Hello to all.
I am nearing completion of a workable demo for my game, which includes basically the intro and first complete level (the game is broken into several levels in various parts of the world).
The game is completely photograph and 3D rendered, so the filesize is getting to be pretty big.Ã,Â
After just the first level being completed, the main game file is approx 22mb in size, plus all the cutscenes and so forth.Ã, One cutscene is about 60mb in size because of its quality and length.
I know some use dialup and some use high speed, and as I would like as many as possible to check out/play the game when it is finished, I was wondering if it would be a good idea to do multiple versions of the game...
For instance, the full version will probably be somewhere around 90-100mb in size when the demo is finished because of all the cutscenes I am making/rendering.Ã, I am unwilling to remove them from the game because they add to the ambiance and such.
I have re-rendered another version of all the cutscenes to low-res mode, which drops the size about 2/3 of the way.Ã, The zipped file is about 25mb in size.
So with that said, would it be worth my while to do a version of the cutscenes with just the rendered pics of importance, and string them together like a comic book?Ã, Sort of a 'click-to-advance' type storyboard thing?Ã, That way the story still gets across, but the filesizes will be a lot smaller? I use dialup from home, and know how much of a pain it is to download large files, so I figured I'd get a general consensus on this.
Thanks,
Bill
My I advice would be to make two versions, because as I see the full game will be pretty big.
If I were you I would make two different versions; little file sized version with 320*240 resolution, comic book style cut-scenes and the other, big file sized version.
Small games will be downloaded more. But if you want to make just one version, I'd say go for the hi-res. It's a shame to remove all those detailed scenes.
The game is 640x480 as are the cutscenes. I really want the full version to be as crisp and clear as possible in the cutscenes, but unfortunately that means filesize.
I am going to finish the demo thing and see what the Hi-Res and Lo-Res filesizes will be. If the Lo-Res is too big, I'll make a comic-book-cutscene type thing for a Dialup version :)
You could make a single game with an 'extra media kit' as a separate download. For instance, you could include MIDI music in the game, and MP3 music in the media kit (check music.vox in the manual). Similarly, you could put cutscenes in separate movie files - then check if a movie file is present on disk, and if not, instead display some loose backgrounds.
I'd make two versions.
The problem you will have [probably] is to find a server where you can upload the game...
You can try sharing it in eMule [i can help you with that].
I have a webserver a friend owns. He gives me unlimited space just for being my extremely wonderful self :)
Remember to make it reasonably smaller. 25mb instead of 60mb is still just as impossible for lots of people.
I think Radiant's suggestion is the best way to go.
Yeah, Radiant's suggestion sounds good too.
60megs would take about...15 hours with my connection speed.
Having said that, 25mb would still take 6 hours, but thats a hell of a lot better.
You could make the comic book version of the cutscenes like the ones in Beneath a Steel Sky.
Here is what I decided to do (and have since done):
I made a version of the game with comic-style cutscenes (3D rendered, not toon-style) in AVI format. The average cutscene is about 50-70 kilobytes unzipped. This is much more manageable. I will have this as the main pack, and have 2 addition packs. One with a low-res movie add-ons, and one with a high-res add-on pack.
The only problem is that now that I've gotten more proficient in Blender, I'm going back and re-doing a lot of the already completed AGS cutscenes in 3D :) Its an addiction.
Thanks for the advice guys.
-Bill