Post mortem: http://www.gamedev.net/blog/1940/entry-2260304-week-of-awesome-ii-post-mortem/

I've had a rough day, so it's late and full of smart ass comments... but deal with it. I'm going to bed.

I've gotten some feedback about not getting past a certain part on my game. So maybe I didn't give enough clues. Considering that the puzzle is pretty much the whole game I don't want to give away too much, but the toy in the far bottom right of the yard beside the tree (Nessy) tells you what item you need to pick up first.

Final thoughts post:

http://www.gamedev.net/blog/1862/entry-2260309-woa2-final-thoughts/

The three-volume version of the download seems to have worked, and I'm enjoying playing through the games. Thank you again for that version, Slicer. ^_^

A few don't seem to work on my machine, I'm afraid, likely because said machine is a little old, runs Windows XP, and seems to have slightly dodgy shader support. In particular, a handful produce an error to the effect that the program isn't a "valid win32 executable"; it's entirely possible that some or all of them are 64-bit builds.

Slicer, one thing that I noted with curiosity is that my entry was included as a directory, while I uploaded it as an installer--I presume that it was installed on a machine, and the resultant files placed into a directory for archiving; if I may ask, why was that?

Slicer, one thing that I noted with curiosity is that my entry was included as a directory, while I uploaded it as an installer--I presume that it was installed on a machine, and the resultant files placed into a directory for archiving; if I may ask, why was that?

distributing the files as non-installer is to make life easier for the judges, rather than having to run an program to install the files to a directory, and then later have to clean those files out once your done with the game. (idr if yours was the one that went to program files, or was installed to the app data).

honestly i plan next year to add it to the rules not to provide an installer, your program should be runnable directly from the archive it's downloaded from.

Final thoughts post:

http://www.gamedev.net/blog/1862/entry-2260309-woa2-final-thoughts/

I said it in your Journal, but my dad gave me this good advice: "Praise in public, criticize in private." So, here we are in public...

Your game is easily the prettiest entry I've seen so far. Good job man. :)

- Eck

distributing the files as non-installer is to make life easier for the judges, rather than having to run an program to install the files to a directory, and then later have to clean those files out once your done with the game. (idr if yours was the one that went to program files, or was installed to the app data).

Ah, I see--fair enough, I suppose. I imagine that the ability to clear out the installation of one game makes it easier to pick up technical issues with the next, and I suppose that there may be judges who are concerned about keeping their systems clear of miscellaneous files.

honestly i plan next year to add it to the rules not to provide an installer, your program should be runnable directly from the archive it's downloaded from.

Ouch, that would make life difficult for me--Panda doesn't really seem to be set up to do that easily. There is an option to create a single executable, but I think that it might automatically download Panda runtime stuff from the internet when run (and looking at the Panda documentation, it seems that it's likely a less reliable method too, as dependencies might be an issue)--the installer-based version seems to be Panda's way of producing a "single, self-contained product".

I don't know whether I've tried what you did with my entry; it looks as though it should work--I see lots of DLLs--but without having tested it my best bet is to just hope that it works. (I don't know, for example, whether Panda makes--and relies on--any changes to the registry.) Has someone tried it on a new machine? (I don't think that I have one on which a Panda project hasn't been installed...)

I should be able to create a web-based version, but I'm really not terribly familiar with doing that, and would be rather less confident of the final product working on someone else's machine--in addition to which, it means asking the judges to install the Panda web plugin in order to play the game. If I were stuck with that approach, I might decide to just sit out the competition--it might not seem worth dealing with web-based stuff (which again, I'm really not familiar with, and not terribly attracted to) on top of the time constraints already present.

Heh, ironically, deployment was an element that I was least worried about going in: I had an established process for outputting a reliable installer, which to my mind is a step up from a blank executable.

In all fairness, I have bumped into this conflict of perceptions before on another forum; it's just something that I never expect. :/

distributing the files as non-installer is to make life easier for the judges, rather than having to run an program to install the files to a directory, and then later have to clean those files out once your done with the game. (idr if yours was the one that went to program files, or was installed to the app data).

Ah, I see--fair enough, I suppose. I imagine that the ability to clear out the installation of one game makes it easier to pick up technical issues with the next, and I suppose that there may be judges who are concerned about keeping their systems clear of miscellaneous files.

honestly i plan next year to add it to the rules not to provide an installer, your program should be runnable directly from the archive it's downloaded from.

Ouch, that would make life difficult for me--Panda doesn't really seem to be set up to do that easily. There is an option to create a single executable, but I think that it might automatically download Panda runtime stuff from the internet when run (and looking at the Panda documentation, it seems that it's likely a less reliable method too, as dependencies might be an issue)--the installer-based version seems to be Panda's way of producing a "single, self-contained product".

I don't know whether I've tried what you did with my entry; it looks as though it should work--I see lots of DLLs--but without having tested it my best bet is to just hope that it works. (I don't know, for example, whether Panda makes--and relies on--any changes to the registry.) Has someone tried it on a new machine? (I don't think that I have one on which a Panda project hasn't been installed...)

I should be able to create a web-based version, but I'm really not terribly familiar with doing that, and would be rather less confident of the final product working on someone else's machine--in addition to which, it means asking the judges to install the Panda web plugin in order to play the game. If I were stuck with that approach, I might decide to just sit out the competition--it might not seem worth dealing with web-based stuff (which again, I'm really not familiar with, and not terribly attracted to) on top of the time constraints already present.

Heh, ironically, deployment was an element that I was least worried about going in: I had an established process for outputting a reliable installer, which to my mind is a step up from a blank executable.

In all fairness, I have bumped into this conflict of perceptions before on another forum; it's just something that I never expect. :/

sorry mate, i didn't realize the importance of the installer to your distribution model. I do have a relatively fresh windows 8 computer that i will be trying some games on, so i'll have to try yours on that to see if there are some hidden dependency's. if a judge does encounter an issue with running your game, they will be directed to the installer, if that doesn't solve the issue, we'll contact you.

Thank you--I appreciate that. ^_^

In all fairness, I don't know how important it is: what you did could well work perfectly. It's more that I don't know: from what I can tell, Panda wasn't designed with it in mind.

(As a side-note, based on what I've read over on the Panda forum, Panda is set up this way because the primary distribution focus is on web-player embedding (for example, one of its earliest uses--perhaps even the one for which it was first built, I'm not sure--was a Disney MMO, I believe). The general assumption is that downloading the run-times is something that the user is going to do, with the installer-based version being the option available for people who don't want that.)

I don't know whether I've tried what you did with my entry; it looks as though it should work--I see lots of DLLs--but without having tested it my best bet is to just hope that it works. (I don't know, for example, whether Panda makes--and relies on--any changes to the registry.) Has someone tried it on a new machine? (I don't think that I have one on which a Panda project hasn't been installed...)

I've tried it - good game! Plays very nicely for me on my Win7 and Win8 boxes. Neither are particularly fresh machines, they do have Python installed but have never seen even a whiff of Panda.

I did wonder what the uninstall.exe was all about, now it makes sense.

Since this method of packaging appears to work it does give you a way to comply with Slicer's proposed rule changes for next year. Or.. you have a whole year to figure out how to build a web version :P