Locked: If your packaged BYOND game is over 2 MB, you suck.

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ID:78576
 
Aug 6 2009, 7:21 pm (Edited on Aug 6 2009, 9:08 pm)
There is no exception to this rule. There isn't a single game on BYOND that justifies a download size larger than 2 MB, much less the 10-50 MB travesties that litter the hub.

Apparently your pirated copies of Photoshop didn't come with the help files that explain image compression. You've spent so much time copying and pasting anime artwork into your crappy title screens... why not take a few more seconds to export them to a proper format? If your splash screens are larger than 30k, you're doing something terribly wrong.

To all of you who use BMP files for map elements or for displaying HUDs -- I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you A.) Can read, and B.) Know how to do a Google search. Here's a search term for you: PNG

That's cute that you want to use mp3s for music. Don't. Most of your games play worse than a generic third-party NES title; using real music samples isn't going to change that. If you use sound effects then go download one of the millions of freeware wav compression programs.

Heck, none of my games even weigh in at over 1 MB.

Proelium: 300k
DWO: 640k
Proelium II: 600k
Acheron's Awakening: 700k
Nestalgia: 600k

That's right, Acheron's Awakening, which has way more icons, maps, music files and sound effects than 99% of BYOND games out there comes in at 700k. Why? Because I compress all of my wav files, I use an efficient PNG format for my splash screens, and I even go as far as to edit the superfluous instrument tracks out of the midi files that I use.

If you "don't have time" to do all of that, you have no business making games in the first place.
#1 Aug 6 2009, 7:35 pm
If you "don't have time" to do all of that, you have no business making games in the first place.

That's so funny I don't even know how to make fun of that or troll it, so many beginnings to do so.

And if you honestly think anyone from BYOND will give a rat's ass, especially how you are wording this then maybe you shouldn't even try and communicate with this community anymore.
#2 Aug 6 2009, 8:00 pm
Who the hell are you writing to?
#3 Aug 6 2009, 8:10 pm
lol, this has needed to be said for years.
#4 Aug 6 2009, 8:25 pm
on this note, all of the files for SW2 total about 300KB, but the zipped file is 1.4 megs. i'm not sure what's happening/what i'm not seeing (most likely the latter) that's causing that

but yeah, the main culprits of obnoxious game sizes are the 11 year olds piecing together naruto and dbz rips in the first place, they don't care about any of this, and telling them that they don't have any business making games isn't going to phase them in any way (assuming they even saw this)
#5 Aug 6 2009, 8:37 pm
I use PNG and OGG, but decent resources still take space. Wrangle, Warp and Weep weighs in at around 4.2MB. PathWrath 2 is around 2.4MB.
#6 Aug 6 2009, 8:48 pm
Yeah my Harry Potter game uses atleast a hundred png's seeing as one for each spell. Then you've got all the different windows and such, and I've been adding OGG's to damn near everything. My game has about a 5mb download, if you can't download 5mb to play a game, you shouldn't be playing games.
#7 Aug 6 2009, 8:56 pm
ACWraith wrote:
I use PNG and OGG, but decent resources still take space. Wrangle, Warp and Weep weighs in at around 4.2MB.

Having played that game before, I'm trying to figure out what assets it is using that could be taking up so much space. To be honest, that's a perfect example of a game that you should be able to bring below 1 MB without breaking a sweat.


The Naked Ninja wrote:
Who the hell are you writing to?

The vast majority of people making games, unfortunately. As Jaredoggy pointed out, this has been a problem for years now.


Zaole wrote:
telling them that they don't have any business making games isn't going to phase them in any way

Of course it's not... but when has that ever stopped me from speaking my mind ;)
#8 Aug 6 2009, 9:09 pm
I'm Amused, Offended, and Aroused at SilkWizard all at the same time.
#9 Aug 6 2009, 9:21 pm
"Having played that game before, I'm trying to figure out what assets it is using that could be taking up so much space. To be honest, that's a perfect example of a game that you should be able to bring below 1 MB without breaking a sweat."


I could shave maybe a few hundred KB by compressing more of the sounds in WWnW. I don't remember why I didn't do them all.

However, I use higher resolution graphics than you might be used to on BYOND. Most of my games use 224x224 pixel (7x7 tile) graphics. The icon files for the dog satellites alone in WWnW add up to around 510KB with all of their directions and frames.
#10 Aug 6 2009, 9:37 pm
The package file for my game is 1.79MB, I guess that would make me dangerously close to sucking.

The sound folder is 1.66MB compressed. About half of that is from the custom made music. The rest of it is all weapon effects, footseps, bullet impacts, and voice acting. The voice folder is actually the smallest right now, but I haven't recorded my friend's "announcer voice" yet. It'll probably triple in size, being second to only the music folder.

I've gone over each file in Audacity clipping out what I don't need, filtering the static, and normalizing everything. I've done my best to improve sound quality while cutting down on length and file size. They've all been exported in the Ogg format. The finished product will most likely be just over 2MB, but that's perfectly acceptable because I'm not making a NES game. Most people these days are able to download a 2MB game in less than 5 seconds.
#11 Aug 6 2009, 9:47 pm (Edited on Aug 6 2009, 9:57 pm)
Hell, Tomb Explorer is 1.5 megs, and it uses hardly any graphics. I guess all those compressed sound effects are bloating it. Shame on me for using multimedia. Solar Conquest uses sound AND nice graphics, but it breaches your dumb limit at 2.5 megs. I guess my current project must be utter crap because I have a nice variety of mod music taking up a whole 6 megs. God forbid I actually include some content.

This post is retarded Silk. Seriously. But if your goal is to encourage BYOND games to be even crappier than most of them already are, then more power to you! Makes you wonder why Tom and Lummox wasted their time trying to implement better support for these things.
#12 Aug 6 2009, 10:22 pm
Foomer wrote:
Shame on me for using multimedia. ... God forbid I actually include some content.

Shame on you for failing to optimize your multimedia. God forbid someone on BYOND concern themselves with details and polish.


Foomer wrote:
This post is retarded Silk. Seriously.

I concede that I may have suffered some sort of temporary mental lapse by expecting anything but mediocrity from BYOND developers.


ACWraith wrote:
However, I use higher resolution graphics than you might be used to on BYOND.

I know that this is going to be an "agree to disagree" point of contention, but what is the advantage in using those higher resolution graphics? No offense, but I don't notice much of a difference.
#13 Aug 6 2009, 10:28 pm
Silk, there's mediocrity everywhere. How many times have you played a console game only drop the controller in disgust?

Instead of insulting people and making a bunch of backhanded comments you should do something actually helpful like writing a guide on optimization.
#14 Aug 6 2009, 10:40 pm
SuperAntx wrote:
Silk, there's mediocrity everywhere. How many times have you played a console game only drop the controller in disgust?

I think that you just answered your question for me.


SuperAntx wrote:
Instead of insulting people and making a bunch of backhanded comments

I'm not sure what a "backhanded comment" is, nor did I call anyone out specifically. Why people always take these things personally is beyond me.


SuperAntx wrote:
you should do something actually helpful like writing a guide on optimization.

Anyone who was actually clueless enough to need such a guide wouldn't use it. Everyone else can Google "image optimization" or "sound compression" and find exactly what they need.
#15 Aug 6 2009, 10:43 pm
I'm with you Silk. My game combines all the rips in one. I have WOTS, Underworld source, BSOC, Zeta and many more to make a fusion game. Its size is 1.9 MB. :)
#16 Aug 6 2009, 11:04 pm (Edited on Aug 6 2009, 11:27 pm)
Silk's idea of "optimization" is to use no more than 3 colors for anything he draws and to use midi music for everything. Why exactly did they give BYOND the ability to support more than 256 colors and MOD music anyway? Obviously any game that uses these inferior forms of multimedia will suck.

Have you ever considered that some games may actually use optimized content, but simply have more of it than your games?

Statistically my internet connection is just over average, and I can download a 2 meg game in almost as many seconds. I think I can manage to wait as long as 10 seconds to download something a little larger. My attention span isn't that short. Heck, a decent mp3 takes longer than that. What are you on, 56k?

I also don't see how you can figure that small download size is more important than image and sound quality. The more you optimize, the more the quality is reduced. I would rather spend a few more seconds downloading a full color image or a high quality sound. I'd rather spend 10 seconds downloading good music that I'll be listening to for a while than spend 2 seconds downloading crappy midi music that hurts my ears. My project may use 6 megs of mod music, but dammit, its GOOD mod music.
#17 Aug 6 2009, 11:29 pm
"I know that this is going to be an 'agree to disagree' point of contention, but what is the advantage in using those higher resolution graphics? No offense, but I don't notice much of a difference."


Keep in mind that I'm mostly talking about my games other than WWnW. The tile size in that game is just the standard 32x32 pixels. The design just happens to call for some large objects with multiple frames of animation (like the warp and the dog satellite).

For my other games, the 49:1 turf ratio lets me add more detailed textures and looks better when the window is maximized. (I can also add reasonably sized text for guarding cards in PathWrath 2.) I'm not sure which games you looked at, but the textures should be quite noticeable in PathWrath 2, Gears & Peers, and Flesh and Drone.

Perhaps you keep the windows at their default 800x600 and think the graphics look too cramped. *shrug*
#18 Aug 6 2009, 11:58 pm
Foomer wrote:
Have you ever considered that some games may actually use optimized content, but simply have more of it than your games?

Yes, your glorified Minesweeper clone must be double the file size of my games because it has more content. Do you really want to get in a pissing match about this?


Foomer wrote:
What are you on, 56k?

I haven't mentioned download times, because that isn't the point.

The fact is that uncompressed assets are just one more indicator as to how sloppy and inept most BYOND developers are:

Why compress my files when most people have cable connections anyway?

Why worry about efficient code when the different is only 15% of cpu power?

Why make an intuitive interface when I can just tag on a bunch of verbs?

Why draw my own graphics when I can slap in RPG maker sprites?

Why spend the time learning to code everything when I can just make a rip?


When it comes to you specifically, do I think that you should put consideration into optimizing your assets? Yes. Do I really care? No. You're not even on the radar in terms of the average offender.
#19 Aug 7 2009, 1:31 am
"That's cute that you want to use mp3s for music. Don't. Most of your games play worse than a generic third-party NES title; using real music samples isn't going to change that. If you use sound effects then go download one of the millions of freeware wav compression programs."

Just FYI, FabricMage, BYOND doesn't even support mp3 playback.

This post is retarded. Nay.
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