Releasing the Game

Authoring Inform 7
1

I’m trying to release a sample game to make sure I know how before I release my game. I read through releasing and publishing in the documentation. I created some cover art and some other files. I pushed release. I successfully generated a test.zblorb file.

I double-clicked on that zblorb, and it didn’t know how to open. What comes next isn’t clear to me, even after reading about it. If the zblorb isn’t a ready-to-play compiled file, then what is it? How do I get the Glulx or Z-machine versions (after I figure out what they are and which I need). I would like to make this game playable on both Windows and the latest Ubuntu. I’m putting this game on a CD, mostly so that I can wrap it in Christmas wrap. Can/should I include programs that will run the game? I don’t want my husband to have to go download something before he gets to play.

Sorry for being so clueless. Thanks for all the help!

2

The simplest thing to do is probably just to include installers for Windows and Ubuntu interpreters. Since it’s nice to have the game look the same on both platforms, I’d suggest Gargoyle. There’s a .deb file for Ubuntu available, as well as the Windows installer. The Windows installer will automatically create shortcuts and associate .zblorb files with itself, so that’s easy. The Ubuntu one doesn’t, unfortunately.

3

Wow, direct links! Thanks so much Emerald, you are awesome.

4

If you decide later on that you’re going to release your game in the Glulx format, you have one other option on Windows, aside from what Emerald suggested.

Let’s say the filename of your game is “MyGame.blb” and you have a copy of the Glulxe interpreter (which is usually “Glulxe.exe”). You can rename “Glulxe.exe” to “MyGame.exe”, so that the player can just double-click on “MyGame.exe” and it will automatically run your game.

I just took a quick look at the help file for Windows Frotz to see if it could be done for .ZBLORB files, but it looks like it’s not possible.

Of course, installing Gargoyle will let your husband play other IF games in other formats as well, which is also a big plus. :wink:

5

it’s probably too late now, but you can also use the files in here:

ifiction.free.fr/fichiers/inform … butant.zip

it was released for IF beginning authors in French, but you can download it as well.

In this archive, remove the lib, media, outils_linux, outils_macosx, src folders,
just keep the “jouer version texte.exe” and the “outils_win” folder.
Don’t rename this folder, otherwise it won’t work.
Don’t rename or move the gargoyle_inform.
You can rename the “jouer version texte.exe” with a red lamp to whatever.exe you want.
Just keep your game in z5 format and extension (z5 only) in the same folder as this exe, and people should be able to play your game when they click on the .exe

Basically, it’s just a batch file with this code:

outils_win\gargoyle_inform\frotz.exe *.z5

converted to .exe with a program called : Bat_To_Exe_Converter.exe

Tested without any known viruses (the .exe was generated on linux, with wine)

On linux, another option would be to get this script:

wget http://ifiction.free.fr/fichiers/ifictionfr.sh

and make it executable with

chmod +x ifictionfr.sh

When started from a terminal, with the game as argument ( ./ifictionfr.sh yourgame.z5 for example), it will download and install frotz in the home folder (in ~/.ifictionfr ) and load the game (in console mode only, but you can also make it start gargoyle or something else already installed)

If started without argument, it will only propose to download French games :slight_smile: