My game almost done, now what?

General Discussions
#1

Hello all, I am almost done with the first version of my game and want to package it and let my friends try it.

But I am having problems, how do you make it most easy for people to run your game standalone?
I can’t really ask them to install a compiler and all lol :slight_smile:

Executable JAR I read something about and gave it a shot but didn’t manage to get it to start :frowning:

Will they need something extra to run?
Is there some way to make like an install program like other games and install + start easily?

Really looking for help here, because obviously I need to solve this or it’s pretty pointless to finish my game haha

EDIT: And I can’t make a webpage and start it from there, it’s suposed to be like a “normal” game just run offline or whatever

#2

Firstly you’ll want to decide what target platforms you want to support. The end result for each is quite different.

On Windows, you’ll want to make an installer, for which I recommend using NSIS. The installer will need to install a JVM for the game (the lib/ and bin/ directories of a normal JVM) if you’re worried about your target audience having or not having a JVM installed already (which you should be). You then also install your game’s jar files, and then a launcher which invokes that JVM with your jar files. Is is unfortunately a little involved.

On MacOS, you need to make a .app bundle which is basically a zip file in a certain structure. Take a look at one of my games and poke around in the .app to see the general shape of it. MacOS has a JVM installed already so no need to go bundling one. In fact you can’t, really.

On Linux, er, well I don’t really know what’s best.

Cas :slight_smile:

#3

I used JSmooth (http://jsmooth.sourceforge.net/) which downloads the JVM automatically for windows.

I haven’t tested if it still works though, the latest version of JSmooth was released 2007-05-20.

#4

Hmm, well for starters the game is targeting Windows OS.
I will (for now) assume everyone has JVM installed, since it’s my friends only and I can tell them to do so :slight_smile:

The problem is when trying to make an executable JAR file, I run into errors. Surely there must be ways to “simply” compile into some sort of runable file?

(I am using IntelliJ 8.1)

#5

“I run into errors” is not a helpful problem description. Does it not start? Does it run and throw an exception? Does it dye your computer an exciting shade of pink?

http://catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Ask a proper question and we’ll actually be able to help you.

#6

The error I am currently having is “class not found: com.mygame.mymain”.
The Manifest file is correctly added as I’ve seen on examples on google.
The .class files are also added in the correct folder structure.

I could be missing something simple, as so often before :slight_smile:

edit: ironically the “smart question” url isnt working for me haha :wink:

#7

Are you sure your images and data files are in the right place?
The file could be looked for in the jar file or in the same folder as the jar depending how you are reading them.
A jar file is the same as zip so you can browse it to check.

#8
  1. At the top of the mymain.java file is a line like “package com.mygame;”
  2. The mymain.java file contains a “public class mymain”

If 1) is true, then either 3), 4) or 5) is the problem. Remember that case is important, too.

#9

To make the installer easier to use, i made a installer using nsis for windows version, but i had to create a executable inC++ to call the JVM, for mac version i created a jar bundler ;D ( Mac is so easy ).