itch.io

Well it's partly because steam hasn't updated the builds that I uploaded. Additionally, while I uploaded updated builds to steam mainly to let people know that the latest builds would be on itch. Clearly steam just ignored those builds. That irritating.

So basically what you have is very old at this point. I guess I'll sum up what the latest updates do... Improved economy and balance, but also mechanisms to support a very advanced economy. Vastly improved single player and coop experience (Scavengers). Scavs are now quite fun to play against and it's not so samey from game to game anymore.

Improved lobby. Skylobby supports self hosting games, it also supports direct hosting where your friends can connect directly to you instead of using the central server (this is a big feature, I'm a fan of having a centralized server but I'm a bigger fan of not needing that centralized server for multiplayer)(ports must be forwarded).

Development on Evo is effectively concluded. The game is in an excellent place now. It was always a platform where I tried interesting ideas that I had. I am now in the process of building a new game, not to supplant Evo, but more along traditional RTS lines. It's a safe bet that if you like Evo you'll probably like my new game too. New game is mainly focused on single player and coop (although multiplayer PvP is 100% doable). I'm roughly 50% done with it so maybe I'll have a beta ready in 3 months or so. I'll make an announcement of sorts when the time comes.

In the meantime, delete Evo on steam, and download it from itch (I would recommend using the itch client. It's very nice and will keep it updated). I will be sending out Evo updates as is needed to make sure it keeps running smoothly, and I'll generally keep the lobby on par with the latest releases.

Umm so I never replied to this... In the past year I've been able to properly support linux. The developer of skylobby is wonderful and super responsive, so any issues we have come across have been resolved quickly.

What do you mean? All you need is the skylobby build for either windows or Linux, then just click launch.

The sourceonly build is just that. Only the source files.

On Linux you need sdl2 and openal libs.

This is superseeded as there is a skylobby package for linux. You need openal1 and sdl2

This game is amazing lol

Fwiw, this has been resolved and everything works again

Oh wait... wut? This was an actual topic? I thought it was a reply to another topic...

Currently the best way is to go download skylobby independently and download the sources package via itch. Then in skylobby import sources pointing at the itch folder.

https://github.com/skynet-gh/skylobby/releases

Very cool alpha. Can't wait to try the full thing

Oh damnit, I didn't even see this. I'm sorry. So basically Evo is in a lobby crisis at the moment. Spring has always had the problem of Engine Developers/Game Developers/Lobby Developers

I am currently uploading a release to the github at the moment that will allow people to use https://springlobby.springrts.com/ (Springlobby) to play the game. I genuinely don't have a better way to do it at the moment. I am sorry. I am working on the issue. There is an all in one server/lobby/dedicated host package being worked on and it is super nice, but it isn't ready. Until then I legitimately don't have any better options.

I'll see if I can refund your donation. If I can't just let me know your paypal email and I'll send it back to you (I haven't looked at the dashboard yet).

Edit: Refunded it via paypal and disabled donations entirely (honestly I kinda completely forgot that they were still available).

Unfortunately it isn't working correctly. SMH.

I just can't win. I'm trying to do something about it.

Took a long time and a good bit of work, but linux 64 is now available again. Let me know if you run into issues.

I should point out that now that OSX is moving to ARM, this becomes even less likely.

Unfortunately, no OSX version of the engine (that actually works) currently exists. Due to the awful lobby situation, that was one of the reasons for dropping explicit linux support (you can still play on linux, you just have to go through springlobby.info to do it).

If an OSX version of the engine happens some day (it hasn't in a year so far), then perhaps, but currently it's not possible.

https://forboding-angel.itch.io/evolution-rts

That's not true. You're forgetting about .directories. In fact, the engine will, by default, install to ~/.spring. I get what you're saying though. In particular appdata is intended to hold data for apps, like settings files, etc. Not entire freaking programs. Google chrome started this crap and when developers saw google doing it, some of them followed suit and now appdata is a giant mess.

This also serves a very practical purpose as well. Many people will have a small super fast ssd or nvme drive just for the OS and a separate drive for programs. Appdata lives in the user's home folder (the equivalent of something like ~/.appdata). This means that programs installing themselves to appdata is a major issue due to the fact that the OS drive is intended to be used strictly for the OS, but programs are circumventing that and installing themselves to appdata.

It's a stupid, shitty practice, and developers who do this should be raked over the coals for doing so.

There are a couple of reasons, although you can actually still play it via linux and I'd be happy to walk you through it if you like.

Ok so basically, there is a pretty big issue with infrastructure. Support for our original lobby ended (as in the lobby protocol changed and our lobby was deprecated), so we had to switch to a much nicer, much newer lobby. The problem is that this lobby requires the use of a launcher which does not support the game staying in it's install directory.

On windows there is a large issue with programs shoving EVERYTHING into appdata. This is not only stupid, it's extremely problematic, because appdata is hidden from users. Of course if you are aware of it you can access it, but the vast majority of windows users will be oblivious to it. Meaning that appdata becomes very bloated over time with leftover shit from programs that have been uninstalled long past.

I raised absolute hell over this and absolutely refused to allow evo to get sucked into this shitty practice. That insistence on doing things the right way unfortunately didn't carry over to linux. I don't develop the launcher, so I really have little say in it other than to bitch at the developer who does work on it. Welcome to Open Source.

Steam explicitly forbids placing files outside of the program install folder (and doing so is some serious asshole design). A portable launcher for linux has not been developed, so frankly, I can't include it.

That said, I can't help you get it running on linux. However, this comes with the explicit understanding that it will intermingle with anything else you have installed that uses the spring engine.  This likely will cause 0 issues, but the disclaimer stands.

You can get it here: https://github.com/EvolutionRTS/EvoRTS-Chobby

Just scroll down until you see the download links section and click the linux one. You won't have the music with this option. However, if you do want the music, just tell me here and I'll make a quick guide on how to add it (it's pretty easy).

Forums don't have a search function. It's pretty badly needed in any of the active communities.

QQ

https://discord.gg/WUbAs2f

I really enjoyed it :-)

Something that I think would make it really great would be random level generation (assuming that isn't what is already happening) as then it would literally be endless, as much as you want to play.

Regardless, it's very good!

What distro?

Hmm, interesting find. I don't have a linux box to test on and for some reason practically every linux VM I've ever run broke miserably on updates so I wrote the scripts for launching in windows. I use crlf by default because if you don't use crlf with git (letting git handle line endings) and other devs using windows, it causes a lot of problems.

Anyway, long story short, I'll sanitize them. Thanks for the find!

You should join us on discord: https://discord.me/evolutionrts

P.S. Fwiw, I did have one of our *buntu users test it and it was working fine.

Linux builds are up! Please report any issues on the forums!

Also, make sure that you have libsdl2-dev

I should note that it works for linux as well, but I don't have the linux itch.io package ready yet. Coming really soon.

I don't really understand the question. It's already on steam. This is just spreading to another platform. Fwiw, it's also on Desura.

Honestly, because I have been a fan of itch since I first heard about it when I was doing a Ludum Dare. When I found that it had been turned into a proper platform, I was THRILLED. Since getting the process started, I have come to realize exactly how cumbersome and antequated the steam build system is.

The itch build system is far superior in every way. I sincerely wish steam would get their act together. That said, Itch is a very large community of open source players and developers. These are people who are probably better equipped to deal with a game that doesn't have a 60 million dollar budget behind it with a tutorial that holds your hand every step of the way. I'm not disparaging steam users here, but you know as well as I do that many of the people that come from steam literally have no idea how moving a unit around on the map works.

Without a ton of developers and people making tutorials and stuff like that, it becomes very hard to teach. This is why I have put so much effort into the wiki and youtube tutorials. In the hope that people who aren't familiar with RTS games might watch them.

Also, with this being an open source community, it is more likely that they will be more forgiving of shortcomings (like our lobby, which isn't exactly that easy to use). I try hard to mitigate these shortcomings, but the fact is, it's my hobby, not my day job, and as a result, there are limits to what I can accomplish.

Hey everyone! I thought I would make a post about Evo, as I have just put it up on itch. As a sidenote, I am extremely pleased that itch has become such an amazing platform. It really is awesome!

So as some or (more likely) none of you may know, Evo has been around for a long time. I've been working on it almost exclusively by myself for about 8 years. Over that time it has always been in a playable state, but I have added more and more features, units, etc. I commonly joke that development will only stop when I eventually die :-D It is a labor of love, and something that I have thrown years of free time into, and will continue to do so.

Games typically last about 10 - 18 minutes. The gameplay is centered around the fighting. Yes, base building needs to be done, but from the moment you first play it, you will see that it is all about the combat. Units are highly responsive and intelligent. For example, all units will fire while moving, and all units will automatically target other units to whom they can unleash their full damage. The controls are simple to use, and the ability to select a unit group and then right click and drag a unit formation makes it so that you can constantly reposition your army in the midst of a fight to get the best angles.

The resources are pretty simplistic. 

Metal is used to build things, but in a twist, it is also intrinsic, and what I mean by that is that you get metal income in graduating amounts as long as you are alive. You do not need to gather metal. 

Energy is used to power units guns, shields, and other utility purposes. Energy is a resource that you need a lot of in order to fight most effectively. Energy is used to form the projectiles that units fire, so if you run out of energy, your units effectively don't have ammunition.

The tech and upgrading system is also quite simple to understand. You start out with tech 0, which allows you to build the most basic of attack units and buildings. Building a tech facility unlocks tech 1, and from there, you can upgrade the tech facility all the way to tech 3. Additionally, upgrades and tech level are not linked. Factories can upgrade themselves regardless of tech level, all the way to Mark IV. Of course, tech level will limit what units you can build from that factory, but it is entirely possible to have a factory that is mk4, pumping out mk4 tech level 0 units.

The gameplay is based around area control. There are control points spread throughout the map that you must control, in order to maintain your "Score". Score works exactly the same way it does in the battlefield FPS games, where controlling points causes your tickets to countdown more slowly than the other team.

There are 3 win conditions:

1. Your opponent's score hits 0 before yours
2. You destroy your opponent's Overseer (main starting unit and builder)
3. You annihilate your opponent entirely

The game has quite a bit of depth and is a lot of fun. I highly encourage you to give it a try is you are into or are interested in RTS games! :-)

https://forboding-angel.itch.io/evolution-rts