what takes up most disk space in a game?

[aussie]

A question.

I'm finding chaprter 1 of my latest game is round about 8Mb. My server allows me to upload 15Mb.

I just want to see how I could save as much space as possible:

what is it that takes up most space when you make a game?

[custard@school]

Sounds, Videos, Game resolution i would say

[scotch]

Yeah, 16 bit colour BGs take up a lot more space (and increasing the resolution to 640x480 quadruples the size too), music can put the filesize up fast and video is obviously to be avoided if you want small file sizes.

[Spyros]

Also the number of colors of the background.
A 640x480 background that uses 1000 colors takes less space than a 640x480 that uses 15000 colors

[Andail]

Also note that all data that is not compressed when the game is unpacked, will be reduced in size the most, when packed.
If you have loads of MP3:s for instance, packing the game will not affect the size as much as if the bulk of the game is sprites, since these are not compressed at all when the game is compiled.

[Pumaman]

Yep, multimedia files are definately space hogs.

Have you tried zipping up your game though? If your EXE is 8 MB, try compressing it and you might be pleasantly surprised.

[aussie]

Thanks all.

It's just that I'm about to release a demo.

I've made a copy of the 20-odd room game I have and I've deleted most of it to get a single-room demo. However, it's only gone down from 8 to 7 Mb. I'll try to zip it as Chris said. Sorry I couldn't get something better.