Publishing - game too big

IsabelleKIsabelleK Member, Sous Chef Posts: 2,807
edited December 2011 in iPhone and Android Publishing
Hello,
I'm trying to publish my game (about 360 MB). I was able to publish such big game before, but after contacting GS team, I've heard, that the size is now too big. I didn't have any problems before. Literally, if I had paid for Pro, I would want a refund now.
Do you have any ideas how to make my file smaller? I used ImageOptim (few times), and deleted as much graphics as I can.
In the screenshots folder I only have a primary screenshot. Do you have other ideas? Is there any software like ImageOptim, but for sounds and music?
From my gameproject (folders with the biggest sizes):
Images: 265 MB
Sounds: 35.3 MB
Scenes: 60.6 MB

All sounds are .ogg, all music is .m4a, all images are .png (some of them have alpha channels).

Thank you!
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Comments

  • 0belisk0belisk PRO Posts: 189
    Jesus thats a huge game.

    my recommendations:

    Change your .png images from PNG-24 to PNG-8 if you already hadnt, cuts down the size alot.
    Edit all your audio clips in something like final cut pro and mess around with the export settings, i managed to make my audio files 3x smaller without a noticeable difference in audio quality.
  • FallacyStudiosFallacyStudios Member Posts: 970
    edited December 2011
    Is this meant for a phone?????
  • FallacyStudiosFallacyStudios Member Posts: 970
    edited December 2011
    Still seems absurdly large for a phone game. If it is meant for a phone did you shrink all the images down to about the size they are being used at for the game? If you have images that are like 320x320 or something and you are only using them at 40x40 or something that would be a huge waste. I know that's obvious but its best to be mentioned incase it was overlooked.
  • FallacyStudiosFallacyStudios Member Posts: 970
    Ya I guess not my phone has 15 GB. Although I am curious as to why after a few 20mb apps my phone always so low on storage.

    Hey btw real quick side question... has anyone noticed GS responding slower? Seems like I click on Change Attribute and to set the attribute and it takes a few seconds and then display. Happening all over the place
  • IsabelleKIsabelleK Member, Sous Chef Posts: 2,807
    Thank you for your replies!
    @tshirt, GS team told me, that the game should be 150 MB or less. Previously when I tried to publish 300 MB game I had (sometimes) errors that server is experiencing some problems. Now I have error that the file is corrupted or in wrong format (everytime, on different GS versions, and from different saves). Gs team told me, that it's because game is too big.

    Can anyone tell me how to change many files to png8 at once? Will there be a noticable difference in quality, also, will alpha channel still work correctly?

    Thank you!
  • beefy_clyrobeefy_clyro Member Posts: 5,394
    This is absolutely bonkers! I really question the direction of GameSalad at times and wonder what on earth the guy sat at the top making the decisions is smoking????
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  • HoneyTribeStudiosHoneyTribeStudios Member Posts: 1,792
    I'm guessing you're already using a lot of 8bit pngs? The same guy that made imageoptim has another tool on his site. It will convert 24bit pngs to 8 and retain the alpha channel. It's called ImageAlpha. Generally I find png 8 fine for full screen images but can give nasty jagged edges to some smaller images.

    Also you can use jpgs as long as you update the assets.xml fille with the .jpg extension on each image. Although if you're using retina size images jpgs won't get the auto x2 reduction. So 3rd gen devices will take a RAM hit from 960x640 jpgs. There's a post originally made by TSB somewhere around here.

    But yeah, contact GS directly and ask them to sort it out with the 150mb limit.
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  • vectawrvectawr Member Posts: 43
    How do games like Oregon Trail and Farmville have apps that are under 20mbs when they have so many images.
  • LiquidGameworksLiquidGameworks Anchorage, AKMember, Sous Chef Posts: 956
    @Gripsocks

    They're not under 20mb. Oregon Trail is 299 mb. Large games are not uncommon.

    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-oregon-trail/id307519882?mt=8
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  • JohnPapiomitisJohnPapiomitis Member Posts: 6,256
    edited December 2011
    idk the size of those apps i wouldnt think there under 20mb but when you use code you have all the control you need over every aspect of your game instead of a drag and drop system like gamesalad where we have no control what goes on under the hood whatsoever.
    for example in a 3d engine: materials, substances, tiling textures, batching, vt's and all that good stuff.
    you have complete control over everythign and how there called loaded ect
  • SlickZeroSlickZero Houston, TexasMember, Sous Chef Posts: 2,870
    Exactly. GameSalad runs on top of the Objective-C/Cocoa architecture, which is why so many spawns and destroys and constraints, etc... kill performance. It's the trade off for not having the ability to code. I'm sure even Corona has limits on certain things. Xcode and Objective-C is the only way to have total control over every aspect of an iDevices abilities.
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  • vectawrvectawr Member Posts: 43
    @LiquidGameWorks I mean the newer oregon trail

    @John papiomitis So what would it be like to make a farmville clone in gamesalad (minus the social aspect)
  • IsabelleKIsabelleK Member, Sous Chef Posts: 2,807
    edited December 2011
    I've contacted with GS team, and I get a nice reply, they told me something like this: we are sorry about this, but this is not our problem. We are going to make some improvements to our publishing servers, but they still won't be possible to publish a game as big as yours. so, you have to compress it, or make it smaller in some other way, to be able to publish. It was super strange that you managed to publish 300 MB game before. You have to keep your game under 150 MB.

    As I said - I managed to publish games above 300 MB few times:
    Developer versions of The Train episode 02 and 02 HD.
    AppStore versions of The Train episode 02 and 02 HD.
    Developer versions of The Train episode 02 and 02 HD (updates).
    AppStore versions of The Train episode 02 and 02 HD (updates).

    The last time I managed to do this, was early November (I published dev and appstore versions of updates (see above)). It was before releasing GS 0.9.85, after the new version I can't publish any of those games, and my new game, in any version of GameSalad.

    BTW, I don't have any problems with publishing "test games", that are under 150 MB. I tried several times, and each time was successful.
  • beefy_clyrobeefy_clyro Member Posts: 5,394
    Not to mention Photics 'Bot' as well which is 300 odd mb
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  • vectawrvectawr Member Posts: 43
    @RKS It's a whole other Oregon Trail game...

    The Oregon Trail: American Settler

    It's like farmville.
  • The_Gamesalad_GuruThe_Gamesalad_Guru Member Posts: 9,922
    edited December 2011
    Okay so forget about ios what about if you're publishing Mac osx games? That is an output option in GS right? I think that pro level users should be able to compile their games in Xcode if this is how it's gonna be. Let creator push out an Xcode file. Isn't that how it used to be? What so secret about GS that we can't do that. Ghee zzz just think if Apple or adobe make you use their servers to process your files!

    Guru Video Channel   | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS  

  • POMPOM Member Posts: 2,599
    edited December 2011
    @dsouza41
    I'm using GS for 2 years now and we never had Xcode export option.
    From my understanding, we don't have this option cause it can open the door for hackers ,
    Not sure if you noticed but the engine is pretty secure , only a few people claimed to be able to hack GS and I have never seen a proof to that.

    Roy.
  • The_Gamesalad_GuruThe_Gamesalad_Guru Member Posts: 9,922
    Read this. http://gamesalad.com/wiki/developing_for_iphone:convert_to_xcode

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  • The_Gamesalad_GuruThe_Gamesalad_Guru Member Posts: 9,922
    I made a PDF of the page in case they delete it after this post

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  • The_Gamesalad_GuruThe_Gamesalad_Guru Member Posts: 9,922
    edited December 2011
    No it's Apple that keeps you safe in review and it's apples standard not GS. If it wasn't you couldn't put your stuff on Apple. They are doing the Xcode compiling on their end. Not rocket science. They just have GUI over Xcode, just like osx is a GUI over basically unix.

    Guru Video Channel   | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS  

  • beefy_clyrobeefy_clyro Member Posts: 5,394
    They originally exported to Xcode but no longer do this to keep everything under wraps.
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  • POMPOM Member Posts: 2,599
    edited December 2011
    This is very old and it's was like that for a short period of time, then they changed it ..
    By hacking GS I meant hacking the pro features not the accual game downloaded from iTunes ..
    Don't want to go off topic on this thread, so let's keep it on topic before someone complains ;) after all it's a very important thread.

    Roy.
  • The_Gamesalad_GuruThe_Gamesalad_Guru Member Posts: 9,922
    Okay so if you do a export to Xcode and the GS algorithm is doing that who the hell is gonna see that? Hell any MIT hacker can decompile their software and see what's going on.

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  • The_Gamesalad_GuruThe_Gamesalad_Guru Member Posts: 9,922
    This goes right to the real issue. Limiting us and suggesting solution. Besides it would bring the cost of maintaining a server and hardware costs.

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  • POMPOM Member Posts: 2,599
    Hmm no they don't, they gonna have to hack to their servers, cause the compilation is being done there.. It's not that easy.
    Roy
  • The_Gamesalad_GuruThe_Gamesalad_Guru Member Posts: 9,922
    edited December 2011
    It's called reverse engineering. It's exactly how Jobs and Gates build the software you're using right now. My partner came out of the MIT lab trust me and my other buddy was at MIT and now is a professor at Harvard.

    Guru Video Channel   | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS  

  • MotherHooseMotherHoose Member Posts: 2,456
    @TheMoonwalls

    ImageAlpha
    made by the makers of ImageOptim... and Free...
    does .png 24bit to 8bit conversion and you can see the results before saving...

    Audacity
    great for editing sound files...and exporting as .ogg... and Free...
    should save you bytes

    but, ;( to learn GS won't publish your biggie... sure that it is super!

    MH
  • nCartoonnCartoon Member, PRO Posts: 54
    I make very nice Game only 12MB but I need T shirt Help

    i get this Error when game salad Signing app package

    Code signing faild. make sure your provisioning profile. developer certificate, and WWDR certificate are installed.
  • SharkawyDevSharkawyDev Member Posts: 225
    @ncartoon it look like your all three certificates are missed, double check that and reinstall them
  • calvin9403calvin9403 Member Posts: 3,186
    @gripsocks that is because they load the images on the internet

    @gs team

    after we have arrays and others features, can we publish large size apps then?

    calvin
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