Linux version now available + the home stretch

Hey folks, today I'd like to announce that Boring Man is now available on Ubuntu, for playing and/or hosting with the dedicated server build. On your Ubuntu device, you should be able to install and launch it like normal. We're also getting much closer to the update being 'complete', so I thought I'd share for whats left of the road ahead.

To get out of the way, if you've been having any trouble with beta16, make sure your game is up-to-date as I have been patching A LOT of things.

Linux + New servers

The game build of Linux I didn't test very much lmao. I don't know how well it works but I logged in and joined a game which was.. good enough? You should be able to install and play on your Ubuntu machine like normal, and you will still have access to your Steam account's save data. Report feedback how you'd like, try to make sure any issues you have are exclusive to Linux or repeatable on Windows.

For the past few months, I've been hammering away at getting the Linux version to work as a server. The primary reason being personal life needing me to get rid of the physical server I host from home. With being able to run the game headlessly, I now have a vast selection of hosting options, as a large drawback to hosting B-Man was needing a GPU to run.

I can also now scale the server population quite quickly, and the game can also use the new servers as login forwarders for those having trouble. These two things are early preventative measures in case, one day, the very small chance that the game has a large rush of new players. Although unlikely at this point, I'll sleep better at night knowing that I'm always ready.

Keep in mind, these servers are much weaker then the old one, but I can make and delete any of them at any time, in different regions, at a much affordable cost. The new servers use database-class internet, so they never have packet loss where my hosting internet did. If any lag occurs, it will most likely be a CPU performance drop in the server, or your own internet and my netcode not dealing with it well.

If you'd like to take a crack at hosting a server on Linux, here are the download links to the latest dedicated server builds:

https://spasmangames.com/downloads/linux/bm-linux.zip (Ubuntu server build)
https://spasmangames.com/downloads/BMServer.zip (Windows server build)

I don't have the time to make a full guide atm, all I can say is it needs xvfb to run and some dependencies, so install these 4 packages:

• libopenal1
• libxrandr2
• libglu1-mesa
• xvfb

The homestretch

I anticipate the game has 1-2 major updates left that would complete the weapon arsenal, add a few new maps, add a bunch of new skins and polish up the features. At that point I'd feel like it caught up to v1's content and can be officially considered a released update. Everyone's been playing for a while so 'release' would just entail removing the 'betaXY' version format and return to the traditional one (v2.X.X), so it'd just be like any other major update.

There are 6 weapons left to add, and some maps from v1. I'd also like to re-add the 'secret' bosses, make a few changes to Survival, add a crapton of skins and hopefully think of some good mutators along the way. I'm gonna need to take a break for a while but hopefully I'll be back. The important thing to me right now is the game is safe, as in if I didn't do all of this then I would no longer be able to host. So thank you for your patience, things should be much more stable going forward!