A lot of the entries for Ludum Dare #27 have been created using Unity (including my entry), and I wanted to pass along some information that might be helpful for Unity developers to make their games as accessible as possible for all players.  Users on Windows and Mac don’t need dedicated builds as frequently, given that the Unity webplayer is readily available to them.  For people using Linux systems, however, they must download and play the game directly on their system.  Here’s a few steps to improve the experience for Linux users.  The instructions that follow are for Windows, but I’m sure there will be similar solutions for Mac

1: Download 7-zip.  This will allow you to create archives in Linux-supported formats (.tar and .gz).

2: Export for Linux in Unity:
I’m not going to post a tutorial for doing this, as Unity’s interface is fairly self-explanatory.  But you should end up with a folder that looks like this.

3: Put both files together in one folder and name it something that makes it easily identifiable.  LD27-YourTitleHere should be adequate

4: Right-click on this folder, select 7-Zip>Add to archive…

5: This will bring up a prompt that allows you to package the directory in a variety of ways.  For archive format, select “tar”.  Leave everything else with the default settings and click OK.  This should give you a new file called LD27-YourTitleHere.tar

6: Repeat step 4 on this new file (Add to archive), but in the prompt, select the Archive format of “gzip”.  Leave everything else default and click OK.  You should now have a file called LD27-YourTitleHere.tar.gz

7: Upload your new Linux-friendly game to your hosting site and link it on your page.

This may look like a bit of work, but keep in mind that the few extra minutes this takes can really improve people’s impression of your game and open the door to a broader audience.