DistGame

Distributing your game

Compiled folder structure

When you choose the "Build EXE" option in the Editor, a "Compiled" directory is created in your game's folder, where more subdirectories are created in turn.

"Compiled/Data" subfolder is made always. Here it serves as an intermediate storage, and contains the "raw" game data that cannot be used on its own, but may be run by an AGS engine executable (on any supported platform). From this folder these files will be then copied into other subfolders, each for one build target (platform) you selected in the project's General Settings.
"Compiled/Windows" subfolder will be created if you have "Windows" target enabled. It will contain game data merged with the engine executable for Windows, as well as the "winsetup.exe" which launches an integrated setup program.
"Compiled/Linux" subfolder will be created if you have "Linux" target enabled. It will contain game data merged with the engine executable and necessary third-party libraries for 32-bit and 64-bit Linux systems.

The contents of these subfolders may be now distributed to corresponding operating systems. For example, if you want to distribute Windows version of your game, you need to take only the contents of "Compiled/Windows" subfolder. For Linux the "Compiled/Linux" subfolder is sufficient.

"Compiled/Data" should usually be skipped. It still may come useful if you are preparing a kind of a custom distribution, but remember that it cannot be run on its own: you'd need to add one of the available engine versions to it, or warn users that they'd have to have AGS engine installed on their system.

Compiled game contents

The main game data file has game.ags naming format, where "game" is the "Game file name" property set in the General Settings. When compiled for Windows it is merged with the engine and results in game.exe instead.

If you have selected to split resources files, you will also have several files named game.001, game.002, and so forth.

Games with digital music will usually have audio.vox. The audio.vox contains audio clips that you have marked as "InSeperateVOX" in the editor. This allows you to have an optional audio download, if your game uses lots of sound files but you don't want the player to have to download them.

Games with digital speech voice-over will have a separate speech.vox file.

acsetup.cfg is a text file containing default configuration for the game. It's generated by the editor from Default Setup's properties.

The Windows build of your game will also include winsetup.exe which is a setup program launcher. Note that the setup program itself is integrated into your game exe, and it's also possible to launch it by executing game.exe --setup in command line.

Customizing game data

If you want to distribute custom data with your game you may simply add necessary files to where the main game data (game.ags or game.exe) is located.

Note that any custom files put into "Compiled/Data" folder will also be copied to all the final build targets (Windows, Linux, etc) when the game is built. At the moment this is the most convenient method of making sure same custom data will be included everywhere. If you need it to be present only with particular distribution, like only Windows, or only Linux, then put the files into corresponding platform subfolder instead.

Warning on de-compiling built game

It is not possible to load the exe file back into the AGS Editor. This means two things when only the EXE file is available: (1) other people can't edit your game's data, and (2) you can't either. Always keep a backup of the other files produced (.CRM, GAME.AGF, etc) as they are what the Editor needs to be able to load your game for editing.

Licensing

Due to the licenses of code used by AGS, your documentation should acknowledge the following:

TrueType font display uses ALFont by Javier Gonzalez and the FreeType project. Distributed under the terms of the FreeType project license.
OGG player is alogg by Javier Gonzalez, using the Ogg Vorbis decoder, which is available from https://www.xiph.org/ Copyright (c) 2002-2008, Xiph.org Foundation
MP3 player is almp3, by Javier Gonzalez and the FreeAmp team. It uses the mpg123 MP3 decoder, and is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1.

You must also comply with the license for AGS: Artistic License 2.0

Custom icon

If you wish, you can use your own custom icon when you build a Windows EXE file. To do this, simply place your icon in your game's folder, and name it USER.ICO. Then, load the editor and save the game.

NOTE: The icon must be a proper Windows .ICO file, not just a renamed BMP file. Icon editors, such as AX-Icons from https://www.axialis.com/, will convert it for you.

You can also have a custom icon for the Setup program generated. To do so, create your icon as above but name it setup.ico in the game folder.

Splash screen

You can make a "Loading..." style splash screen to be displayed while your game starts up. To do so, simply save the image as preload.pcx (must be the same resolution and color depth as the game) in the game folder, and build the game. It should then display while the game is loading.

Splitting resource files

Some people found that once their game became large, the single EXE file was slow to load due to anti-virus checkers scanning the whole file. AGS includes an option to split up the resource files into smaller chunks to avoid this happening. On the General Settings pane you'll notice a setting "Split resource files into X Mb sized chunks".

If you tick this, then type in a number such as 1 or 2, then save the game, the game data will be split up into chunks that size, named GAME.001, GAME.002 and so on.

Some resources are still combined into the EXE file but all the rooms will be placed into the other files. If you use this option, you need to distribute your game's EXE file plus all the GAME.00? files.

Managing Graphics Footprint

Your game sprites are stored as bitmap files, and it's size will be proportional to the number of pixels stored, normally being packed along with your game executable. They are packed sequentially, so for distribution systems that supports binary patching, like Steam, when you add a new sprite and update your game, only that single sprite will be delivered through it - Steam also applies a compression when sending these patches. If your game is distributed as a single binary file, zipping will reduce it's download size, but you can also turn on RLE compression on your game settings, which can reduce their size on disk.

You can generate some graphics programatically in your game using Dynamic Sprites, just remember if you don't unload and reload them between save and load, if you are using the savestate feature from AGS, this sprites will be serialized to the game savefiles, potentially making them of a significant size.

Managing Audio Footprint

AGS stores audio files directly from their imported files, and can be globed as an external audio.vox file or be part of the main game executable. Speech is always packed as an external speech.vox file. AGS doesn't compress the audio, but instead relies on the original compression from each individually imported audio file when generating audio packs (.vox) or when embedding them in the game file.

Since audio files tend to be less volatile at middle to late parts of game development, and some distribution platforms don't provide binary patching, it may be wise to have them as external files so that they are not downloaded again by your player when your game has an update.

Speech

Usually the ogg format can achieve good compression with voice files. If you use Audacity, a compression of 3 (of 10) provides good quality while providing very small files.

Sound Effects

For sound effect files, usually ogg provides a good compression, you may need to test individual compression levels.

Music

Music files will compress just fine with ogg. It's a good idea to experiment with different compression levels. If you have to, you can use mp3 files too, just be aware they may produce a small audible gap when looping, so avoid mp3 on short musics. Don't use wav files for music or it will make your game size too big without perceptual quality gains.