The Daily Click

::.

Keeping games small

Author:

David Evans

Submitted:

20th September, 2002

Views:

5557

Rated:

If a game is too big few people will take the time to download it. The internet access I get is constantly cut off by phone calls ect. so I only dload games below 1mb. ok... sometimes bigger but only if the game has REALLY good reviews.

Graphics:

If your game only uses 256 colours DO NOT set the colours to 16 million, this makes the game a lot bigger than it needs to be.
If your game uses photos...
1. Try to change them for hand drawn graphics
2. Make them smaller then stretch them in the game
3. Make them darker or lighter - this only lowers the size a bit but it's better than nothing.
If your game is located in space, consider using a mosaic backdrop for the stars.
If your game has a plain background, don't use a backdrop - change the level properties (if you don't know how, it's under edit-->level properties)
If your game is low resolution but has a big window size, shrink it to sompthing like 320x200 and tell it to 'resize to fill current window size' and be maximised on boot-up.
A good way to make a 320x200 game fill the screen without slowing down too much is to use the set resolution object, set the resolution to 640x480, then go to the game properties and set the size to 640x480, check the resize to fill window option but NOT the maximise option. Remember to 'DESTROY DD OBJECT' at the END OF GAME.

Code:
If you use alot of repeated code, take it out! you can use the fastloop object instead.
If all your levels are the same except the layout (same graphics and gameplay) only write the code for one level then tell it to load in the levels (for a basic example of this see my Mouse Maze game. for a better example see Gravitorb2).

Sound:
Try to use the same sounds over and over again (not too much or they get anoying), instead of inserting new ones, the more sounds you have, the bigger your game gets.

Movies:
If you include movies in your game, make them low res this saves alot of space.
When making the movie think about how fast it will play, slow movies need lots of frames to appear smooth, but with fast movies, you can skip frames.

Posted by Mark Pay

20th September, 2002

Good points, but even with 56k, in the year 2002 I prefer not to let size worries stiffle creativity.
You really should get a download resumer program. Then, if you have freecall internet, you can dl whatever you like

Posted by Mr Saturn

20th September, 2002

Below 1 meg? It's almost impossible to make a decent game below 1 meg, unless it's a retro arcade game or something.

Posted by The Chris Street

20th September, 2002

If you use photos in games, use paint editing tools like Paintshop pro to decrease the number of colours to, say, 20.

For coding, try and combine bits of code together. And simplify.

For sounds, all you need are about 5-10 effects, and for midis, keep the number of tracks to about 5, and 3 mins long, else they'll be very long

Posted by Heriberto Valle Martinez

20th September, 2002

You can add compressed and nice movies using the DIVX video codec, when saved in AVI works fine with TGF and MMF, i´ve already tested it.
In fact, i´m using that format for the videos in my game.

Posted by Muggus

20th September, 2002

I think the most important point you made here is about efficienty coding. That not only makes a game smaller, but makes it better in a programming point of view.

The other points are useful, but there should be no substitute for quality. Depends on what you want really...very useful if your simply basing the game not on presentation, but I think we've all seen the point proven that in alot of cases bigger does mean better. All you have to do is look at commercial games. They spare no expense on graphics, sounds and length of game...and many of these can take up to 2 gigs...but the end result is a stunning in depth game that you can be playing for 50+ hours! That's what people really want in the end...right?

Posted by Simon Elo

21st September, 2002

Below 1 meg? You can`t make a good and long game with size less than 1 meg...geez...

Posted by Oka

21st September, 2002

1mb picture in a zip is like 5-50kb.

Posted by jast

21st September, 2002

Entrance Gate is nearly 30 mb, nontheless it was downloaded nearly 400 times within one day and scored nearly 300 downloads until now from this page (+ link at Vreal + link at TK + link at Fergs + German version at the Clickzone).

Size doesn't really seem to matter that much anymore - otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten that many hits.

Posted by Jenswa

21st September, 2002

For people with 56K connection, like me, it's nice if a game is small (under 5mb).

A tip for sounds, use mp3 with dmc2, it makes the sound files smaller.

Also use rar or ace instead of standaard setup. Be sure to deliver the right dll's with.

Posted by Mutantleg

21st September, 2002

Dont forget that a 5mb tgf game can be zipped to 2.5mb!

Posted by AndyUK

22nd September, 2002

I always use 16 bit, 256 colours with 200x320 mode
and use full screen mode
not resize to fill current window size.

not of my games are over 400k

Posted by DeadmanDines

23rd September, 2002

Small note: If your game is located in space and you're using MMF, just make the Background colour black, and create a small white 1 pixel big dot. Then, do a fastloop which does this:

onLoop("draw_stars"):
--Set X of star to random(Frame Width)
--Set Y of start to random(Frame height)
--Set semi-transparency to random(127)+1 (so you get no stars completely invisible)
--add backdrop (no effect on collisions)

This will give you a completely random starfield, with stars of different shades as well, due to the varying semitransparency ratio. Very useful, since you completely eliminate the general tiled appearance of mosaics. Also, images are bigger than coding (i think!).

Posted by DeadmanDines

23rd September, 2002

Small suggestion - get a download app, like Download Accelerator Plus. These support download resuming, which works for most sites I think, allowing you to resume your download, even if you get disconnected. The costlier alternative is to get a seperate phoneline installed for the internet only (what I do) so you can use the phone and the net at the same time.

Posted by DeadmanDines

23rd September, 2002

Finally, I recommend using fastfunction object to help shrink those event lists. It means instead of repeatedly defining a series of actions, you can do one action which runs them all. It also allows you to implement a console system into your program, which is incredibly useful for debugging your game. Eg: Player types something into a small box up at the top, and it runs that function, such as 'jump(strength,direction)' or 'save(slot)'

Posted by Arjan Burggraaf [Eggy]

23rd September, 2002

It's better to use mods as music, instead of mp3s , because mods are much smaller.

Posted by DeadmanDines

24th September, 2002

If you really want small filesize, go one step further and use MIDI instead of Mod. Midi is smaller than mod, which is smaller than mp3, which is smaller than wav. Only problem with midi is that it sounds different on every PC, so what may sound orchestral on your PC could sound like a honkey-tonk piano on someone elses. Never listen to people who say MIDI is low quality, tho - it uses maths, so the instruments it generates are immeasurably higher quality than MP3. The only problem with Midi at all is the fatal variation between the way it is played on seperate PCs. Contrary to popular belief, on a good soundcard, Midi whips MP3's bloated butt in every respect.

Posted by David Evans

8th October, 2002