Acceptable game sizes

Post by **Dare2** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 2:59 pm

The graphics for a game I am writing is pushing 4mb of bmp and I haven't started writing the music yet.

The game itself (code) is well under 100 kb, it is an isometric pacman-ish type thing. That is, collect bits whilst avoiding guardians of various speed and intelligence.

I was wondering what sort of sizing is "acceptable" or reasonable for a simple game.

Any rules of thumb?

DriakTravo · Post by **DriakTravo** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 4:15 pm

Well, for me, I will ususally try to make simple 2d games <5 megabytes. If you want to make your games smaller, try using "UseJPEGImageDecoder()" and make all of your sprites JPEG. And making all of your sounds Mp3 or OGG. You can also use Purebasic packer commmands to compress all of the game files into one.

I hope this helps.

Post by **Dare2** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 4:51 pm

Hi DriakTravo

It sure does, thanks.

So if I target for under 5mb, try for say 3, the game shouldn't be too bloated? (It is a small game bar the graphics and sound).

Hmmm. I can create mp3, need to read up on ogg.

DriakTravo · Post by **DriakTravo** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 6:12 pm

Be careful thogh, PB does not support streaming OGG, you have to use it for short sounds. But it has VERY good compression.

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 9:15 pm

Yup OGG compressed audio is smaller and have a better quality.

Shannara · Post by **Shannara** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 9:29 pm

Or use gif if you care about image quality

techjunkie · Post by **techjunkie** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 10:28 pm

Shannara wrote:Or use gif if you care about image quality

Can he do that? I was thinking of the copyright...

Post by **Dare2** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 10:35 pm

Hi all,

Thanks.

So ogg for sound effects, mp3 for symphonies!

Re gif copyrights - that has nearly run its course worldwide, I hear.

Post by **freak** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 10:56 pm

You can use gif, you just can't include the decompression algorythm in your
program code.
Use El_Choni's image plugin, it uses some windows functions to load the gif,
no LZW included there. Should be ok then.

Timo

Post by **Dare2** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 11:01 pm

Hiya Freak,

Yeah, I'll use that, thanks. Either gif or jpg, as 3 plus mb of images seems a bit top heavy to me.

techjunkie · Post by **techjunkie** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 12:04 pm

One thing I've allways save a lot of space with, it to resample all sound and music... One game I managed to shrink from 3.8 MB to 800 KB just by resampling - and the sound was OK.

Post by **Dare2** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 2:46 pm

Hiya techjunkie.

Thanks.

I am not all that clued up on what can/cannot be done with sound.

I create music using a variety of methods and get the finished file in wave format, best quality I can. The master copy. This is then pushed through AcidDJ and saved at worst quality consistent with still being useable. I then drop that onto blade and create an mp3, again going for the smallest file consistent with usable sound.

That is the sum total of my sound-studio skills.

Any suggestions on software and approaches to use?

Again, thanks.

techjunkie · Post by **techjunkie** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 4:18 pm

Dare2 wrote:I am not all that clued up on what can/cannot be done with sound.

I use OGG, wave and MP3:s - deppends on who long the sample is, quality and so on... but I allways resample with Nero Wave Editor... Resample and listen, maybe add some filters and effects - your ears are your best tools...

GedB · Post by **GedB** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 5:08 pm

You don't have to use Gif, you have PNG:

http://www.purearea.net/pb/english/manu ... coder.html

http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/

Post by **Dare2** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 5:23 pm

@techjunkie,

Will look at nero (same crew who do the cd burner?)

@GedB

Yeah, png is what I ended up using. Dropped the size this far to under half meg (excluding sound, which isn't done yet).

Thanks guys.