14 DAY TRIAL // Leadwerks, a tool designed for Linux games development that managed to secure enough funding on Kickstarter, has been released on the Steam platform.
It took the Leadwerks people a while to get their software on the Steam for Linux platform, but now it's finally here and Linux users should find it a lot easier to build 3D games from scratch, even if they don't have the special training for it.
The Leadwerks Game Engine for Linux didn't make its debut on Steam. In fact, it was first published on Ubuntu Software Center after the developers entered a partnership with Canonical. This happened shortly after the Kickstarter campaign.
The Steam platform should provide a much better venue for the Leadwerks Game Engine for Linux, and, the Linux ecosystem, in return, really needs all the tools and engines that the community can muster. It's the only way that game and software development will take off and become really competitive.
“Bringing Leadwerks Game Engine for Linux to Steam means that existing games can be more easily deployed to Linux. The Leadwerks Game Player allows users to play games published through the Steam Workshop. In most cases, games developed for Windows can be played on Linux with no changes and no recompiling, due to Leadwerks' platform-agnostic design.”
“Linux support also opens the door for Leadwerks developers to publish games to the living room. Last year Valve Software announced the SteamOS, a Linux-based operating system for game consoles. Although SteamOS is still in development, Leadwerks for Linux and SteamOS promise to provide indie game developers with a way to deploy their games to the living room quickly and easily,” reads the official announcement.
This is probably one of the most interesting features for the Leadwerks Game Engine because it allows for developers who use Windows as their primary platform to port their titles on Linux, with very little input or modifications.
The Steam platform is slowly becoming one of the most important venues for game and software developers that want to get their products available for large audience. There aren't too many game engines with Linux support, but that is slowly changing.
The makers of Leadwerks Game Engine also provide a number of free tutorials on Steam that should help users get started with this software.
You can find more details about these tools and what the pricing options for the regular users are on the official Steam website.