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Author Topic: How do you make your own Game Launcher?[SOLVEDish](Info is good)  (Read 19266 times)

Saputo

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What and How would be the best way to go about building a Game Launcher, that I can link to my website for Login and do updates to the game.

I'm not sure if using or building it in unity would work,I hope someone can help me out,even looking for someone to build one I can simply mod to fit my needs if at all able.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2013, 11:54:57 AM by Saputo »

jeanfabre

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #1 on: March 22, 2013, 01:08:33 AM »
Hi,

 If you build this which is perfectly possible, you will need to look for a solution that will support https internet access when login to avoid sniffers and easy hacks. UniWeb is the solution of choice for this.

 This is already a quite advanced feature, especially if you want to roll your own login and web site front and back end.

What is your platform? web, mobile desktop?

and why do you want the user to login in? it's important to know if that worth the effort of rolling your own or if you can use something like facebook login plugins or something.

bye,

 Jean

Saputo

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2013, 10:41:50 AM »
I'm building for windows, and I'm going to be selling the game so u need to sign up and buy the game to play it,So the Login System would be kinda like Minecraft did or WOW or any games that require to login to play it really, it's just another way to slow down Pirates lol. I could just say forget the Login System but it would still need to check for updates.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2013, 10:50:38 AM by Saputo »

jeanfabre

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2013, 01:05:36 AM »
Hi,

 You have a vast range of choices here, but if you don't have any scripting skills, you will be limited indeed.

-- checking for update is simple. Maintain a simple text file on your server ( any simple webhost will provide some space, put this even as an html page if you want. In that text simply have something like:

Code: [Select]
1.5

and in your application, let's say you are only at version 1.3 so it's easy to get the text, parse it as a float, and make a comparision, then you know if the user should go online and download the newest version. you can use the www action for this, it will be very easy to implement.

as for login your users... that will require a lot more work I am afraid, THO, you can find some facebook authorization framework on the asset store, that will give you everything you need to have users login with their facebook account. Would that do?

bye,

 Jean

Saputo

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2013, 09:05:50 PM »
cool,great to know the info on how to do the update system, but the Facebook login wont work, but I might just make it so u have to be logged in on the website, to even be able to dl the game, but if ur account bought ti then u can dl it, if not then u cant, u know, just trying to some how prevent Pirates, you know. Also is there a way to make it so when u build the program for the launcher use it's own size's and not have the top window bar and such and just show the launcher itself.
Oh and How do u get it to run the games .exe when u click PLAY?
« Last Edit: March 25, 2013, 09:53:28 PM by Saputo »

jeanfabre

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2013, 01:04:28 AM »
Hi,

 I am not sure I understand your question regards the size, launcher and exe. Can you provide more description as to what you would like to achieve?

bye,

 Jean

Saputo

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #6 on: March 26, 2013, 09:21:59 AM »
OK, Id like to have the launcher do these things.

1. when opened it checks for a game update, and downloads it if one is available.

2. It has a News/Patch info box, to real what was fixed and or added.

3. you can click on the Play button and it loads the game up.

4. Maybe do the Login System


Ask for the Size of the launcher I made a simple image as a Base to go off of, to make the Launcher I want t to fit that, Image is Attached, like fit just that image, no program window around it with a Minimize or X button just whats in that Image. kinda like World of Warcrafts or many other mmos.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2013, 03:09:03 PM by Saputo »

jeanfabre

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2013, 07:58:35 AM »
Hi,

 for patching, the best way is to go with M2h patcher,

http://u3d.as/content/m2h/m2hpatcher/2rU

 As for the interface, it's really something you should do in nGui, or ezgui or any 2d framework, then linking playmaker with the user actions in the ui is the easy part :)

bye

 JEan

Saputo

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2013, 09:14:26 AM »
well, ud told me what programs to use and such but not how to go about doing these things, like my main thing is how do you make the Launcher run the game when you press play, is there a custom action that will look for the location of the games exe and run it?

jeanfabre

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #9 on: March 28, 2013, 01:23:15 AM »
Hi,

I see, I was one level to deep :)

 ok, the first thing then it to really learn and watch as many video and screencasts on how playmaker works. And also how Unity works, it's important because playmaker in itself is only the door to Unity wonders, so you still need to know how Unity works, in order to make the most out of playmaker.

 "running" a game depends very much on what your game is unfortunatly :)

if your game is a separate scene, then you simply load the scene using "loadLevel" action.

if your game is in the same scene as your launcher, then you will need to have your game "paused" or "inactive" somehow, waiting for your launcher to send a playmaker global event likely.

Have you studied various examples and samples around this forum, on the wiki, and on the hutong website?

bye,

 Jean

Saputo

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #10 on: March 28, 2013, 08:33:02 AM »
Yes I have read a lot about unity and playmaker, and I have looked at a lot of game examples,but I don't think your getting what I'm trying to do here, If my coding skills were a lot better this would be a cake walk, but they are not that great.

Ok, you know how games like WOW(World of Warcraft)hate the game but a lot of people know it)) Has a .EXE in the folder were the game is found on your computer, you can click that it by passes the launcher bam game loads done. BUT they also have the Launcher witch is it's own program in itself that is made to just keep the game up to date and show news feeds. They are both 2 different programs, on the game launcher when you click play, it calls WOW's EXE and then runs it, it's not built into the game launcher another scene or level to load it is it's own game in itself,the launcher is just another program, that reads and opens that file when the PLAY Button is clicked. So there 2 different programs so, I was asking if there was a way to make Playmaker open an EXE, when a button is clicked. If Not then I will have to look into making a Custom Action for this, I'm sure a lot of people would want this.

jay.pis

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #11 on: March 29, 2013, 10:46:21 AM »
@Saputo would like to know how this is done as well, been planning to so something similar to League of Legends Launcher with my project.

Though I think something like this needs to be done outside of Playmaker/Unity as in creating the launcher and game executable with an win/mac installer for your game.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2013, 12:22:59 PM by jay.pis »

Saputo

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Re: How do you make your own Game Launcher?
« Reply #12 on: March 29, 2013, 06:09:17 PM »
More then likely but i'm sure with a few custom made actions this could work out just fine, as a basic launcher, to check for an update and launch the game, i'm sure of it.