“Welcome to the dark side of cozy.”
Dystopika (Steam, Windows) is a city builder in maybe the strictest definition of that two-word descriptor, because it steadfastly refuses to distract you with non-building details. The game is described by its single developer, Matt Marshall, as having “no goals, no management, just creativity and dark cozy vibes.” Dystopika does very little to explain how you should play it, because there’s no optimal path for doing so. Your only job is to enjoy yourself, poking and prodding at a dark cyberpunk cityscape, making things that look interesting, pretty, grim, or however you like. It might seem restrictive, but it feels very freeing.
Windows only in this day and age…
Eh, I don’t blame the solo developer. Official Linux support would be nice, but it’s still only used by 2% of Steam customers, most of which are on the Steam Deck:
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam
There is a non-trivial amount of work involved in creating and supporting Linux binaries. Based on what other developers have reported, despite the small number of Linux users, they can be responsible for a disproportionate number of support tickets. I think part of the reason for this is has to be the enormous number of Linux distributions out there. While most users are using a small handful of distros and their derivatives, there’s just too much variety within a very small portion of the market (plus the whole issue of poor GPU driver support on top), which can lead to all sorts of unexpected and difficult to replicate compatibility and stability issues.
Not to mention, this game is playable on the Steam Deck. It seems to work just fine on Linux (or at least Arch) through Proton, so why complain?
I would be happy if they just made sure it works with Proton. We would be seeing serious Linux native games when we have a 20-30% market share anyway.
