The very first games I played on the browser were essentially ports of MUDs (largely role-playing or hack and slash games). A plethora of text-based games used PHP and other various server-side scripting a little later along with the arrival of DHTML. I've enjoyed a number of hours coordinating strategies over BBSes, IRC and later on forums with teams to play these text-based games on the browser. The arrival of Java Applets and then Flash also meant that the possibilities for making games for a non-tech and non-gaming audience had expanded. This lead to a plethora of game sites- ClassicGames.com (later Yahoo! Games), The Village (later MSN Games), Kongregate and Armor Games. I had stopped playing games at this era, the rise of HTML5 and WebGL, along with a much stronger IndieGames movement has meant a greater push for publishing platforms. It is amazing to see sites like Humble Bundle, Good Old Games and itch.io thriving right now and providing DRM-free games.

The last time I was using Linux, the challenge was that games were not necessarily natively made for Linux. The only possibility was using Wine (and the really painful Wine3D) The arrival of Steam Deck and Proton by Valve Sofware, the simplicity provided by community run initiatives such as ProtonDB, creation of an open-source game manager Lutris have all been exciting developments in the Linux world. This does mean that potentially in the future, more games will run natively run on Linux. There have been a few websites and streamers that track gaming on Linux such as Linux-Game Consortium, GamingOnLinux, LinuxGameCast, and Boiling Steam. Once again, I must admit that world is a new world for me, streaming and podcasts were nascent or non-existent (both in the *nix world and otherwise) when I was last using Linux. I discovered Linux gaming on my foray into the Fediverse, two particular handles, namely GamingOnLinux and Venn got me back into the joy of gaming on Linux.

I regularly buy from Humble Bungle and from Itch.io, but somehow Itch.io seems more fun as a way to try and find new games and new studios as opposed to Humble Bundle. While I have enjoyed playing my existing library of games through Steam (natively and through Lutris), I did want to foray more towards DRM-free games and games that are not resource intensive. The ability to search for and find games that run natively on Linux is an added benefit. Another beautiful feature is the integration it provides with tools for telling interactive, nonlinear stories such as Twinery.

Hopefully, I will get back to enjoying games and potentially making a few games in the style that I enjoy the most.