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[alaska]

Hello Cogminders! For my first post, I'd like to announce a tutorial video I made earlier tonight on getting Cogmind up and running seamlessly in OSX (and with a pretty icon, to boot!).  Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/9ypp8giWqS0

[Kyzrati]

Wow, this tutorial is great! Thanks so much for putting it together. The perfect place to point new and prospective OSX players. I'll definitely be linking this everywhere it's applicable. (And if you don't mind I'll move this thread to the Support board.)

[alaska]

Absolutely, anything I can do to help.  Also, feel free to use that icon or bundle it with the app if you want to make it easier.  I'll make sure to update the license on github to public domain for now to make that clear, though if there are any issues with that (given that I based it off of someone else's artwork), please let me know and I can either take it down or transfer ownership in a more official way.  It's really only on github in the first place so I could have someplace public to host it. Also, let me know if you'd prefer a different graphic; I just selected the player sprite because I thought it looked nice (though I use ASCII mode myself).

On a side note, I heard your interview on the Roguelike Radio podcast earlier.  Very enjoyable, and it inspired me to get more involved. As some of my launchpad icons or the github account might have betrayed, I'm a professional developer myself, so if you need any volunteer coding for anything, feel free to hit me up. Would love to help the game succeed any way I can.

-a

[Kyzrati]

We have so many developers around here playing Cogmind

It would be nice to be able to accept more help and tap into that, but I prefer to focus on development myself rather than end up with a bunch of project manager responsibilities, which is an easy trap to fall into once others start helping! Even working with just one artist for the tiles ate up a surprising amount of time.

I am, however, planning on eventually offering an "official" wrapper for OSX as an easy way for non-tech savvy players to be able to access Cogmind, and since I don't use OSX or Linux myself I'll be enlisting outside help for that.

I know there are companies that do this sort of thing, but it would be great to be able to do it through individuals in the community if possible. Is it just about that easy to just create an installable wrapped version of Cogmind that can be downloaded for players who use those systems? Or would it be more involved?

About the icon, it's a free thing you're doing here so whatever you want is your call! I'm personally rather fond of the icon that Cogmind uses on PCs. Actually, have you perhaps not seen it? It's the same as my forum avatar, although with a black background instead of transparency. (Attached.)

[alaska]

We have so many developers around here playing Cogmind

It would be nice to be able to accept more help and tap into that, but I prefer to focus on development myself rather than end up with a bunch of project manager responsibilities, which is an easy trap to fall into once others start helping! Even working with just one artist for the tiles ate up a surprising amount of time.

Trust me, I understand completely.  I wasn't actually referring to the core itself.  I actually think that, aside from tiny little things, it's generally a good idea to have labors of love like this driven by their benevolent dictators as much as humanly possible. Just keeps things pure and singular of vision.

I am, however, planning on eventually offering an "official" wrapper for OSX as an easy way for non-tech savvy players to be able to access Cogmind, and since I don't use OSX or Linux myself I'll be enlisting outside help for that.

I know there are companies that do this sort of thing, but it would be great to be able to do it through individuals in the community if possible. Is it just about that easy to just create an installable wrapped version of Cogmind that can be downloaded for players who use those systems? Or would it be more involved?

That is precisely what Wineskin is for, actually.  If you look at their page, they actually describe it as "tool used to make ports of Windows software to Mac OS X."  I could zip up the wrapper I've just made and distribute it, if I wanted, and it would work great. Conceivably, you could even automate it to some degree, provided you didn't care about staying latest and greatest with the version of Wine in the wrapper.  That can be updated separately, as you like.  You might even be able to completely automate the wrapper generation from Linux, though I haven't tested it, and differences in filesystem permissions might get in the way.  I'll test it out in a VM and get back to you.  Might end up being super easy.

About the icon, it's a free thing you're doing here so whatever you want is your call! I'm personally rather fond of the icon that Cogmind uses on PCs. Actually, have you perhaps not seen it? It's the same as my forum avatar, although with a black background instead of transparency. (Attached.)

No problem, this is super easy.  I'll update it

[Kyzrati]

As a developer I figured you'd understand . Non-developers certainly don't always get that and are like "more devs = better game!!!" Ha. Part of why I enjoy developing a game like Cogmind is that I can handle most of it myself, which has a lot of benefits.

That's good news about the wrapper; I hadn't investigated yet but that was my impression. Not having access to proper machines I was going to need need outside help regardless. I have a Linux VM installed but I'm not very confident using it to do anything official

I'm not too worried about automation unless it's a pain to set up each release. It would be especially cool if in preparing a new release one could simply swap in a new game directory, though I imagine Wineskin doesn't allow that (?).

[alaska]

That is precisely what Wineskin is for, actually.  If you look at their page, they actually describe it as "tool used to make ports of Windows software to Mac OS X."  I could zip up the wrapper I've just made and distribute it, if I wanted, and it would work great. Conceivably, you could even automate it to some degree, provided you didn't care about staying latest and greatest with the version of Wine in the wrapper.  That can be updated separately, as you like.  You might even be able to completely automate the wrapper generation from Linux, though I haven't tested it, and differences in filesystem permissions might get in the way.  I'll test it out in a VM and get back to you.  Might end up being super easy.

Having said that, if wineskin is a route you'd consider, it would probably be good to start testing it sooner rather than later to see how well it works for folks before they pay for it.  Cogmind doesn't seem to get too crazy with its multimedia calls, so I'm betting it would be a largely bump-free process, and I can't imagine any companies that provide special wrappers for money do too much more than just use wineskin or something similar, but they're also the ones on the hook if it goes wrong.

But, if you test it through a few releases and no one complains, then you've just saved a bunch of money on the "port".  If you want, I can just start wrapping each new release and sending it to you to have the others test out.

It would be especially cool if in preparing a new release one could simply swap in a new game directory, though I imagine Wineskin doesn't allow that (?).

Unless the .exe name changes, I think it would work just fine, actually.  It basically just drops it into program files and points wine at the exe there.  If the directory chosen during the wrapper build process doesn't change names, drag and drop should work fine.  Get's a little more complicated if you need to use things like save file migrators, but I'll look into that.

[Kyzrati]

Well, there are already a good number of OSX players who haven't been having any trouble, before your video.

A true port is virtually impossible (or insanely expensive) in this case, and doesn't seem too necessary because, as you've seen, Cogmind is technically a very simple and therefore stable game when it comes to running under Wine. I do plan on holding more serious wrapper tests once the game is close enough to exposure to a more general audience (i.e. Steam). For now Alpha players already have ample resources and expertise to get it up and running. The buy page includes a disclaimer and links regarding non-Windows support, so there haven't been any unhappy purchasers on that front

Unless the .exe name changes, I think it would work just fine, actually.

That's what I was hoping . Migration of player-side data/settings is handled manually at present, something that I'd rather not change if possible. I don't imagine any of the other per-release changes would have any impact, either.

[alaska]

That's what I was hoping . Migration of player-side data/settings is handled manually at present, something that I'd rather not change if possible. I don't imagine any of the other per-release changes would have any impact, either.

Ah, well that's ideal then. Wineskin definitely seems to be geared towards taking a single app and making it as native-looking and distributable as possible. I thought I'd seen something about a migration tool at some point (which would be more difficult), but that might just be my mind playing tricks on me