The latest Humble Indie Bundle sees the likes of Twisted Shadow Planet, RiskofRain, and surprisingly Tower of Guns making a debut on Linux. This is not the work of the games #developers, but with the help of Humble’s in-house Linux #porter and a couple of contractors. Naturally we here at Linux Game News tested out the three natively ported games. They run well, with integrated game controller (xbox 360) support and very responsive keyboard and mouse support. Although the Risk of Rain standalone seemed to have some integration issues.
Sure, there are still far more titles available for Windows, but between solutions like Wine and a growing effort to support the open source platform, the situation is improving at a faster rate than ever before. Valve deserves kudos for promoting Linux through Steam, and surprise, surprise, Humble Bundle is fast becoming a pioneering force. Since the Humble Bundle started its bid to take over the bundle world, more than 100 games have been ported to the open source operating system.
From the beginning, Humble team have pushed to see more games released on the Linux operating system, often convincing developers to port their games from Windows or Mac so more gamers can play them. Taken a bundle at a time – two games here, three games there – it does not sound like that much but the numbers are adding up.
(Click the image for the latest Humble Bundle)
“Before including a game in a Humble Indie Bundle we make many considerations: is the game cross-platform? Is it DRM-free? If a game isn’t quite there but could use an extra helping hand, we step in and make it happen,” write the Humble team. “Humble Bundle works with numerous porters to help bring games over to Linux, Mac, Android and now to the Web with asm.js. Porting isn’t easy, either. It takes time, money and skilled individuals to get games up and running on other systems. The vast majority of games we help port are from indie developers who may not have the resources necessary to do the ports themselves.
“With products like the Steam Machine on the horizon, the demand of having games available on multiple platforms becomes more important every day.”
Humble Bundle is best known for helping find an audience for independent game developers by offering up their titles DRM-free and at whatever price gamers feel like paying for certain titles. Linux users seem respond to these efforts, “Over the lifetime of Humble Bundle our Linux users pay $1 more than the average Mac user and $2.60 more than the average Windows user,” Humble write.
