Reddit
No Runnable Programs Anymore.
Hello, Mohammad Mohammad here to do more ranting. This time it may be of importance. I have been playing and rating games to the point where my coolness level came up to 60. But as I played more and more games, I have seen more and more unrunnable games anymore with files my windows cant run. Like for instance, .RAR, .WIN, .JAR (some wont open, some will), .LOVE, and many more. Even one game ran on a new unreleased version of Flash. And the worst part is that these people will not convert the files to a .EXE. A few like .XNA I can understand, And will not argue with those. But others like .LOVE, Are convertible, but refuse to do so. I have gotten annoyed by this, Because neither I, Nor others can play and rate game fairly. So, Please take a test to see if your game is runnable, because I refuse to have to download a dumb download manager. >:(
~Mohammad Mohammad AKA Mohammad Mohammad or “Mo” (But I prefer Mohammad.)
http://download.cnet.com/WinRAR-32-bit/3000-2250_4-10007677.html
here ya go.
WinRAR is about like what? $40?
I Know Its cool at unzipping and stuff but the easiest thing to do is make it compatible for the average windows user.
The game creator should have converted it in the first place.
its free, and starts to nag you after 30 days or something, but continues to work fine, but I agree RAR, 7Zip whatever = annoying
http://download.cnet.com/7-Zip/3000-2250_4-10045185.html?tag=contentBody;pop
I personally prefer 7zip to WinRAR. It’s free (not just a trial that will nag you when not purchased) and seems to be just as convenient.
It’s great that you’re wanting to rate as many games as you can, but I feel it’s borderline inappropriate to question the platform choices that your fellow participants have made. This is only my second competition, but I understand and accept that some developers prefer to release their game on platforms or in formats of their choosing. Some of these platforms/formats are not widely used or widely accessible, some are even downright esoteric (I know at least one person allegedly released a game that can only run in a Sega Genesis Emulator, and last competition someone made a board game, both of which were awesome ideas, IMO, and kudos to them for going with an unusual platform).
The decision of what platforms to support is each developer’s personal choice (sometimes it’s all they can do, or all they had time to do given constraints), and also it’s part of the charm of Ludum Dare, I think. It’s great that Ludum Dare doesn’t try to strictly enforce platform standards. Besides, I think all the participants understand that if they develop for a platform that isn’t widely supported, that means they might get fewer people rating their game, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a problem.
Don’t take anything I say personally, because it’s not how I intend it, I just think you may be forgetting that it’s not necessarily a bad thing that all platforms, regardless of accessibility, are fair game.
Ok…
But can they include the program needed to run it?
some of these are so easy its stupid, like love, wad youur game up in a zip file, rename it to *.love copy pipe the love file into the exe, and stick it in a zip with the exe and what 2-3 dll’s?
its like 4 mouse clicks and 1 command line
I now realize I may have misunderstood your original complaint, that you’re having problems with compression formats instead of platforms. I apologize for my confusion.
You really need a good packaging program that can handle RAR and ZIP formats if you want to be able to operate in any situation like this on the internet. Try 7ZIP – it’s free and open source, and handles both formats and several more obscure ones, too. Though it really would be to the participant’s benefit to upload their entries in ZIP format, since Windows itself handles those and nobody should have a problem with them.
I have had very little trouble so far, personally. Everything I’ve played has been an EXE or a JAR that I can easily execute, or a web app. All the LOVE games I’ve seen so far have come as EXEs (and they are wonderfully dependency-free).
None of that has been a problem for me. Most of the time they’re not “unrunnable”, you’re just too damn lazy to install something to be able to run them.
If it’s such a big problem that you had to make a post about it, why not spend the time you put into the post into downloading and installing some programs that can allow you to run these terribly unrunnable games.
I never said they were terrible.
If the author wants me to play them, Then sure I AM LAZY. But the last thing I need is 30000 download managers that flood my internet with stupid search bars and dumb search engines. I’m tired of the developer getting lazy and not hitting the .EXE save like I do for my games. People need to take certain consideration for the things they put up on here, Usually because they forget a DLL or something, Or sometimes altogether.