Release size, in MB

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#1

So I was having a conversation with Michelle Fernandez, and her awesome game Willy Wiener and the Tunnel of doom about file size. It appears that she was really optimizing for 20MB file size and that apple seems to increase the file size with “contiguous zeros” which bloats it to over 20mb. I’ve spoke with others as well, and it seems around 16 to 17 is the magic mark to make it under 20mb

The reason this matters (for people who didn’t know this already) is your iphone will kick you to use wifi only, vs tying up the 3g network. I guess Apple raised it from 10MB to 20MB but still it’s an issue. So, if you have a large game this shrinks the market viability (! A wild fancy word appears!) of your app as you reduce the chance of the impulse buy since your phone will say “use wifi” (not exact words, but something like that).

Ok, so here is the pitch on what I was thinking.
My game most likely is going to be over 20MB. The reason why is I have been spending a lot of time in the recording studio with many different instruments, and sound effects (that’s my specialty) and orchestra stuff etc. The music in my game completes the experience, which I don’t want to compromise.

What I was thinking was a few things actually

  1. release the game paid, with first 10 levels available. Offer a free unlock for the rest of the levels.

Question on this method: IF I release my game and it’s 16 MB and I make the 20mb cutoff and then offer 10MB of free level unlocks, does that count towards total or are those unlocks separate?

To put it another way, will the game download fine, and the player can play the 1st 10 levels, and on the menu it will say “download more levels for FREE”. Since they already have the game, if they download 10 MB of levels, and the game is at 16MB (blows up to 20mb due to the apple stuff) will it kick the player out if they are on 3g and say “use wifi chump!”?

  1. release the game, and release the soundtrack separately (not sure about this one,hmm
    3)magical kittens on a rainbow carpet (just seeing if you are still with me).

Hopefully that’s clear explanation. I KNOW I am not the only one who thinks about this stuff. I’ll think about it more and check back :slight_smile:

ng

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#2

RAom_games! Nice one! I do that all the time in my games. Since phones have bad speakers, you don’t notice a deference in sound quality. I would recommend using Audacity to make your sound files smaller. Make sure to export as MP3

Regards,
Jordan Schuetz
Ninja Pig Studios [import]uid: 29181 topic_id: 19707 reply_id: 76245[/import]

#3

One trick for your attention: you could downsize your sound files by reducing (hz): 44100 is way too much for mobiles, on the other hand 11025 is usually enough … using Audacity it should not be too difficult to edit and get nice .mp3 files without going ballistic.

I’m telling because my next release scheduled is one audio-book of poetry translations from English into my native language. Final size is very relevant there. [import]uid: 67641 topic_id: 19707 reply_id: 76241[/import]

#4

My background is in sound engineering. The game will have a load screen that will say “For the most epic experience possible use headphones” (still toying with that one.)

I can tolerate 22, 44100 is nice and crispy, 22 is pretty OK, but 11 just sounds caca to me. It’s also important to have stereo as well.
So I’ve planned on 5 or 6 MB on actual game content that’s not sound related and 10 for the sountrack, to hit the 16 or 16.5 size so I can come in under or at 20MB for the release :slight_smile:
I really wish I could just use midi files, then those would be so tiny!

I’ve never used audicity, I usually use pro tools + logic pro 9 + a slew of other music prog’s to work with files (I also have a reel to reel, for when I want a nostalgic sound lol).

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll check that out! TY TY.

Any other suggestions on release strat or unlock levels or anything else?

ng

@cellphonegaming
@angrycarrot [import]uid: 61600 topic_id: 19707 reply_id: 76252[/import]

#5

@nicholasclayg This is totally off topic, but since you have a background in sound engineering, I was wondering how to you go about synthesizing sound effects?

I just started getting into Reaper and Pure Data. Any tips or links? Thanks. [import]uid: 27183 topic_id: 19707 reply_id: 76254[/import]

#6

@don

It’s a long list, but here are the highlights:

Here is a pic of my temporary set up (it’s missing my 64 channel mixer and other amps, PA, and studio speakers, not to mention a ton of rack space etc. This is more of my “coding space” rather than a music studio :slight_smile: I have some stuff to do sketch recordings (demos, etc)

https://twitter.com/#!/cellphonegaming/media/slideshow?url=pic.twitter.com%2F5wQcbHhx
Reason,+ a ton of refills (both mac and PC versions)- make crazy sounds, I LOVE dirty raunchy sounding synth stuff (like Nine Inch Nails etc)

Logic Pro 9 + Mainstage 2 (mac only) GREAT synth sounds, and software knobs to tweak. You can make some cRAZy sounds in there!

Garage Band (just started doing this for *some* stuff, mac only) I use this for some drum kits which I put midi triggers on my real drums, stuff like that.
Cool Edit Pro 2.0 (yea OLD SCHOOL windows recording, but has a nice compression tool, and some other stuff that just ‘works’ so I use it just for those things)

Adobe Audition 3 (kind of like upgrade to Cool edit, has some other specialty stuff I use)

Pro Tools (little stuff here and there)

I also built my own synth which is basically has knobs and stuff on it, and I play sound through it (like guitar or bass or whatever, even mic’d drums)

For sound effects, I use a variety of microphones (condensers, ribbons, etc) and have a variety of things I do to make sound effects. Sound effects aren’t my specialty, music is but I dabble in that side of the fence.

Then of course, I have guitars, basses, other acoustics, and shoeboxes which I use to build “mini amps” and put them into a larger box. Basically I put a mic on a smaller speaker in a box, and crank it up and then mic the inside of the larger box as well to mix to the 2 to get a nice big sound.

Hmm, I’m going wayyy off topic but that’s my spill on that :slight_smile:

Ok back on topic :slight_smile:

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#7

Thanks! Tons of stuff to follow up on. The advice is much appreciated. Looks like a long and exciting road ahead of me. :slight_smile: [import]uid: 27183 topic_id: 19707 reply_id: 76268[/import]

#8

Let me ask you this… If you do 10 levels then unlock the others, how are you going to get the extra sounds to them? Apple doesn’t like a lot of stuff being put in the documents directory. Caches and Temporary are both temporary.

How are your updates going to work? You’re going to have to keep new versions under 20 and then how are you going to keep downloaded files updated?

What I would do, since it sounds like your not going to compromise on your sound quality, why not produce two versions a Standard Def with 11khz mono sounds to stay under 20mb then produce a HiFi version that’s over and offer people an updgrade to get the better sound.

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#9

People would rather have lower quality sound (phone speakers aren’t tower speakers at a concert). If you have smaller sound files your game will run faster and smoother. Once you put the edited sounds on your device, you wont hear the difference. I export my sounds at 16kbps.

Regards,
Jordan Schuetz
Ninja Pig Studios [import]uid: 29181 topic_id: 19707 reply_id: 76306[/import]

#10

Nicholas, Since you mentioned wishing you could just use midi files, here’s an idea I am going to experiment with in the next couple of weeks: I’m planning on creating my own mini-tracker as a Lua library. That way I can just include some small wav/mp3 files for the sound channels and then fire off the sounds based on a custom tracker file. I’m not sure how well the idea would work in your circumstance, but for my initial test case I was going for a ChipTune effect that this should be idea for (enabling some complex backgrounds while still keeping the package size small).

I normally use Renoise for my compositions anyways. Haven’t found a way to export from there in way that would be useful so I would have to hand transcribe the patterns over. One disadvantage of this approach is that you cannot apply any post-processing to the sounds.

  • Stephen
    Kigra Software [import]uid: 4639 topic_id: 19707 reply_id: 76435[/import]
#11

Maybe store some assets on your server and download them upon initial launch of your app? that would save space [import]uid: 84637 topic_id: 19707 reply_id: 76488[/import]