like that, it just isn't economically feasible to develop for Linux. Especially since the engine was written from scratch. He spent more or less all of the profits on his previous release on this new game. From the videos I've watched about the dev, he is somewhat of a perfectionist. It would likely rankle him to release a subpar experience on a given platform, which given the economic incentives, it would likely be.

dharma1 11y ago
I had a quick look at the trailer and it looked to me like it could have been built with Unity or Unreal Engine... wondering why own engine, given the effort to then port the game to other platforms?
- yoklov 11y ago
  This level of polish would be somewhat herculean to pull off in unity, and was not even close to possible when the game's development was started 8 or so years ago. Unreal maybe, but it also wasn't as viable a choice 8 years ago. Source: I use unity professionally at my day job.
  - dharma1 11y ago
    oh, they've been working on it for 8 years? Yikes
    - agentultra 11y ago
      Game development from scratch is a bit like inventing the universe from the atoms up.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- alowe 11y ago
  The trailer is intentionally vague to avoid spoilers. I thought the same thing playing through the game for the first hour or so until I got to a puzzle that made me realize why they built their own engine. MINOR SPOILERS: Some of the later puzzle mechanics rely on playing with lighting and perspective in a way that seems to me would be difficult to implement in a stock engine.
  - dharma1 11y ago
    ah, interesting, will have to buy to see what all the chatter is about :) I seem to be downvoted to death - the comments weren't meant in a disrespectful way - just wondered why the gargantuan effort with a DIY engine. The game itself looks really interesting.
    - simoncion 11y ago
      > ...just wondered why the gargantuan effort with a DIY engine. Given that Jonathan Blow is in charge of the project, it's almost certainly because existing engines were inadequate for the task. From what I can tell, Rust is the most ambitious Unity project out there. The Witness is substantially more technically ambitious than Rust. Additionally -from what I read on the Rust devblogs-, the Rust guys spend a large amount of time working around Unity's limitations, missing features, and parts of Unity that are just buggy. (Granted, the buggy stuff generally eventually gets fixed, but until it gets fixed (if it ever does), you have to work around it.)
      - pferde 11y ago
        Actually, I think Frontiers (http://explore-frontiers.com/ http://explore-frontiers.com/) might be even more ambitious Unity-using game, but the developer working on it is in over his head. Still, what he's done so far is amazing already.

dharma1 11y ago

I had a quick look at the trailer and it looked to me like it could have been built with Unity or Unreal Engine... wondering why own engine, given the effort to then port the game to other platforms?

yoklov 11y ago
This level of polish would be somewhat herculean to pull off in unity, and was not even close to possible when the game's development was started 8 or so years ago. Unreal maybe, but it also wasn't as viable a choice 8 years ago. Source: I use unity professionally at my day job.
- dharma1 11y ago
  oh, they've been working on it for 8 years? Yikes
  - agentultra 11y ago
    Game development from scratch is a bit like inventing the universe from the atoms up.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
alowe 11y ago
The trailer is intentionally vague to avoid spoilers. I thought the same thing playing through the game for the first hour or so until I got to a puzzle that made me realize why they built their own engine. MINOR SPOILERS: Some of the later puzzle mechanics rely on playing with lighting and perspective in a way that seems to me would be difficult to implement in a stock engine.
- dharma1 11y ago
  ah, interesting, will have to buy to see what all the chatter is about :) I seem to be downvoted to death - the comments weren't meant in a disrespectful way - just wondered why the gargantuan effort with a DIY engine. The game itself looks really interesting.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    > ...just wondered why the gargantuan effort with a DIY engine. Given that Jonathan Blow is in charge of the project, it's almost certainly because existing engines were inadequate for the task. From what I can tell, Rust is the most ambitious Unity project out there. The Witness is substantially more technically ambitious than Rust. Additionally -from what I read on the Rust devblogs-, the Rust guys spend a large amount of time working around Unity's limitations, missing features, and parts of Unity that are just buggy. (Granted, the buggy stuff generally eventually gets fixed, but until it gets fixed (if it ever does), you have to work around it.)
    - pferde 11y ago
      Actually, I think Frontiers (http://explore-frontiers.com/ http://explore-frontiers.com/) might be even more ambitious Unity-using game, but the developer working on it is in over his head. Still, what he's done so far is amazing already.