Update Ren'Py Before Release

[PyTom]

Okay, time for a heart-to-heart with some of the game makers, you know who you are. You should always upgrade to the latest version of Ren'Py before releasing a game. I look at some of our newest release, and people are using 5.6, for $DEITY's sake. 5.6 versions have problems with Vista, and a bunch of other bugs that have been fixed since then.

Please, please, please upgrade your Ren'Py before releasing a game. Upgrades should be transparent, and by upgrading you will benefit from improved compatibility. I do a lot of work to ensure games will run unchanged on new versions of Ren'Py.

I'm very close to instituting a rule that says games released with obsolete versions of Ren'Py will not be listed on the Ren'Py Games page, or on renai.us. I'm not there yet, but I don't look forward to the support problems these will cause as Vista grows in popularity.

[mikey]

One of the reasons I took the EbG engine for WN was that it wasn't possible (not for me, at least) to just copy/paste the subtitle mode and I think also the menu into the new Ren'Py. I would have to bug you, ask for this or that... and so on.

I understand it's frustrating, but then again, it's a choice of the gamemaker, and the world isn't going to end when someone knowingly releases a game with a version that can have problems on Vista. Besides, they will come to ME, not really to you... or will they?

I'm just thinking with growing popularity, releasing on an older engine version is not going to be more of a catastrophe as when someone uses a rpa decompiler to see the contents of a game. It's their choice - and yours to let's say make priority support for those who use the current engine.

I'm very close to instituting a rule that says games released with obsolete versions of Ren'Py will not be listed on the Ren'Py Games page, or on renai.us. I'm not there yet, but I don't look forward to the support problems these will cause as Vista grows in popularity.

No, really - I'm not in favor of restrictions like that. I'd say all you can do is recommend upgrading in bold letters - but forcing people indirectly is... well, you know,... it's just not all that great.

[PyTom]

It really should be possible to just copy the subtitle mode in. I just tried running EBG with my copy of Ren'Py (which will become 6.3.2 in a little bit), and it seems to work just fine out of the box.

[mikey]

I'm absolutely willing to admit the problem was on my side - I don't know what happened. Maybe I just copied the subtitle code, without adding something special... I don't remember anymore.

A question then - is it possible to upgrade an existing game to a higher renpy version? With a patch of sorts?

For instance if I have the final distribution, I have some things in the GAME directory and the engine files in COMMON and RENPY - what if I just took COMMON and RENPY from a higher version, overwrote it et voila...? Maybe this would be more complicated than just the two directories, but the basic idea would be could one upgrade existing games with this method?

Back on topic - what about the older games then? I know this has been discussed somewhat before, but you can't really fix them all, can you? There's just too many of them now, I imagine.

[PyTom]

You want to do it the other way, actually. You would get a clean distribution of Ren'Py (the easy way to do this is to build a distribution of the_question). You then unzip it, delete the game directory, and copy in the game directory from the original release.

[DaFool]

Hmmm... maybe let things be?

As long as that link to the old Vista problem and solution is there, then people should be able to patch it up themselves.

Otherwise they can post to ask for a fix for the game, which should be entirely the responsibility of the creator, the same creator who overlooked things and released a game with an old version of Ren'Py.

This is really beyond the control of PyTom, who knows how many old versions of Ren'Py are out there being used or abused (or even pirated as mugenjohncel once mentioned in his trip to China).

I check the version of Ren'Py before I list the game on Ren'Py games. If it's version release is older than the previous game, that would raise suspicions but also give the impression that Ren'Py is a pretty stable engine, just like people who still use old versions of linux demonstrate.

[themocaw]

I'd have to say that the best way to do it is to say, "Caveat Emptor." List the version number next to the name. If the game developer does not bother to update to the newest version before releasing, thus losing an audience of people who use Vista, then it's their loss. I would also flag versions of games using older engines to alert users of Vista, so they don't spend time downloading a game that won't work. That's my opinion, but it's your sandbox, so you can run it as you like