Developer of "The Cat Lady" suspends Linux-Versions of his games on Steam

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Screen 7, the developer of the Point-and-Click-Adventures The Cat Lady, Downfall, The Samaritan Paradox and some more titles, officially suspends the Linux-versions of most of his titles on Steam.

Affected games are:

  • Downfall (incl. Demo)
  • The Adventures of Fatman
  • Tales
  • The Samaritan Paradox
  • The Apotheosis Project

The Cat Lady and Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok are not yet affected, but may follow later.

All of these games have been produced using the Adventure Game Studio, and the Linux-versions of this titles had severe problems (like not changeable screen resolutions and bad performance), if they started at all.

I do own most of these games, and I principally like them for their Art-Style and their mature stories.
But due to the named problems I'm not able to play them longer than 10 minutes, which is a shame.

I hope the developer finds a way to fix the problems of the Linux-versions, but I do have some doubts, because the effort might be too big.

The next game of the developer, Lorelai, is promised to be released again with a Linux-version.
The developer is more confident here, because he changed/updated the engine.

It seems that the biggest mistake of the developer was not even to try to install a Linux-VM and observe the situation by himself.
Valve noted that too, and so they gave him the advice to suspend his games on Linux:

Sorry, for now the Linux version is suspended. This applies to all our games (except The Cat Lady, but it could also happen). The Linux side of things is under review. By the sound of it, it needs it.

It's still available as a "free" package with the Windows copy of Downfall etc, and it isn't "removed" if you already own it, but I'm sorry, for various reasons, there's currently no support for it, so it is no longer advertised as included.

If this dissatisfies you, please seek a refund.

Hopefully, Lorelai will have Linux support because it comes with the engine as standard. Sadly, for the engine for this game, it doesn't come so easy.

There are several other reasons why I've suspended Linux on our AGS games, more information should be posted soon about this on the Announcements page. A link will be added here in due course.

Note. I'm still happy to try and fix the issues mentioned here and will try to do so based on previous discussion. There is no intention to 'remove' the Linux stuff and perhaps even get it working properly and back on sale in due course, but for now, you're right: why sell something if we can't keep it properly maintained. There's no hiding the fact we can't keep it maintained at the moment, as such, advertising it as included is probably a bad idea. Valve are also aware of this and advised me on the best course of action whilst we tackle this issue, but if you feel a refund is best, it should be agreeable and understood across all parties.

I will re-open this thread when I've made the fixes I have mentioned, for feedback and further review of our Linux position. Thanks for your patience.