How do you, personally, go about making a demo?

[Kinoko]

This isn't a how-to question. This is merely a kind of poll. I'm interested in what method other people use to create a "demo" of their game.

So, you've been working on your game for enough time that you thing you'll release a demo.

The way I see it, there are three choices (please tell me if you do something else ^_-)

1. You create a "New Game" and basically plonk everything the demo requires into that, effectively creating a demo seperate to your actual game.

2. You simply make sure your game starts and ends at where you want the demo to start and end, and upload the whole thing (meaning, the player can only access the parts you want in the demo but there are other rooms and codes, etc in the executable file).

3. You've been working on your game in sequence, so you upload it when you've created enough for "the demo", you upload the whole thing.

I'll be doing this soon. I think that if you have a small game, it's not much of an issue, but since I've been working on the game all over the place, and there are already so many large files in there pushing the file size up, I might consider making a seperate demo with only what's necessary for that.

Dunno. But anyway, it got me thinking about what most other people do.

So, what do you do?

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Well, I only released one game and only one demo. But what I did was pretty much 3). When I had Larry leave LA, I thought I had enough material for a demo, so I just added a couple of lines that I later removed and compiled it, and uploaded it.

[DoorKnobHandle]

As far as I know, the "Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth"-demo will feature scenes, that do not appear in the fullgame. This is due to the fact, that the original "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis"-demo worked the same way.

This way means more work of course, but at the same time you don't spoil anything from the story and the art - plus it allows you to start over with the fullgame. It would be kinda tedious for the player to play the fullgame and then, all of the sudden, he has to play the part from the demo in the fullgame. I know I wouldn't like that.

[Helm]

Basically you rehearse a lot until you're really tight, then hopefully from the material, the people can agree on two or three pieces being the strongest, so you go in a studio and you lay down scratch guitars and drums. Then the guitarists go in and the real rhythm and bass, and vocals and solos as well as keys and whatever effects go last.

[2ma2]

I used to do a demo whenever I had finished that part. I usually make a game in chronological (ie. playing order) so it was easy to just make a compile and present it. Now, I would act a bit more conscious, deciding on what to show and how to show it. I also make a copy of my game and delete everything not used, with emphasis on graphics and rooms. Gfx = memory usage. No need for a 6 meg compile if 5 of those consists opf material not used.

That said, demos are good for LARGE productions, and I do mean large. Never ever demo a short game. If your playtime totals at 30 minutes knowing what to do, why bother making a demo of it?

[Kinoko]

I -knew- someone would make some kind of music comment.

*stares at Helm with squinty eyes*

[Helm]

are you deeply disappointed at my not being an adventure game, now? I know my title font might be a little misleading.

[simulacra]

Well, I have also only made one AGS game and one demo for it. I thought that if the game was a novel, the demo should be a short story giving a feel of the whole thing. I starts out same as the full version, but soon heads into another direction.

[Ali]

Thus far I've only made one demo and nothing else, but for me it was also (3).

I like games where you can't explore the whole world straight away so in my game you can only explore two rooms until you find a map. To relese a demo I put together an intro sequence and then created a simple puzzle (with some elements that will feature in the full game) that led to the player getting hold of a map.

I think in your position a separate self-contained demo might be preferable, if only in the interest of file size.

[hedgefield]

Yup, (3) for me too. I think another benefit of this approach is that if people like it, you get more motivated, and in turn (at least for me that is) you go about improving/polishing what you have. You come up with new ideas, you rethink what you have and you improve it. This way the final product will be different from the demo, and a pleasant surprise for those who will play it.

[The Inquisitive Stranger]

For The Game That Takes Place on a Cruise Ship, the only reason I even decided to have a "demo" was because I thought I was going to be selling the game as scratchware. The idea of selling the game has been scratched (no pun intended), but the demo has still remained...

In my case, I decided to have my demo as something completely different from the game itself: the main character comes into a computer game character employment office and is interviewed for the leading role in an upcoming amateur adventure. I worked on this demo as if it were a separate game, and when I was finished and it was time to start work on the actual game, I copied all the files for the game's interface and such into a new game. Oh, and I also released the demo's source code, which some people made use of and whose modifications I ended up actually using.

When the game itself is done, I plan to keep both the full game and the demo/source code available for download.

[Trumgottist]

I haven't made any demo. When I reached the point where I had the first third of my game more or less finished, I instead recruited some beta testers. That's the only real point for a freeware game to have a demo, isn't it? To get feedback before the game is finished.

[Akumayo]

I use method three.

[MillsJROSS]

I don't think demo's should be long. They should just incorporate few puzzles in the same screens you use for your game. Whether you want to use a segment of the game you've already built, is up to you. Just make sure not to give away too much. If I was really concerned with making a demo now, I'd probably use the same backrounds already made and make a short game with my main character and other characters. Like SQ6ish. Just so it gives people the feel for what the real game will be like.

Of course, demo's should only really be used if your chargin money, if your game is bigh, or if you just want to release something so people can see what your doing and can comment on anything they like or don't like so you can fix things while making the game. Vs. fixing them with your beta testers, or after release.

-MillsJROSS

[RickJ]

I create a seperate souce code for the demo.  I have done both starting from scratch #1 and copied an early version of the game to create the demo.    It depended upon which was more convienient.

The reason I keep a seperate demo game is so that I can change it in the future.    IMHO, the focus of the demo is (or can be) somewhat different when a project is complete than when it is under development.    If the project is not complete there may be a desire (or demand) to provide as much game play as is available at the time the demo is published.   When the project is complete there is no longer such a need in the demo, since all available game play is contained in the full game.

So then of what use is the demo?  Well if the full game is quite large some people would perhaps be reluctant to download it unless they had some reason to believe they would like it enough to justify the hassle.   So a small demo that could be easily downloaded and that allowed the user to interactively sample various portions of the game, after the fashion of movie trailers / teasers, would be the solution.

I find that being able to work from the original demo source code is very helpful.   

[DonB]

Well.. when I look to real demos.. for example from Warcraft3 or Halflife.. it are always rooms which appear in the full game itself.. I think a demo is to showoff what your game can do.. but it's not made to slow the progress of the full game up, so not includes making whole new art and all.. then again, what best way to showoff in a demo is to show real-game-rooms so people cant moan after that the game wasnt what they expected by art..