Loki Software, Inc. (Loki Entertainment) was an American

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

based in

Tustin, California Tustin is a city located in Orange County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. In 2020, Tustin had a population of 80,276. The city is located next to the county seat, Santa Ana, and does not include the unincorporated community ...

, that

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

several video games from

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

. It took its name from the Norse deity

Loki Loki is a god in Norse mythology. According to some sources, Loki is the son of Fárbauti (a jötunn) and Laufey (mentioned as a goddess), and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. Loki is married to Sigyn and they have two sons, Narfi or Na ...

. Although successful in its goal of bringing games to the Linux platform, the company folded in January 2002 after filing for bankruptcy.

History

Loki Software was founded on November 9, 1998, by Scott Draeker, a former lawyer who became interested in porting games to Linux after being introduced to the system through his work as a software licensing attorney. By December of that year Loki had gained the rights to produce a port of

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

's then-upcoming strategy game '' Civilization: Call to Power'' for Linux. This was to become Loki's first actual product, with the game hitting stores in May 1999. From there they gained contracts to port many other titles, such as '' Myth II: Soulblighter'', ''

Railroad Tycoon II ''Railroad Tycoon II'' is a business simulation video game in the ''Railroad Tycoon'' series developed by PopTop Software and published by Gathering of Developers. It was released for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, PlayStation and Dreamcast Game ...

'', and ''

Eric's Ultimate Solitaire ''Eric's Ultimate Solitaire'' (also known as Eric's Ultimate Solitaire X) is a commercial solitaire game developed by Delta Tao Software for the Macintosh. The game was later ported to Linux by Loki Software. Apple Computer bundled the game wi ...

''. Throughout the next two years up until its eventual closure the company would continue to bring more games to Linux. After facing financial diificulties, Loki filed for

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

in August 2001.Loki's Draeker: If I had to do it over, I'd create Linux native games

NewsForge Geeknet, Inc. is a Fairfax County, Virginia–based company that is a subsidiary of GameStop. The company was formerly known as VA Research, VA Linux Systems, VA Software, and SourceForge, Inc. History VA Research VA Research was founded in Nove ...

, January 24, 2002 The majority of the staff was laid off in January 2002 and Loki formally closed on January 31.

Legacy

Loki Software, although a commercial failure, is credited with the birth of the modern Linux game industry. Loki developed several

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

tools, such as the Loki installer (also known as Loki Setup), and supported the development of the

Simple DirectMedia Layer Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) is a cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in sever ...

. They also started the

OpenAL OpenAL (Open Audio Library) is a cross-platform audio application programming interface (API). It is designed for efficient rendering of multichannel three-dimensional positional audio. Its API style and conventions deliberately resemble those ...

audio library project (now being run by

Creative Technology Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singaporean multinational technology company headquartered with overseas offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Dublin, and Silicon Valley (where in the US it is known as Creative Labs). The principal activities of the compa ...

and

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

) and with

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and ar ...

wrote

GtkRadiant Based on Id Software's open stance towards game modifications, their ''Quake'' series became a popular subject for player mods beginning with '' Quake'' in 1996. Spurred by user-created hacked content on their previous games and the company's ...

. These are still often credited as being the cornerstones of Linux game development. They also worked on and extended several already developed tools, such as GCC and

GDB The GNU Debugger (GDB) is a Software portability, portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada (programming language), Ada, C (programming language), C, C++, Objective-C, Free Pasc ...

. The book ''Programming Linux Games'' written in the early 2000s by Loki intern John R. Hall explains the major APIs Loki used to produce Linux games. Loki also offered a start to many figures still in the Linux and gaming industries. Ryan C. Gordon (also known as icculus), a former employee of Loki, has been responsible for the Linux and

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

ports of many commercial games after the demise of the company. Mike Phillips would help start

Linux Game Publishing Linux Game Publishing (sometimes also referred to as LGP) was a software company based in Nottingham in England. It ported, published and sold video games running on Linux operating systems. As well as porting games, LGP also sponsored the deve ...

, which was itself founded in response to Loki's closure. Nicholas Vining would go on to do some porting work and is currently the lead programmer at

Gaslamp Games Gaslamp Games, Inc. was an independent game developer based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada which designed video games for the Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux operating systems. Their first game, '' Dungeons of Dredmor'', was release ...

, which would later release their game ''

Dungeons of Dredmor ''Dungeons of Dredmor'' is a roguelike indie video game released on July 13, 2011, by Gaslamp Games. A downloadable content (DLC) pack, "Realm of the Diggle Gods", was released later that year. A second DLC, "You Have To Name The Expansion Pack", ...

'' for Linux.

Sam Lantinga Sam Oscar Lantinga is a computer programmer. He used to be the lead software engineer at Blizzard Entertainment, where he was known to the community as Slouken. He is best known as the creator of the Simple DirectMedia Layer, a very popular open ...

would also later join

Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduat ...

and found Galaxy Gameworks to commercially support the Simple DirectMedia Layer; he would later also join

Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...

's Linux team. Although many Loki ports are unsupported since Loki's closure,

managed to pick up the rights to '' MindRover'' and offer a supported and updated version of the game's Linux port.

picked up the support for the Linux release of ''

Quake III Arena ''Quake III Arena'' is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. The third installment of the ''Quake'' series, ''Arena'' differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing prima ...

'', hiring

Timothee Besset Timothée Besset is a French software programmer, (also known as TTimo), best known for supporting Linux, as well as some Macintosh, ports of id Software's products. He has been involved with the game ports of various id properties over the past ...

to maintain it; he would later also be responsible for porting some of id's later products to Linux. Running with Scissors, to celebrate the release of the movie ''Postal'' in 2007 published a multiplayer only version of ''

Postal 2 ''Postal 2'' is a 2003 first-person shooter developed by Running with Scissors. It is the sequel to the 1997 game '' Postal'' and was released for Microsoft Windows in April 2003, macOS in April 2004 and Linux in April 2005. ''Postal 2'', as wel ...

'', without the single player campaign. In 2004 the source header files for Rune were released freely by Human Head Studios. But so far no one has updated the Linux version of Rune, though the company stated that a game sequel is in the making, and delayed the development of ''

Prey 2 ''Prey 2'' was a cancelled first-person shooter video game to be published by Bethesda Softworks and planned as a sequel to the 2006 video game ''Prey''. Though ''Prey 2'' was announced by 3D Realms in 2006, a few months after release of the fir ...

''. Software contractor Frank C. Earl claimed in 2010 to hold the porting rights for the entire ''

Myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

'' series and says he will port it to Linux. Kevin Bentley worked in 2009 on a ''Descent 3'' patch for Linux, which was re-released in 2014 on Steam by

Rebecca Heineman Rebecca Ann Heineman is an American video game designer and programmer. Heineman was a founding member of video game companies Interplay Productions, Logicware, Contraband Entertainment, and Olde Sküül. She has been chief executive officer ...

, who got blessed

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

access. On October 16, 2011, Project Magma released a new version of '' Myth II: Soulblighter'' for Linux.Myth II v1.7.2 for Linux
/ref>

Games published

In addition to the published titles, there is also an unfinished port of ''

Deus Ex ''Deus Ex'' is a series of role-playing video games, set during the mid 21st century. Focusing on the conflict between secretive factions who wish to control the world by proxy, and the effects of transhumanistic attitudes and technologies in a ...

''. The later update of ''Deus Ex'' for Microsoft Windows features the

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

driver for the

Unreal engine Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game ''Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genres ...

from Loki Software's Linux port. This makes the title more compatible with

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

Official website

Icculus.org
Ryan Gordon's site, hosting many Loki projects as well as other Linux gaming resources

Linux PR, October 11, 1999
Linux.com - Loki: In The Trenches (Interview with Loki Software Staff)
Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001 Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles Linux companies Linux game porters Video game companies established in 1998 Video game companies disestablished in 2002 Defunct video game companies of the United States

History

Legacy

Games published

See also

References

External links