Foolproof way to publish .exe files 2020

Ei kait siinä studios

Hi,

Can any1 give me a quick effective instruction link or thorough explanation about publishing to .exe files in 2020. I've been struggling with this for over a year I have used 2 different computers to do this with node.js, visual studios, cordova, html5 packing etc. etc. but I never get it to work and I'm really frustrated.

I have used gamesalad for 3 years now to perfect my few games which I hope to release to Steam someday, but now it seems that all has been for nothing.

Ei kait siinä studios

After 20 more hours and 200 grey hairs, I finally made concrete progress. I try to document it here:

1. Make html5 file like normal, rename sampleindex to index
2. Next do according to this tutorial https://medium.com/@Raicuparta/getting-an-html5-game-on-steam-3-making-an-executable-e7bbf7706a50
   1. Used method is Nw.js. Download it & extract all the contents to the directory where you have your index.html file, and run nw.exe. It should open your game/app.
   2. Package.json is really important and easy to mess up!
   3. In Web2Executable you need to upload/open your ENTIRE project file, and it should automatically fill some data for you. You can update another ( like icons, app name) , just leave index.html the way it is!
   4. In Web2Executable you can choose the platforms to publish. I chose Windows 32 and 64bit. They worked right away! YAYAYAYAYAAY
3. BUT for now, sound and music are missing, need to investigate this further.

pinkio75

Ok i've convert 3 or 4 title with this method but you need to delete all .m4 file in asset.js an you need to respect the file.

Ei kait siinä studios

Hi Pinkio75, nice to see others use this method too. I think I went through all the wrong ways before discovering this one 😂

Could you explain what you mean with "respect the file"? I have already tried to delete the .m4 files in asset.js but something more is needed I think.

pinkio75

Yes sure, please see exactly the shoot, you need to respect the format of brackets:

You need to erase what you see "underlined" and leave the rest; also i suggest you to use x-code to open asset.js o other text editor to have the best resolution, because is really simple to wrong the procedure.

Ei kait siinä studios

It's wonderfully working! With .ogg sounds at least. Do you have advice how to cope with mp3s?

Ei kait siinä studios

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/comment/613820#Comment_613820

I'm wondering whether to use wavs or m4as.

pinkio75

Hi, honestly i used the export html5 in .exe just for 3 games and i haven't done any further tests.

jamie_c

I'm not 100% sure but I believe the .ogg sound format is the only one that works in the HTML5 engine. If that is the case you'd need to convert any other sound formats to .ogg.

pinkio75

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/comment/613823#Comment_613823

Yes the best solution is to convert all audio file to .ogg.

Ei kait siinä studios

Hi once again,

I couldn't get it to work.

I think the main point is that program can't make a difference between sound.ogg and music.ogg, because normally music is mp3 format and is played with "play music" command (whereas sound.ogg is "play sound" actor command) Therefore I can't change music to .ogg because Gamesalad Windows version can't play them as music.

In other words, if I can't get this to work this way, I have to change all my music files to .ogg and make them to act with "play sound" instead.

Ei kait siinä studios

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/comment/613841#Comment_613841

This is the output I need change now:

{"name":"Bonus_farm_music","files":[{"name":"53.mp3","size":363840},{"name":"53.m4a","size":null},{"name":"53.ogg","size":null}]}l}

With ogg.s I just remove the bolded part, but it doesn't work with mp3. files

{"name":"Lumberjack","files":[{"name":"52.ogg","size":35942},{"name":"52.m4a","size":null}]

pinkio75

just use .ogg files to avoid this issue.

Convert all audio files directly in GS project when you import the audio files to .ogg after export in html5 the game and wrap in exe.

Ei kait siinä studios

I think I made a passable compromise with audio and now my game is working :) at least on windows

You can check it here: https://eikaitsiinastudios.itch.io/the-cable-game-demo

Its my demo version, which i used as a testing piece :D

Planning to do the same to full version in near future. Thanks for you help though!

Glass Frog

First of all, cheers for this thread guys I have found it really useful.

Unfortunately though, I'm currently having the same problems as Ei Kait with my music not playing. Is there any audio format that will play and is acknowledged by Gamesalad as a music file. as it only lets me use .ogg as a SFX.

Ive checked in the HTML5 File and it seems to have converted the music over to .ogg but it still will not play, even after using Pinkio75s tip.

Glass Frog

HI @adent42 do you know any solutions to the question above, cheers.

adent42

No idea, we'll need to play with it some.

Glass Frog

No probs, thank you for the quick reply @adent42, please keep us up to date if you find any solutions, Thanks 😁

Ei kait siinä studios

Hi, pleased to see that this discussion has helped!

So far, I had to compromise my game's music and change all mp3's to .oggs. This also meant that I had to re-do all my music actors, and they don't work as well as they did before, but well, it's a compromise :D

I short: What you can do now for quick relief, is to open the asset-file and delete the bolded in your Sounds-section:

Example:

{"name":"Lumberjack","files":[{"name":"52.ogg","size":35942},{"name":"52.m4a","size":null}]

This also means that you have to do this to every single sound file... which is a pain, but gets the job done. Later you can use the same asset-file to avoid this work in new releases.

Ps. My game is now on steam ;)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1335350/Kaapelipeli_The_Cable_Game/

Glass Frog

Hi @Ei kait siinä studios congrats on your steam release, I hope sales have been good for you.

I did get the music working in the end, with tips from Gamevicci.

As well as deleting all the m4a code in the asset-file,

I also deleted the m4a files in the sound folder and that seemed to work for me.

Glad you found a work in the end though.

Chris Fitsimons

Could anyone who has done this successfully make a YouTube step by step video? It would really help the community 😁

Glass Frog

@Chris Fitsimons sorry I don't make YouTube vids myself but if you follow the link Ei Kait posted at the top of the page its quite straightforward, its just a bit of trial and error.

But saying that, I am having trouble with Web2Executable. After exporting to windows I click on the exe application and the game opens up but gets stuck on a black screen with the custom loading wheel spinning and never progresses.

The game works fine before being exported, has anyone else had this problem? I've have tried running it through web2exe multiple times selecting all different options but nothing seems to work.

Its really frustrating as this is the last step I need to complete before I can publish the game but I just cant seem to get it working.

Ei kait siinä studios

Hi Glass Frog,

concerning Web2exe, please try to:

• re-do your package.json file and see if it has all the correct information, dont forget that it must match your index.html
• I'm not sure, but I think web2exe doesn't like special alphabet like ä's or ö's in ANY place on your file path, so remove those or move files to different location
• Check some web2exe basic tutorials in case something goes wrong even before exporting :)

Glass Frog

HI Ei Kait, thanks for the reply, I will check to see if any of the above is the problem.

To get around it for now, I just used hacker resource to change the icon and published it as is on itch io, as the game runs fine without compiling in web2exe.

I'm not too sure if that will be enough for steam as I have not uploaded to them yet.

Glass Frog

I'm currently in the process of putting my game on stream but have ran into a problem. The build I submitted was rejected for the following reason:

Failure: Your build has failed our review because when launching the game through the game's launcher, the game is independently executed outside of Steam's Big Picture Mode. This breaks playtime tracking and no matter how much you play the game it would show up as returnable.

Has anyone else who has published a game to steam ran into this problem, if so how did you fix it?

jonmulcahy

http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/comment/615247#Comment_615247

Are you executing it as window or full screen mode? Also, if you haven’t, I had a thread a few years back documenting my path to getting a game on steam, and it was successful. I don’t remember much, but it’s still out there

edit: this is the thread: https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/89397/a-long-way-home-released-on-steam/p1

it's all over the place so you'd have to read from page 1, and I don't remember a single thing I did :)

Glass Frog

HI Jonmulcahy, thanks for the reply.

I remember following your game a few years back, does it still do well on steam to this day?

I did have a quick reread through your thread there is quite a lot of useful information there, luckily for me the whole process seems to have gotten a lot easier from when when you pioneered the way 😁.

The game is in a window but I believe the problem was due to my depot being configured wrong. I did a quick build to test it and tracking now seems to work within Big Picture Mode so I have sent it off for review. If I still have no luck I will try and make the game run full screen mode from the start, cheers for the advice.