I made my game run on Linux
Posted by Magistairs@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 17 comments
Hi! :)
So, long story short, I'm working on a game prototype, and a few people have asked me if it runs on Linux. I've been coding in C++ for many years but always for Windows, Linux is a total mystery to me.
However, since I'm making my own engine (using Vulkan), I thought it would be a good idea to make it portable. I added GLFW as the abstraction layer and built it for Linux using GitHub Actions... and it worked!
I still don't know much about the specifics of all the different distros or what might be broken on Linux within my code, so if you'd like to test my game and tell me if it runs, that would be greatly appreciated.
This is just an early prototype, so don't expect a full game experience yet, but if you want to share ideas about the core design, those would be welcome as well :)
The game can be found here: https://magistairs.itch.io/orbis
TheRealCuran@reddit
Just out of curiosity: can you elaborate on why you picked GLFW over SDL (I would almost guess it is the intro on
libsdl.org...)?That being said: the tiles seem to have rendering issues on their edges. Did you run your game with the VK validation layers and check you are not doing anything "out of spec"? If not, please do. If you did, then this might be a driver bug (for me in Mesa), and I would be happy to report it.
I know this is a very early release, but please work on the UI. I have a 2K screen and the text is very small (I did not find an option to scale). Apart from that you would probably do well to take a page out of Paragon's playbook and have all the information hyperlinked/hoverable. As a player it would be nice, if the game told me directly, what a resource is/means.
Magistairs@reddit (OP)
Thank you fir the feedback!
I picked GLFW because it's lighter, 400KB, since my binary is really light I didn't want to double the size with SDL2
I didn't know the validation layers, I will. But I think this issue is just a shader I wrote, I'm not expert at all on the rendering side.
True on the UI, I myself prefer very big UI even on 4K screens, usually I put HD resolution to see comfortably
I have a UI scaling setting, I will definitely add a font scaling as well
(Previously I was using roboto bold everywhere but someone told me everything bold was very bad)
For the tooltips I would like to do something like PDX games, it's what you describe, it's just a lot of work
For now I have the Encyclopedia, have you seen it? But I know it's a solution from 2000s Civilization and nobody reads an encyclopedia before playing
I don't find a meaningful result for Paragon's playbook when googling, what is it?
valerielynx@reddit
Total nitpick but it's be cross platform not portable. Great work nonetheless!
Magistairs@reddit (OP)
True! I meant "to port it"
Thank you very much!
Oflameo@reddit
This would make a fine addition to my collection.
Magistairs@reddit (OP)
What kind of games does it contain? :)
Oflameo@reddit
You can see on my Itch.io profile. https://oflameo.itch.io/ and probably my Steam as soon as I feel like registering an account.
Magistairs@reddit (OP)
I see! Not particularly strategy games, this is what I wanted to check :)
ZCTMO@reddit
Neat project!
Magistairs@reddit (OP)
Thank you very much!
SafeRelationship4648@reddit
awsome work! just tested it on linux mint.
https://imgland.net/i/46yXqfps/screenshot-from-2026-04-15-13-15-28.png
I get lower fps maybe you could add some debugging tools. A few other other comments, if you can simplify the GUI a little bit and provide a simple tutorial level!
Magistairs@reddit (OP)
Thank you for testing :)
It looks like the rendering is a little broken, your tiles are floating and you don't have a model for the city
Do you have a GPU or integrated graphics?
There is a dynamic tutorial, the first mission should ask you to place a food order :) and then missions chain to different objectives
gwildor@reddit
Looks similar to mine as well. I dont have a city model, but i did see the tutorial prompts - yellow flashing on 'food'.
I dont game on this PC, just figured I'd try it out and get you some feedback.
slow as heck
5 fps.
Ubuntu 26.04
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-14700 (28) @ 5.40 GHz
GPU: Intel UHD Graphics 770 @ 1.60 GHz [Integrated]
Memory: 9.46 GiB / 14.80 GiB (64%)
Magistairs@reddit (OP)
Thank you very much!
5 FPS is bad haha
But it makes sense, I'm using compute shaders so without a GPU it can't go well, the main thread is probably waiting for the renderer most of the time
That's a big design question I have nowadays, should I stick to realtime with all the constraints it brings, or make the game turn-based and not be ashamed of a several seconds tick (Civilization ticks last 10 minutes in end game and people still play it after all)
gwildor@reddit
it's your game. /shrug. Looks like a great concept. Just know that currently its not playable to people like me and that may reduce your audience.
Magistairs@reddit (OP)
That's indeed an info to take into account :)
Magistairs@reddit (OP)
Thank you for testing :)
It looks like the rendering is a little broken, your tiles are floating and you don't have a model for the city
Do you have a GPU or integrated graphics?
There is a dynamic tutorial, the first mission should ask you to place a food order :) and then missions chain to different objectives