Welcome to something that I kind of wanted to do for a while: giving you a peek behind the curtain and give some thoughts on some stuff regarding the development of the game in a more laid-back manner.

Making builds

When I was making the first builds of the game (in the old days of D0.0x) things were pretty simple: export the game, pack it up with (then) simple launcher and run Install Creator to make an installer. As the launcher evolved slowly to Northbridge, it became an entire process. Packing the assets into the packages, building the executables, preparing the game files so I can create the installer, etc. It can be error-prone at times. So, I started working on a build script. The intention was to automate a lot of the chores I had to do in a way that I could prepare a build faster and more reliably. The current form of the build system (yes, the script evolved into a system now) is as follows:

• Once I export the final bits of the game, I run a Powershell script to prepare the executables for the game. This script has a few parts: first, it copies some files so the game works with the compiled code. After that, the executables are created. Once the executables are ready, the assets are compiled and packaged. A nice thing with this is that I can use a Linux distro running on Windows’ WSL (that’s Windows Subsystem for Linux) so it can create the Linux version as well. So, I don’t have to start my Linux VM just to prepare the Linux builds.

• After the compilation is done, I move the Windows files to the launcher’s solution folder and prepare the files so I can build the launcher bundled with the game’s files. Normally, I’d have to basically run dotnet publish and copy the files to the publish folder by hand. But, thanks to Power Automate Desktop, I can do both in one go. Not only that, but I can also integrate this with a few tools so I can upload the builds quickly. It’s a very handy tool if you have Windows 10.

• After that, I run Advanced Installer to prepare the installer and then upload the final build to all of my mirrors.

Having tools like this in my toolbox helps me focusing more on building the game and less on diagnosing what went wrong. Granted, there may be the occasional hiccup, but it’s a lot better overall. It also helps that I have a better internet connection now, so I can push fixed builds faster.

What’s up with the story?

I’m going to keep this short since I’m still working on it, but I am doing some re-writes so the story flows better. This is a mixture of feedback I have received and me cringing for some odd choices I made during the writing of the script (hey, I was a newbie back then). It will take some time to re-write the script (since they are quite major) but it should improve the flow and logic of the story.

That’s all for now. I may make this a monthly thing (no guarantee, tho) since I have focussed more on polishing the game and not making massive changes lately. So, I do hope that this will be a nice replacement for the Progress Reports I did from time to time. If you’d like me to answer some questions you have, feel free to ask me. I’ll pick up the most interesting ones and post my answer.

In any case, take care and see you in the next post.