ID:1103012
 
I know there's a totally super awesome super involved super in depth make your own EXE method with BYONDexe or whatever, but its a little overkill for "during-development" testing...

Sometimes you just want to do a performance test, and you don't really want to explain what BYOND is to a closed group of testers who don't care about anything other than testing your game. You don't want to explain why they have to install BYOND, which ultimately can create some noise in the testing experience (What is BYOND? Why do I have to install it? What are these other games?)

I'm just asking, does anyone else miss the make exe option?

I know all the arguments:
But why not just spread the joy of BYOND?
Everything is the way it is for a reason!
Tom said so.
Some other reason about sustainability or profit...

Honestly, I'd rather have the choice between "Make Exe" simple version, and the ultimate "BYONDexe". I don't think one replaces the other. We need them both.
After the stink I threw in this topic, it was made clear to me that a lot of people opposed supporting the 'make exe' feature that my old fangame required.
I've since closed the game as my target audience weren't adapting to downloading BYOND through byond.com.

So in response to your question, I would say that other people do miss the option, yes.
I was going to make my own post about this, but this topic is exactly what I would have said so I'm going to resurrect it.

For me, having a simple option to create an exe for my game would be invaluable. The current standalone installer is way overboard for the games I'm wanting to distribute. For one, my games are still in development and I want an easy way to show them off to audiences outside of BYOND. Creating an entire installer with a fancy window that pops up prompting them to click play is just out of the question for such a thing. I need something simple that I can pack into a zip folder, tell them to the click exe file, and get instant feedback without issues.

Yes, I know I can pack the dmb and rsc file in a zip folder containing the byond internals, but then I need to explain to them that they need to open the dmb file through dreamseeker. Nobody knows what a dmb file is, and nobody knows what dreamseeker is. Even more, it's ridiculous to have to explain such a process just for them to play my game. It should be as intuitive as clicking an exe file, and it shouldn't require an entire installation process due to how small the project is. Even when my projects like Bit are finished, they just aren't worth an installation process. It's just unorthodox for a small, local, single-player game.

So I'm going to push for this, and keep pushing. I think having a simple "make EXE" function would be a big help to not just me, but many developers that really want to get their BYOND games out there without the hassle.
Fug's game is like a very short, simple coffee break game. You could really get past the first level in the time it would take to walk through an installer. It doesn't need a key or login... It makes sense to have a short and sweet exe that loads the dmb like we used to have.
Note that BYONDexe allows you to distribute an installerless exe (it simply unpacks to a folder in the BYOND dir and runs the .dmb).

What we plan on doing is having a free version of the exe stuff that runs an ad, so we can benefit somewhat from this, as well as a pay-version to skip the ad. We should probably also just provide a default template for creating a basic distributable, although IIRC this is pretty easy, esp. for a single-player game of the kind mentioned in the OP. I guess we'd want the default in those cases to just login to the game as guest and skip all of the hub splash foo (I know it doesn't do this currently). In this way, you'd have the old Make EXE functionality as long as you can tolerate having an ad, as well as the ability to customize further should you so desire.
In response to Tom
Tom wrote:
Note that BYONDexe allows you to distribute an installerless exe (it simply unpacks to a folder in the BYOND dir and runs the .dmb).

Mind explaining how to do that? I can't figure it out with the documentation. Does it also skip the window and run the game immediately?
No, I mean you don't need to build an installer. It will run the exe built through the program directly.
The installer is only one issue. The other issue is that I can't seem to bypass the window that pops up with the play button. You may find it simple, but I find the documentation ridiculously confusing and not in the least bit intuitive. I had to toy with it consistently for at least an hour before I got an actual exe file with my game that worked, and then I had to realize that I can't bypass that window. I want something simple that immediately plays the dmb file. If there's a way to get that currently, it certainly isn't obvious to me.
Yes, I understand. It wasn't designed with single-player games in mind so that was a last-minute throw-in, but we'll make sure that it can be used to just launch a game without any intermediate (except perhaps an ad, we'll see). We'll also make sure to provide a template or make the default compilation intuitive. I apologize for backtracking out some useful functionality that "Make EXE" had previously.. I honestly didn't think anyone was really using it.
That sort of functionality isn't just useful for single player games when they're finished, but also easily distributing demos or test builds of games to outside audiences (multi-player or single-player games), as Fireking already pointed out in the first post of this thread. I've actually been craving this for a long time to aid in the development process, so thanks for your attention to the issue.
I previously build my exes through python. I would upload the internals and the game through mediafire or any other file-hosting website. The python program would act more of a launcher then the game itself. So what it would do is download the internals to your program files(If you don't have them downloaded yet) and fire up byond in the background then it would simply launch the game. Though this is only worked for single-player mode.. I lost interest after a while.
I keep 3 copes of BYOND(93,98,99) on my computer
V93 for making .exe (I has 2 programs out there for non-BYONDers[programs: 1 & 2])
V98 for everyday BYONDing
& V99 for seeing & playing with the new pager

but I'll like to have the "Make EXE" & a "Make Installer" options in the "Build" menu
My problem with the old Make EXE function is it will (I believe) prompt you to download BYOND if you don't already have it. With the current BYONDexe, I don't think that's the case anymore. Prompting an outside audience to download BYOND in order to play my game is a potential turnoff. On the other hand, having to deal with an odd window requesting a key is also a potential turnoff, especially for a single player game or programs. Having the best of both worlds would be invaluable. The ability to distribute my game to outside audiences without requiring installation of anything, and also allowing them to play without signing in and clicking Play.
In response to Prf X
Just FYI, that article is outdated up to a certain build. On recent builds, the make exe option doesn't exist.
the article work with V93 which is why I post it
To follow up on that Tom.

I think having the ability to distribute games via EXE is pretty important if the game's target audience is outside of the Byond community.

Yes, it could take potential ad revenue away. However, as it stands; without the ability to package the Byond runtimes into a installer and not require logging into the Byond network, you're more or less a DRM platform that potential customers of a developer's product have to deal with.

If you have to have some kind of payment involved, I would allow Byond Members the ability to package their game into a EXE that is ad-free.

Non members either 1) can't package it or 2) can package it, but will have adverts on game start / forced Byond logo.
On another note. (not sure if I should be bumping like this or not.)

I think having the standalone option would allow developers to more easily access a publishing platform like Desura which is very accepting of Indie / small time games whereas Steam is a bit more difficult to get on.
I think the Make EXE option would be pretty nifty to have. And the splash screen was sort of a pain, but you explained that it was mostly for multiplayer games. Upon making an EXE of the game, I'd expect it to boot straight up to the game, with the player logged in as a guest. If they have BYOND and are logged in, they will log into the game with their current key.

On a side note, I think the EXE could still have functionality for multiplayer without the necessity of a splash screen. For example (and this is sort of a longshot, but...), If the player clicks on a a game in that hub using a browser object, the game reboots as it connects to that world. Or, players could create their own serverlists using the skin control and have the player connect to worlds that way.

Just brainstorming.
In response to Makeii
LetterBox did exactly this.
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