Does anyone know of a good spot to host games files like .t3 or .gblorb?
I’m trying to plan way ahead of time where I’m gonna put my files, before I link to them from my IFDB.
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Excellent! I’ve heard this site mentioned here and there, but I don’t think I’ve properly checked it out yet. Thanks!
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A friendly reminder you can ZIP up your game files, walkthroughs, feelies, cover art, etc. into a single archive before uploading to IF Archive. Their Unbox service allows you to deep-hyperlink to the files within the ZIP, including your .t3. (You can even pass the deep-link to Parchment for online playing.)
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That’s so cool!! Thank you! 
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IF Archive is the best place to save IF and text/adventure games, but itch.io is also great for games in general. I’d recommend saving to both if you can.
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Does itch.io let you upload game files, or just an HTML? I want to support both online play and offline interpreter players. Haven’t used that site either.
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You can upload whatever you want on it. You can also have multiple uploads, one you can play and others you can leave as downloads.
Example:
strong text
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Yeah, itch is crazy open about that. Playable in a browser, multiple download formats, do whatcha like.
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Excellent!!
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Either or both. The choice is yours. You can also charge for games if you want to, or use their optional payment model.
The good thing about itch.io is that people outside the IF community may stumble upon your game, whereas the same people would have no idea that places like IFDB and the IF Archive even exist.
More importantly, you can do a nice game page with instructions, background info, downloadable feelies, walkthroughs or whatever you like. You can also add blog entries; add a community for people to comment on your game or ask for hints; view analytics to see how many people have viewed, played or downloaded your game and so much more. And it’s easy to use.
People can follow you (and you can follow others) and those people get email notifications when you add something new. It’s a way of building a following or a fan base.
It’s also a good place to keep your pre-release games for play testers to download the files. Just add a password and no one else can see it, so it’s not a public release and you’re safe from the “no prior public release” rules of most of the IF comps.
Finally, once you’re registered on itch.io, you can enter, play and rate all the games in the many alternate annual IF comps, such as ECTOCOMP, ParserComp, PunyJam, Adventuron jams and (most importantly) Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2023, which is on NOW!
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Though I like itch.io, one drawback is that you can’t link directly to a file, only to a page where the file can be downloaded.
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How do you mean? Like, do I need to host from the IFArchive and link the files there to both the IFDB and itch.io?
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If you are using iplayif.com to run a story-file somewhere on the web, I think Parchment requires that the story-file is directly linked to so you must host the story file somewhere else, e.g. Github would probably work and IF Archive definitely works.
EDIT: So your TADS game can run online on itch.io using THIS method but the story file should be available on another site.
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Okay, so basically itch.io is a general-purpose alternative to IFDB, and not somewhere I can upload my story file.
EDIT: Wait, that seems to contradict this, then:
To narrow down my question:
- Let’s not focus on online play right now (I will support online play, but that’s an entirely different question)
- Can I upload a story file to the IFArchive, and link to that file from IFDB?
- Can I upload a story file to itch.io, and link to that file from IFDB?
All other features, pros, cons, can be figured out later, in addition to the question of online play. I am more confused now than when I started this thread.
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You can upload and host your story file on itch.io, but you can’t directly link to it from somewhere else. You can only link to your game page, from where players can click on a button to download it.
If it’s clearer, there won’t be a link like inventor200.itch.io/my_game.ulx.
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Okay so itch.io supports upload and download, but does not allow other sites (like IFDB) to directly download files hosted on itch.io.
IFArchive supports upload and download, and does allow other sites (like IFDB) to directly download files hosted on IFArchive.
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Yeah, I think we could say it this way!
I suppose itch works like to track the number of dowloads and other stats.
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Excellent! Thank you for your time, patience, and the clarification!
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