Cleaning the project before publishing

CasualEvolution

Hello, after years of development, I want to clean the project before publishing it, I have many of scenes that I will not use in this version and which I will erase. BUT I would like to be sure that, those scenes that for the moment I throw away, then I can incorporate them in an upgrade.
How can I do this? copy and paste scenes between projects is not possible

Thanks

AlchimiaStudios

I would just leave them in the game in that case, as long as they aren't accessible it really only hurts file size, and i'd wager a guess it would be minimal even then.

Triple A games do it all the time, sometimes they even leave things in that never get used, ever.

For example World of Warcraft left many unfinished zones in when it first released, some could even be "hacked" into.

Dark Souls had a ton of extra content left in too http://darksouls.wikidot.com/unused-content

CasualEvolution

Thanks @AlchimiaStudios my interest is precisely to optimize the size of the project. For example, I just discovered that in the "screenshots" folder this 1/3 of the total weight of the project, those screenshots, go to the game? or when compiling are left out?

AlchimiaStudios

Hmm good question on the screenshots @adent42 do those get complied in the final build?

CasualEvolution

@adent42 @ForumNinja please, can someone please tell us about this? thanks!

Armelline

@CasualEvolution said:
Thanks @AlchimiaStudios my interest is precisely to optimize the size of the project. For example, I just discovered that in the "screenshots" folder this 1/3 of the total weight of the project, those screenshots, go to the game? or when compiling are left out?

Screenshots are not compliled into the final build, unless something has changed. I tested it a couple of years ago.

RowdyPants

@CasualEvolution As far as scenes in GameSalad @AlchimiaStudios is right on - scenes and actors are basically a page of XML text (~2 KB) which is very tiny in size compared to images. Do not leave unused image assets in your project - that's just sloppy (even though some of the big groups do it).

If you'd like to remove scenes or actors and save them for later use that is definitely possible. GameSalad Projects are basically a folder with more folders and files inside. In macOS you can right click on a project and select 'Show Package Contents' to access the folders. In Windows you can just see the folder structure by default. USE CAUTION when manipulating the contents of your project outside of the GameSalad editor.

Adding or removing scenes or actors from a project is as simple as adding or removing the XML file in the scene folder or actor folder. So copy your project, name it backup, and now you can open your project in GameSalad and remove any scenes or actors in your original project knowing you can always add the scene or actor XML files back into the folders later from the backup copy.

tatiang

So copy your project, name it backup

Just seconding that any time you are removing assets from a project file or editing the XML directly, make a separate copy first as a backup.

CasualEvolution

@tatiang @RowdyPants @Armelline thanks!