I've been klicking for going on 8 years now and during such time I have been, on paper, creating a science fiction action shooter. Three months ago I started work on the project. Now that I am completely finished the game engine, 90% of the graphics, all of the storyline. and finished the menus; I have come to a small problem. Only one of the 20 missions is 8.5MB in size! My question is this...Should I complete the game as is, or should I break it up into single mission downloads?
I wouldn't worry about it. You're better off releasing a single awesome long-lasting game than a bunch of single-mission games. 56Kers might be out of luck... but that's the breaks for not upgrading. At some point you have to draw the line concerning who you're going to support.
Are you talking about the size of an executable version of the first level, or the cca file? Because if it's the former, yeah, that's pretty insane. Broadband or not, I don't think too many people will want to download a 170 meg Click game. If it's the cca, it might shrink down to 20-30 megs when all's said and done, which is still pretty absurd, but if it's worth it, I guess it's worth it.
Are you sure adding another level will add another 8 mb to the filesize? You say 90% graphics are done ... are all the graphics (or almost) featured in level one? In that case reuse will not add much to concurrent levels.
If level one features a theme that will go on in say the next 2 levels and then a change in the theme, the filesize will also not grow that much.
I think a game have to be very good if the size is more than 50 mb. Think about that.
And, you could make a 56k friendly version without eg music that could be added as an addon package (same for eg videoclips if any etc etc), or just split up the game into say 5 mb chunks with eg winzip or something similar. There are a lot of options.
First I would build another level and see how much that raised the filesize.
How about splitting it into different various RAR files and then uploading them so the user can download them in small segments. Then they could put them all together and unRAR them and install the game!
Or how ever that stuff goes.
CRUSH!!
Pete Nattress Cheesy Bits img src/uploads/sccheesegif
Registered 23/09/2002
Points 4811
5th March, 2004 at 11:45:53 -
yeah, chamzel, the problem with that is they still have to download the whole game before they play it. if it was split into seperately downloadable levels, they need only download one level and decide whehter they want the rest.
Well, if Aaron has a CDR in his computer he could buy a large stock of CDs for really cheap and sell them for about $10-15, thus covering shipping and the cost of the CD?
Well, if the game uses mp3s or mods which are of a large file size, get rid of them. And perhaps decrease the colours of the ingame graphics, say, from 16 million to the 2nd highest.
Don't restrict your game just to satisfy slow downloaders. Make is as good as you want, as huge as you want. If it's good, people will download. In theory. It's probably best to have a one level demo first though, so if people like it they'll download the full game.
Don't worry, I'm having the same problem with my Zombies Now game. One level is 15mb, but it's a good idea to make as many of the objects Global as you can, saves on file-size.
im on 56k modem, even if it is around 170mb id still download it.
a few things thatll help you cut down the size:
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+ Crop all images
+ delete unescarry objects
+ use backdrops for platform's and such instead of actuve objects
+ instead of using Hidden counters, use Alterable values
+ If youre using lots of detectors try and make them as small as possible
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Also, when its zipped there might be a huge difference in size.
mabye it would be a good idea to try and find if there is one major part of the game that is making the levels so big.
.are there loads of sounds that are sampled at 44khz? (22 or 11 may sound just as good)
.are there loads of mp3s or even wavs as music?
.is your colour depth 16million when its unecessary?
i think you should try to make the game how you want it to be
of course 170meg is way too big for most to even bother with
but if making the game small sacrifices quality too much, you
may have to keep it large.
Well, on my cable connection it would take about 1 hour to download that, which is not bad at all if the game is good. However, it would take the 56kers much longer, and you probably would get much less downloads (because most computer users are still on 56k).
99 percent chance that the above post is 100 percent correct.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
First off I'd like to thank everyone for their input.
in response to the audio portion of my game; it actually doesn't have many wav files. 5 or 6 at max. it does however have a 1 minute audio mission briefing and ingame acting, both of which I believe if taken out of the game will severely destroy some of the gameplay. Those files actually only take up 1.85MB of the size, and I have cut back the size by using a sound condencing program. The rest is all code. About 1,850 lines to be exact, and that's not including the story telling engine code. Now, I thank Cybermaze for pointing out the graphical miscalculation I was making. I had for gotten that the artwork was all within the first level and would then not take up the same amount of space. After cutting back I have been able to bring the size of each mission down to 4.8MB for the largest level.That said, I have come up with an idea: I have 3 major acts in the story. Each act would be roughly six missions in length. So here is my question would you be willing to download three files in the amount of 28.8MB each? All thoughts are greatly welcomed.
If act 1 shares all the same graphics, your levels could be only ~50kb. I found that when I copied the same level in a game I made, the filesize went up a wopping 4kb!
I just wanted to say that some people are not ABLE to upgrade to broadband because of financial reasons or location issues, so don't act like they deserve a punishment for that. Fag
I'm on 56k, but I would download it, just let it run while I'm asleep.
• If you're on 16 million colours, try switching to 32,768 or 256
• For objects that are in every level (EG, the main character), make them global. This way the graphic for the object is only saved once (instead of once per level)
• If you have empty space on images, cut it out
• Instead of using wavs for sound, try MP3 (With the DMC extension)
whoops, didn't realise that some of this stuff was covered already. Nevermind
Edited by the Author.
"Say you're hanging from a huge cliff at the top of mt. everest and a guy comes along and says he'll save you, and proceeds to throw religious pamphlets at you while simultaniously giving a sermon." - Dustin G
Try creating the second level, and then look at the filesize. Because MMF stores all the graphics, sounds, etc. only one time, your second level will probably take up much less space.
Project Progress:
1.: Droid Runner (5% Complete)
Finishing Up Game Engine
Pete Natress if you are using a broadband connection then you either have a crappy one or several comps networked.
It would take about 5-10 min on cable and maybe 8-20 min on DSL.
I have no damn gaems on this website.I dont care.Think what you want.Im better than you -_-.
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