Releasing a Test Game?

[serene-artist]

Before starting my first game ever :3
I'd like to know how to make it a download for people when I'm done, since I really want to share my work.
But after going through the game making process following the quick start manual, I wanted to see if my computer could open it correctly after making it a download....but I pressed Build Distributions, and it started loading, and I thought I was done, but there wasn't any new download icon, it's just in the Launch menu.
Basically the question is, how do I share my game on other sites?
Is there a process to make the finished product downloadable?
CAN it become a seperate game download icon?
T^T Please help, and thank you.

[duanemoody]

Mediafire has only barfed once on me, but it requires you to log in or a download to occur every 30 days before it starts to purge your files.

The finished game zipfile/tarfile/whatever is above the folder your game folder is in.

[Asphodel]

Where are you looking for a download icon?

In addition to Mediafire &c., you can upload your game here to have it listed on renai.us and/or games.renpy.org. You may also wish to consider using an open bittorrent tracker to host your game in the swarm.

[chronoluminaire]

Just spelling it out in a bit more detail, just in case:

When you click Build Distributions, it creates three files in your Ren'Py directory: their names will be something like game_name.zip, game_name-linux-x86.tar.bz2, and game_name-mac.zip . They're files which will have been created in the Ren'Py directory: this is two directories higher than the game directory where you put your images and script files.

You can upload them to Google Docs, this forum as attachments to a post, or any of the standard download sites like mediafire.