If your packaged BYOND game is over 2 MB, you suck.
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.
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.
Posted by SilkWizard on Thursday, August 06, 2009 07:21PM
- 71 comments
(link)
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Keywords:
byond_discussion
(Edited on Thursday, August 06, 2009 09:08PM)
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#71 SilkWizard:
Keeth wrote:
> Am I getting all this right?
Nope. My original message was clear. If your BYOND game is over 2 MB, you suck.
Saturday, August 08, 2009 02:53PM
#70 Keeth:
Original message:
>> If your packaged BYOND game is over 2 MB, you suck.
Clarified message:
>> No I mean every game made BEFORE I made this post. Games made after this post do not qualify.
Re-clarified message:
>> I was actually using the title as a method of getting attention as nobody would have taken the time to respond if I had said something reasonable.
Am I getting all this right?
Saturday, August 08, 2009 02:48PM
#69 Koil:
Hahahaha.
Saturday, August 08, 2009 02:45PM
#68 Geldonyetich:
Trolling: Vital component of education or a definitive lack of tact? Film at 11!
Saturday, August 08, 2009 02:16PM
#67 SuperAntx:
SilkWizard wrote:
> I owned the Members front page for a day by using the former.
That's a rather creative way of putting it.
Saturday, August 08, 2009 02:11PM
#66 SilkWizard:
Tayoko wrote:
> Everyone here should be able to figure Silk's intention. It was not simply to provide helpful tips, else he would of done so a hell of a lot more tactfully.
Exactly.
Zaole:
> saying "if your game's over 2MB you suck and there's no exception to this rule" is a lot different from saying "all these crappy rips make their files way too big, we need to get them to stop"
It sure is. Nobody would pay attention to the latter statement. I owned the Members front page for a day by using the former.
Assuming that I make those types of statements by accident is the fatal flaw in your understanding of this.
Saturday, August 08, 2009 02:09PM
#65 Zaole:
Magicbeast20 wrote:
> Thats so old.
wat
Saturday, August 08, 2009 08:47AM
#64 Magicbeast20:
Zaole wrote:
> Tayoko wrote:
> > You guys have fun dancing around in clown suits. I'm gonna go read something a little more useful.
>
> all work and no trolling makes tayoko a dull boy
Thats so old.
Saturday, August 08, 2009 08:26AM
#63 Zaole:
Tayoko wrote:
> You guys have fun dancing around in clown suits. I'm gonna go read something a little more useful.
all work and no trolling makes tayoko a dull boy
Saturday, August 08, 2009 08:02AM
#62 Tayoko:
SilkWizard wrote:
>Flying off the handle so that you don’t have to!
>That said, I will have fun watching yet another post of mine stir up the masses for the next 24 hours. The people who take what I say with a grain of salt and I will be sitting back enjoying the fireworks.
Everyone here should be able to figure Silk's intention. It was not simply to provide helpful tips, else he would of done so a hell of a lot more tactfully.
Debating, trolling, and getting all frustrated over this post is what this blog entry was created for.
You guys have fun dancing around in clown suits. I'm gonna go read something a little more useful.
Saturday, August 08, 2009 07:23AM
#61 Zaole:
SilkWizard wrote:
> One of the few people who has commented on this topic who actually "got it" when they read my post wrote this in another thread:
>
> "I think everyone is jumping on it because he said 2MB and failing to see why he said 2MB. He didn't pick 2MB because that's as big as a BYOND game should ever be, he picked it because he's looking at 20MB games that should be 2MB.
> Games full of .mp3 files hastily thrown in with little more thought than 'well I need sound, I'll make it play Who Let The Dogs Out in the background'.
>
> ... I think you're all taking Silks original post a bit too seriously. He just wrote up a rant/vent about low quality games with high resource sizes."
we all (or at least most of the people here) understood what the actual point you were making was, but that doesn't change the fact that the way you got it across was abominable. saying "if your game's over 2MB you suck and there's no exception to this rule" is a lot different from saying "all these crappy rips make their files way too big, we need to get them to stop"
Saturday, August 08, 2009 05:21AM
#60 Geldonyetich:
SilkWizard wrote:
> Geldonyetich wrote:
> > Am I taking you out of context?
>
> Yes. I was referring to all of the existing games I've seen, not future games.
>
> One of the few people who has commented on this topic who actually "got it" when they read my post wrote this in another thread:
>
> "I think everyone is jumping on it because he said 2MB and failing to see why he said 2MB. He didn't pick 2MB because that's as big as a BYOND game should ever be, he picked it because he's looking at 20MB games that should be 2MB.
> Games full of .mp3 files hastily thrown in with little more thought than 'well I need sound, I'll make it play Who Let The Dogs Out in the background'.
>
> ... I think you're all taking Silks original post a bit too seriously. He just wrote up a rant/vent about low quality games with high resource sizes."
Well, there you have it.
I apologize. It's the habit of the Internet to take a passage of text and determine how not to interpret it based off of what our common sense determines is wrong.
Perhaps more often we should be trying to understand the interpretation of the text that most suits what our common sense determines is right.
I will, at least, say this: a potential for misinterpretation did exist in the way it was put. However... I'm not sure it's possible to write in such a way that a potential for misinterpretation does not.
Saturday, August 08, 2009 12:09AM
(Edited on Saturday, August 08, 2009 12:21AM)
#59 SilkWizard:
Geldonyetich wrote:
> Am I taking you out of context?
Yes. I was referring to all of the existing games I've seen, not future games.
One of the few people who has commented on this topic who actually "got it" when they read my post wrote this in another thread:
"I think everyone is jumping on it because he said 2MB and failing to see why he said 2MB. He didn't pick 2MB because that's as big as a BYOND game should ever be, he picked it because he's looking at 20MB games that should be 2MB.
Games full of .mp3 files hastily thrown in with little more thought than 'well I need sound, I'll make it play Who Let The Dogs Out in the background'.
... I think you're all taking Silks original post a bit too seriously. He just wrote up a rant/vent about low quality games with high resource sizes."
Saturday, August 08, 2009 12:02AM
#58 Geldonyetich:
SilkWizard wrote:
> Geldonyetich wrote:
> > However, it's a bit of a jump to a conclusion to assume that, in all the things one might come up for a game concept, that having over 2MB can never emerge as completely justified.
>
> Never said that either.
"If your packaged BYOND game is over 2 MB, you suck.
There is no exception to this rule."
Am I taking you out of context?
[Edit:] It's that last sentence that gets you in trouble. I'd go so far as, "there are exceptions, but they are few and far in between" but not as far as "there is no exception to this rule" because, you never know, there could be a BYOND game you never tried which does this, or one in the future (which is technically a possibility that falls under the umbrella of an exception).
Friday, August 07, 2009 11:38PM
(Edited on Saturday, August 08, 2009 12:03AM)
#57 SilkWizard:
Geldonyetich wrote:
> However, it's a bit of a jump to a conclusion to assume that, in all the things one might come up for a game concept, that having over 2MB can never emerge as completely justified.
Never said that either.
Friday, August 07, 2009 11:32PM
#56 Geldonyetich:
SilkWizard wrote:
> Geldonyetich wrote:
> > run a poll and see how many people are still on 56k modems.
>
> Not the point. See comment #25, #18
Judging by the content of those comments and the bold faced parts of my last comment, we're largely in agreement here.
However, it's a bit of a jump to a conclusion to assume that, in all the things one might come up for a game concept, that having over 2MB can never emerge as completely justified.
You have a point, but you're escalating a rule of thumb to a universal, and that's always a fallacy.
Friday, August 07, 2009 11:30PM
#55 SilkWizard:
Geldonyetich wrote:
> run a poll and see how many people are still on 56k modems.
Not the point. See comment #25, #18
Magicbeast20 wrote:
> Don't forget about all the posts people made after it making fun of him.
I know right? A bitter "rebuttal" that actually supported what I said, the usual handful of boring parody posts, and a hilarious contest that served to prove my point better than words ever could.
Like it or not, my short rant sparked a large discussion about file optimization on BYOND.
Friday, August 07, 2009 11:13PM
#54 Geldonyetich:
I know we don't see eye-to-eye in some aspects, but here's a suggestion for you: run a poll and see how many people are still on 56k modems. If a good number are, then I'll agree with you about the size limitation.
I can give you one exception of a good BYOND game that makes good use of its space: Efencea. Sure, the balance isn't there, but it's a quality game that makes good use of its assets.
At the risk of attracting the obvious joke, I'm going to flat out say: it isn't the size, it's how you use it that matters.
Friday, August 07, 2009 10:29PM
#53 Zaole:
SuperAntx wrote:
> Zaole wrote:
> > Implying non existent spell icons and HUD elements do not match the map tiles.
wat
Friday, August 07, 2009 07:31PM
#52 Magicbeast20:
Don't forget about all the posts people made after it making fun of him.
Friday, August 07, 2009 06:32PM