Reducing file size for demo build

Chicky · Mon 03/07/2017 15:05:47

Hi guys, I'm having some issues getting my head around the best practice for converting a large AGS project into a demo build.

I'm not having any issues with the scripting but wanted to ask what was the best way of removing rooms/sprites that are not used in the demo section? Our demo consists of a few rooms and puzzles from the start of the game, obviously there is a lot of data that is used in the rest of the game that is not needed for the demo.

Would I just save a separate version of our game and start manually removing assets/rooms? Or is there a way to ignore certain files when compiling the game?

Any help would be much appreciated

Hopefully there is a fairly logical workflow for this.

Slasher · Mon 03/07/2017 15:42:45

Could you not just backup your game by copying it and then delete all the rooms you don't need for the demo? That's got to help a bit... and you still have your backup copy of the full game...

arj0n · Mon 03/07/2017 17:09:54

Quote from: Chicky on Mon 03/07/2017 15:05:47
Would I just save a separate version of our game and start manually removing assets/rooms?

Yep.
(but why bother, imho file-size isn't really an issue anymore these days)

Quote from: Chicky on Mon 03/07/2017 15:05:47
Or is there a way to ignore certain files when compiling the game?

Nope.

CaptainD · Mon 03/07/2017 17:19:09

What sort of file size are we talking here?

Chicky · Mon 03/07/2017 19:37:00

Thanks for the quick response, last I checked we were looking at about 800mb. Would rather not distribute the whole thing if we can help it

Happy to go through removing bits, thanks for the help guys!

arj0n · Mon 03/07/2017 20:30:42

You could also look into what assets have the biggest size.
(if you are lucky you maybe only have to remove some audio or (cut-scene) video's for example)

AnasAbdin · Tue 04/07/2017 18:12:07

Quote from: Chicky on Mon 03/07/2017 15:05:47
Would I just save a separate version of our game and start manually removing assets/rooms?

Sadly, this is the only way I could think of.

Quote from: arj0n on Mon 03/07/2017 17:09:54
(but why bother, imho file-size isn't really an issue anymore these days)

Actually I think file size is an important issue. I've seen very short AGS games (even some MAGS projects) that are way too large for what you'd expect them to be. I never downloaded any of them simply because of the size, even though I do have space and bandwidth.

You'd laugh how small is Tardigrades (plus the animations) file size compared to some other short games!

fernewelten · Wed 05/07/2017 02:05:55

In my estimation, a sizable chunk of data will be tied into sprites. Actually trying to remove them will probably turn out to be a HUGE pain:

In your case, most of the sprites will be in use â€" in principle and in the coding, just not in the demoed rooms. If AGS thinks that a sprite is in use, AGS will actively prevent deletion to avoid an unstable state.

What might work, however, is copying a one-pixel sprite into the clipboard (right-click, "Copy sprite to clipboard") and then pasting that over all the sprites to be killed (first time: right-click, "Replace sprite from clipboard..."; then, right-click, "Replace sprite using last sprite..."). It will still be a pain, since there will be loads of them.