How to automatically update game

[Vilius]

Help me please, I have a problem!

 

[Vilius]

Help, I have come up with a problem!

 

[Vilius]

Hello? Is anybody going to help with my problem?

 

[cremnophobia]

What problem are you even referring to?

 

[Vilius]

Nevermind, created a new topic for the other problem.

 

[Shaz]

My though is ... players shouldn't be playing your game while it's still in development. Anybody who DOES play your game should be VERY clear that it's still in development and that they could be required to start over and lose their data at any point in time.


You need to FINISH your game before you send it out to players.


Adding extra content is just hard to do - if you want to do it a lot, you're better off making a new game - a sequel.

 

[Wavelength]

Like a few people have mentioned, most game settings (like player inventory, location, and stats) transfer along with the save files (which are named things like Save03 and can be found in the same location as the System folder, the Audio folder, etc., and can actually be transferred across projects).  So, in theory, you don't need to do anything special to "update" your game with new content for something like a Christmas special.

(I was pleasantly surprised, for example, when some of my beta testers ran into a problem where I had forgotten to reset some self-switches, making minigames into automatic wins/losses on subsequent plays, and they were able to transfer their old save files to a new beta version where I reset the self-switches inside an event that players are hitting every few minutes of the game.  You could set up your new content using the same kind of methods.)

But you have to be really, really careful when you do this.  Because if a player has already, for example, gotten past a forced event in your game, you probably don't have a way to make them go through that event again.  So if you're setting the "Santa Available" switch after the player completes their second quest, a save file that was made after four quests were already complete will have no way to set that switch On.

There are ways around this.  I think you could, for example, create an "On Update" autorun event that will only run as long as a certain variable is NOT equal to a certain number (which you will change in each update) and performs whatever global processing you want done for that update, then changes the the variable to that number so it only runs once per update.  Or you could put the onus on the player by having them visit a certain, always-available and always-easily-accessible event that updates everything in the world to reconcile with your new content.  Be creative, and make sure to test it thoroughly.

So I THINK that will get you there, but if you need something more robust, you could also try Hime's Data Patcher script.  I have not personally used it, but it looks very cool.

 

[Vilius]

Like a few people have mentioned, most game settings (like player inventory, location, and stats) transfer along with the save files (which are named things like Save03 and can be found in the same location as the System folder, the Audio folder, etc., and can actually be transferred across projects).  So, in theory, you don't need to do anything special to "update" your game with new content for something like a Christmas special.

(I was pleasantly surprised, for example, when some of my beta testers ran into a problem where I had forgotten to reset some self-switches, making minigames into automatic wins/losses on subsequent plays, and they were able to transfer their old save files to a new beta version where I reset the self-switches inside an event that players are hitting every few minutes of the game.  You could set up your new content using the same kind of methods.)

But you have to be really, really careful when you do this.  Because if a player has already, for example, gotten past a forced event in your game, you probably don't have a way to make them go through that event again.  So if you're setting the "Santa Available" switch after the player completes their second quest, a save file that was made after four quests were already complete will have no way to set that switch On.

There are ways around this.  I think you could, for example, create an "On Update" autorun event that will only run as long as a certain variable is NOT equal to a certain number (which you will change in each update) and performs whatever global processing you want done for that update, then changes the the variable to that number so it only runs once per update.  Or you could put the onus on the player by having them visit a certain, always-available and always-easily-accessible event that updates everything in the world to reconcile with your new content.  Be creative, and make sure to test it thoroughly.

So I THINK that will get you there, but if you need something more robust, you could also try Hime's Data Patcher script.  I have not personally used it, but it looks very cool.

It can also happen that in old version there is a building, the player saves there. I create new version and remove that building. Player moves the save file to the new version and appears in a black screen, since the building is destroyed.

 

[Tsukihime]

Yes, which makes things more difficult for you.