I thought I would offer some hints and tips for anyone who wants to listen. If I manage to help just one person then it was all worth it Hopefully others will add to this thread in time to help others out.

One possible way to reduce the size of your game is not to include any graphic assets. Don't laugh, not as crazy as it sounds

Instead what you can do is one of the following.

Use simple vector graphics for your game. Remember the idea of this contest is not such great graphical content as a uDG game. Used correctly these kinds of graphics can be very effect indeed.

Another option is that you create all the graphics at run time by drawing them to memory instead of loading them from file. A variation on this is to create them to file the first time the game is run.

These are techniques that have been successfully used on platforms where resources are limited such as PDAs.

I might try and cheat by making my game go online and download the necessary assets when it is first run. It might even be a feature whereby it goes to google:image-search and gets new images every time the game is played.

Probably being too nit-picky here, but... wouldn't having the app go online and retrieve the game assets be against the spirit of the contest?

... and the game wouldn't do very well in the (however unlikely) case that there is no internet connection available...

Quote:I might try and cheat by making my game go online and download the necessary assets when it is first run.

Now if some free software I downloaded started going online unexpectedly I would get concerned!

Quote:... and the game wouldn't do very well in the (however unlikely) case that there is no internet connection available...

Laptop users are not always online, and don't forget those who share a dial-up connection with a phone user.

I can see it now. 'The game is only a 500kb download. But once you launch it you have to download 15MB of assets... Hey, the game download is still under 5 megs isn't it?' Plus, I think it was stated that the complete game download must not exceed 5 megs.....

unfortunately i don't have much choice, the runtime file with no assets is about 2.3 megs compressed!

whogben Wrote:unfortunately i don't have much choice, the runtime file with no assets is about 2.3 megs compressed!

What development tool are you using? I can compress a standalone from MetaCard 2.4.3 down to about 800K - plenty of room for lots of graphics/sounds.

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As for other hints... well, 3D polygons never take up a whole lot of disk space

OH! I have a brilliant idea, won't help me but maybe someone can do this...

For macOSX games why not let them start with the textures, I mean, rather than store the textures in the game downloadable, when the game opens for the first time have it take predefined sections out of the standard Apple desktop patterns etc! I bet you can get a lot of textures out of those...

that i think is more honest... & inventive too.

suhbataar Wrote:that i think is more honest... & inventive too.

never seen u before, can i trust you? maybe you should post in the Introductions thread friend, or foe.

Quote:Use simple vector graphics for your game. Remember the idea of this contest is not such great graphical content as a uDG game. Used correctly these kinds of graphics can be very effect indeed.

Retro Defender already uses this. It will be a contest entry, since I think I can fairly say that I haven't put more than 3 weeks total into it. Also, I won't really work on it during the actual contest.

Quote:Another option is that you create all the graphics at run time by drawing them to memory instead of loading them from file. A variation on this is to create them to file the first time the game is run.

This sounds like a good idea. I'd like to offer another suggestion that combines both of these ideas: create your own image file format that instructs how to draw your vector graphics, and then draw them to a buffer and use that as if you had loaded it in as a graphic.

Old ( well no so old ) wisdom:

The amount of information contained in a file does not depend on the size of the file, but in the size of the algorythm required to generate the file.

can someone point me to a set of royalty-free playing card images? i need all 52...

and yes, i know i should draw them from scratch to save space. if i have to, i will. but for now i'd rather just manage the images...

Hey, that's cheating!

I spent last night writing the code to draw the cards piece by piece...