Game Size & Downloading

[wyverngem]

I've been working on a game for two years now and have decided to through out the old menu system using imagemaps. When I did I noticed that my game had shrunk in size dramatically. Does the size really matter in games as much? I know I'm guilty of cancelling a download if it takes more then 10 minutes, 7 if I don't know anything about the game. Are there any ways you've found to reduce your game size? Without cutting out content?

[Tempus]

Compression. Images not requiring transparency should generally be JPEGs (if you use Ren'Py you can also take advantage of JCC). Sound should generally be OGG. If you want more information I'd suggest finding articles on lossless compression vs. lossy compression to better understand their trade-offs.

[fleet]

If you have large background music files, consider reducing the length and looping the music.

[truefaiterman]

Take a look at the sprites, I assume they're PNG, and there's a chance those aren't compressed. Uncompressed sprites may weigh 10 times the usual (I usually send them uncompressed to the client to have the best possible quality, but I tell them beforehand). Also, CGs and BGs should be JPEG, and as stated sound is lighter in OGG.

[thebackup]

A tool I use, and like to recommend - if you're using PNGs, try PNGGauntlet (Windows only) to compress them losslessly.

If you're using Mac or Linux you'll want to take a look at ImageOptim or Trimage.

[octacon100]

Wow, if PNGGauntlet works, that's going to be a very big help! Thanks thebackup.

[octacon100]

Damn, that PNGGauntlet is pretty good Backgrounds are about half the size, and sprites are about 80% of the size. That's really helpful!

[Nanashi-san]

According to the Ookla Net Index, the average consumer download speed for the top 194 ranked countries is at least 1.5 Mbps. 100 MB can be downloaded in nine minutes at this rate.

Audio almost always make up the majority of games. Aside from exporting images to compressed PNG and audio to OGG/MP3, I wouldn't worry too much unless there is simply so much that they scale out of whack over a short period of time above 100 MB or so. 100 MB per hour of play time is not unusual.

Sprites with an imperial ton of variations may possibly use LiveComposite.

[wyverngem]

Thanks for all the feedback.

- Switch images that aren't transparent to jpgs, and there are programs to compress png
- Switch to imagebuttons instead of imagemaps to save on cache space.
- Switch from .wav to your .ogg to save on space.
- Crop/Shorten/Loop music files instead of full songs/sound effect.
- Switch to LiveComposite for sprites with variations.

The 100MB idea is kind of helpful. I'm not sure what other's opinions are, but I always thought that if it took longer to download than the actually play that the game wasn't worth downloading.