Update: Steam integration complete
October 20, 2018
All the pieces are finally in place to make the game work on Steam. The automated update scripts (both for client binaries and platform-independent content updates) have been augmented to include a Steam build step, which posts the changes to Steam automatically. Steam actually has a pretty powerful command-line interface (steamcmd), which makes scripting possible.
Account creation, server-side, based on Steam ownerership, is also working. And the final pieces are in place to enable all of you, the existing owners of the game, to unlock the game on Steam and automatically access your account details on the Steam side (you won't even need to type in your key again after installing the game through Steam). However, I'm still waiting for Valve to flip the switch on the GrantPackage feature for OHOL. Hopefully, they will do that early next week, and then you can all start testing the game on Steam.
So close!
One thing I should warn you all about is that the Steam release will be Windows-only for the time being. The build process is complicated enough, and the Mac platform is finicky enough, that I've decided not to tackle it for now. Come to think of it, the old Mac that I build the game on probably can't even run Steam, so I'd have no way to test it. And sadly, Linux on Steam is even less of a priority. In my experience, Mac and Linux users make up only a tiny sliver of the Steam audience anyway. The Mac and Linux builds will continue being updated off-Steam as usual, however (and anyone who buys the game on Steam will be able to access them). Hey, I'm typing this update message from Linux right now, so I'm a true believer, but I don't even have Steam installed on here.
And the bug reports keep on coming. Thank you everyone for your diligent work reporting all this little stuff to me. When it's all organized on GitHub, I can just go down the list and knock out fix after fix. And this week, there are a ton of fixes. You can now use your baby's head to open doors and launch rail carts. Donkey Town residents see a count of their excess curse score. Some 10-year-old causes of spurious network disconnects have been fixed.
As I type this, there are 15 more new bug reports that just came in. More, please. Content issues go here:
https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLifeData7/issues
Programming issues go here:
https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife/issues
Now that the Steam stuff is mostly dealt with, I will spend the next few weeks returning to content updates, as well as fixing the remaining bugs.
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