

Linux Tycoon is the premier Linux Distro Building Simulator game - Fargren
http://lunduke.com/?page_id=2646

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jamesu
An interesting concept, but the lack of a demo and the plain looking
screenshots puts me off buying.

Some of the better simulation games i've played simulate things in locations.
You can usually see and interact with people walking around and customize the
look of the area which makes for a fun sandbox environment. e.g. Theme
Hospital, The Sims, Game Dev Story.

In comparison, simulating a Linux distro on its own doesn't quite have the
same feel to it.

~~~
njs12345
Speaking of Theme Hospital, looks like there's a recent project to create an
open source implementation: <http://code.google.com/p/corsix-th/>

Could be good, especially if it goes the way of OpenTTD and gets its own open
source data files.

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Paul_S
The screenshots are so unrevealing that I think a demo is warranted or better
still - a free beta. When did people start paying for beta access? 10 years
ago people would complain about that - now they're grateful for the
opportunity to do the QA.

Is this made by that guy from the linux action show who hates freedom? I saw
the episode where they abuse poor old RMS and found it shocking.

~~~
taudelta
"Is this made by that guy from the linux action show who hates freedom? I saw
the episode where they abuse poor old RMS and found it shocking."

Yes it is.

I also found the interview quite shocking and they probably did nothing to
prepare for it which is probably why it ended up that way.

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Aqueous
How about a game that simulates people _not_ building their own Linux distros,
and instead contributing their efforts to improving the thousands that we
already have?

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fleitz
As much fun as herding cats.

Given the screenshots why is it even an app instead of a website, at least
then it'd be social.

"Finding that perfect balance between a fun game experience and an accurate
simulation of Linux Distro building is a bit of a challenge?"

How many people, even in your target audience could compare this? Right now
I'm thinking of Linus, Theo De Raadt, Richard Stallman, and Jordan Hubbard
playing SimDistro on their 360 complaining "Our CVS commits, never apply that
cleanly, it's totally unrealistic for that big of a patch to have applied that
cleanly"

~~~
koeselitz
Have Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman ever actually built their own distro
at all? I seem to recall Linus saying he didn't have time for that, and he'd
rather leave that task to somebody else who cares about it more.

More to the point: there are hundreds upon hundreds of different distros out
there - it's not even that hard to make your own. Technically, anybody who
compiles the kernel specifically for their own system and chooses a base of
software around their kernel could call that a "distribution" and put it on
the internet for anybody to use with a small amount of effort. You don't even
need to know how to code anything to do that - you just have to know some
command-line stuff.

That's kind of what I like about this - a game that "takes out the hard stuff"
and just gives an overview of building a distro and what goes into it. If this
helps educate people about the process and get more people learning about
computers, I think that's great.

~~~
fleitz
Ok fine, as long as in the game you have to start referring to Linux as
GNU/Linux whenever RMS is within ear shot lest you lose a day to one of his
insufferable speeches on terminology.

If that's the case then I'd say it's realistic.

It's a joke bro, lighten up.

~~~
koeselitz
I have adjusted my hue and saturation accordingly.

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agentgt
I would really like an Apple/IBM simulation game where you go sue people for
any sort of patent infringement while maintaining your offshore workforces (or
your legion of consultants for IBM).

Or maybe an Oil company or Tobacco company simulation game where marketing and
messaging are critical.

Or how about a GOP nomination sim game... I smell Super PAC! :)

~~~
pavel_lishin
PACman?

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theorique
Thought this was a late April Fool joke at first.

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pclark
I would buy this if I could pay via any means except PayPal.

