Web Games vs. Downloads
Posted by McFunkypants (twitter: @McFunkypants)
December 22nd, 2010 1:09 pm
Can anyone recommend 3 or 4 downloadable compo games that I shouldn’t miss?
I’ve only tried Flash and Unity games so far but would love to try the best of the best of the native executables.
I would really doubt if the percentage was that high consider that we are all developers and have the sophistication to watch out for viruses and such. I have Norton and Malwarebytes installed; you can never be too careful.
But I would think people almost might be offended a little by your point of view. We have all spent 20+ hours working hard and creating a game and you can’t be bothered to try them because of the slight inconvenience of a download?
Besides the best games really are the downloads anyway. You are missing the best of the bunch by far.
When you click [Rate Games], you can usually spot the web games because they receive the most feedback. I mainly play the web games because they work on my Ubuntu laptop, but when I stumble upon the occasional .love or Java game (or using some other common cross-platform framework) I give them a shot too. I clear a batch of Windows games now and then using Parallels on OS X so I’m not too concerned about viruses.
Little beats the shear expressiveness of JavaScript, AS3 or haXe, which make them perfect for prototyping (which ludumdare is really about, right?). And web technology has come a long way with Flash, HTML5, Canvas and so on. Even WebGL is starting to mature. So saying that downloadable LD19 games are best is dubious. I’d like to be proven wrong – but to do that, the game would probably have to waste a whole lot of CPU/GPU cycles on something really cool, or do something otherwise inconceivable as a browser game.
Personally, LD19 has given me food for thought regarding the accessibility of games; for future Ludum Dares I’m likely to make a browser game, and my thoughts circle around the smartphone platforms otherwise.
People making downloadables (like me) can follow a few guidelines to make their games easier to rate:
- Don’t use installers, just zip up a folder with your game in it (include your LD username in the folder name, too)
- Use depends.exe to make sure you’re including all the DLL’s you need (not sure what the mac equivalent is)
- Don’t have viruses. (I’ve never come across a LD game with a virus or spyware in any of the contests).
- Don’t include installers for redistributables like XNA or DX or stuff like that. Put links to them on your game page.
If everyone did this (and most people do) then playing downlable games is not much harder than web redistributables.
But it’s true that the contest has shifted seismically to online distribution. The whole industry has, really. I remember when flash games in LD were an anomaly, and 80% of the entries used allegro. If you’re writing a downloadable, go into it knowing that you’ll get less feedback, just the same as if you’re writing for an less popular platform, in effect, you are.
I’d love to be able to write native C++/OpenGL and have it be web distributable. I’m keeping an eye on google’s native interface (NaCL) stuff, but for now that’s just another thing you have to balance.
Frolicking Furballs Safari Resort
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-19/?action=preview&uid=1405
Wow Furballs is freaking amazing. Definitely worth the download. Thanks for sharing!
Disco Five, Gyroids and Volatile are great downloadable games. Check them out!
May I suggest my own game as well? XD
I still need to play a huge number of games, but so far those were all worth the download.