File size issues

Koda89Koda89 Member Posts: 275
edited November -1 in Working with GS (Mac)
My current game is going to have quite a few images in it, for example each level is going to have a custom made background image.

However, the problem I'm having is, I'm getting dangerously close to 10 MB and I'm not even 1/5 of the way through, so the final game will be over 10 MB, so any thing I can do to prevent this? I already cut down my number of planned levels from 100 to just 60, and that barely helped, so...yeah.......

Comments

  • beefy_clyrobeefy_clyro Member Posts: 5,394
    They raised the limit to 20mb for 3G downloading. If any images dont have transparency then 'save for web', it'll cut lots off the image size
  • scitunesscitunes Member, Sous Chef Posts: 4,047
    I would also recommend creating an adhoc version of the game and compress it like you would if you had a appstore version. sometimes it is actually smaller than what GS says. no guarantee, but this happened on at least one of my games.
  • ChunkypixelsChunkypixels Member Posts: 1,114
    I think people can worry about filesize too much.... sometimes to the detriment of their game.

    I'd make your game the best it can be, with as many levels as you really think does it justice, then worry about the size once its finished. If its close to the 20mb limit, then cool, optimise as much as you can to see if you can get it under, but dont remove content unless absolutely necessary.

    Look at the sizes of many of the big publisher apps & many of the apps that top the charts. Quite a number are well over 20mb, and it doesnt stop them from selling.

    I think pretty much anyone tech savvy enough to own an idevice is going to have some sort of access to a wifi or broadband connection these days, so worrying about download size and handicapping your game because of it could actually be counter productive to your sales.
  • JGary321JGary321 Member Posts: 1,246
    Make sure all images without transparency are PNG 8. If these are for BG's then most probably don't have much transparency. You can take a 250kb file to around 50-70kb just by doing that.
  • quantumsheepquantumsheep Member Posts: 8,188
    Can you still edit the xml to take out all the spaces and save half your total app size? Or was that fixed by GS?

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  • JGary321JGary321 Member Posts: 1,246
    I think it was fixed. I used to edit the xml to reorder game.attributes, but it's all messy looking at it now.
  • adadoadado Member Posts: 219
    @JGary: Download a text editor that supports XML files and has a "beautifier" or "tidy" function in it (i.e. it makes it human readable). You can then edit as you normally do. Some of the editors feature a whitespace "compressor" too so you can restore it to its natural form if you are an@l.

    I think TextMate is one such beast. It has "tidy" and "compressor" (e.g. "unwrap selection").

    "Tidy" is under the menu "Bundles" -> "XML".

    "Unwrap Selection" is under the menu "Text". You have to select the whole text first though (command-a)
  • JGary321JGary321 Member Posts: 1,246
    Yea, I l had downloaded one (forgot the name), but the main thing is that previously it was nice in tidy in just regular text edit, now it's all funktified (<-----copyright 2010) unless using a specific xml editor.
  • a.grajirenaa.grajirena Member Posts: 21
    ah this is great, i was just going to post a thread very similar to this... it seems i am in the same boat as you koda.

    is the 20mb a limit only because it is a deterrent to require that people use wifi? if i am not concerned with that, what should i try and keep the size within? is it just an issue of performance on the device at that point? i'm hoping to have enough money to buy the licenses this weekend, but at this point i haven't tested it on my phone yet.

    also... most of my images with transparency are png 24 because i get a white halo at png 8 that i can't seem to get rid of. any tips on getting clean edges with png 8?
  • JGary321JGary321 Member Posts: 1,246
    If it has transparency just keep it at png 24. There IS a way to do it at 8 still with clean edges, but it's a more drawn out process. I found an article on google that showed you how, but it was a lot of work.

    And the 20mb thing is primarily so people can DL over 3G. You will get the most sales that way.
  • firemaplegamesfiremaplegames Member Posts: 3,211
    Yes, the 20MB is imposed by AT&T (in the US) for downloads over wi-fi.

    If you are making a little "impulse buy" type of game, you'll probably want to stay under the 20MB limit, so people can buy the game wherever they are.

    But if you are making a larger game that requires more graphics, or music, or whatever, then do whatever makes the game great. As said above, most of the best-selling games are much larger than 20MB.

    MYST for example is 700MB.

    However, If your game ends up being 20.1MB, you should probably try to make it fit under the 20MB limit.
  • Koda89Koda89 Member Posts: 275
    Ah, thanks guys. I'll make the game the best I can, then. :D

    My plan was a campaign split into four areas, a forest area, a mountain area, a bamboo forest area, and a Japanese village area, with each area having 25 levels, and the a free play mode in each of the areas, so just pure gameplay scenes alone, 104 scenes.

    But for now, am just trying to get the forest part of the game done, maybe even the mountain part, as a presentation demo to submit to Chillingo. Trying to get them to publish my game, cause, well, damn near every game they publish is a hit of some kind, even just a moderate hit would make me happy.
  • AfterBurnettAfterBurnett Member Posts: 3,474
    Don't do it! If your game is good it'll sell, keep the coin for yourself! ;)
  • Koda89Koda89 Member Posts: 275
    The sad thing is, it doesn't really matter if a game is good or not. What matters is exposure, and getting the word out there, and I don't have the time or money to do that.

    I mean hell, I just moved all of my current iPad games into the Role Playing category for s&g just to see if it'll improve sales at all. :P

    Granted a good game, once exposed to enough people, would do better than a crap game, but still.
  • AfterBurnettAfterBurnett Member Posts: 3,474
    Yeah, depends on genre too. Puzzle games are extremely common and your app is easy to get lost, so if your game is a puzzler, a high profile company pushing it for you couldn't hurt. If, however you were working on a quality fighter or racing game (both few and far between in the App Store), you'd be noticed pretty easily. Either way, good luck! You have any preview vids etc? Always keen to see what indie game developers are up to!
  • Koda89Koda89 Member Posts: 275
    None yet, still doing the dreaded set up stage.
  • AfterBurnettAfterBurnett Member Posts: 3,474
    Haha, fair enough. Good luck with it!
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