In this final post of my series about how I created a small visual novel with Ink and Godot, I’m tackling how I exported my visual novel from Godot, prepared assets for distribution on itch.io, and where I see opportunities to make this project even better. Part three of this series is here.
What You’ll Learn in This Post
- Steps for exporting your visual novel
- Considerations for developers using Ink
- How to prepare for uploading to itch.io
- What I cut from this game and where I would like to expand
- And my conclusions from this week-long (and a bit) game jam.
How to Export a Godot Game
I needed to address several finishing touches before exporting my game.
First, I went to the Project Settings and made a few adjustments. I made sure that the project was set to 1920 x 1080p, and then I created an autoload script that ensured my layout would not break at small sizes. This is an extremely small snippet that essentially ‘clamps’ the layout once things resize below 1280 x 720. Additionally, I’ve changed the window stretch mode to ‘canvas items’ which is what is recommended for non-pixel art 2D games.
Other steps before export include:
- Changing the game’s splash screen
- Making a custom game icon/favicon
- Preparing screenshots for your later upload to itch.io
With that out of the way, I then took a look at Godot’s export settings. In my case, I wanted to export an executable, and I bundled the .pck file as part of that .exe. The reason was simply to have fewer files in the folder, but it makes no difference to itch.io either way.
My final export resulted in a .exe file and a data folder. This data folder is essential for making the .exe run so it should be uploaded along with the .exe. On that note, my last step was to compress both inside a 7-zip archive. This zip file will be uploaded to itch.io.
Considerations for developers using Ink
Because I am using Godot Mono (.NET), this does mean that there is engine overhead. I would say my game’s assets (scripts, images, audio) are no more than 20mb. The total file size far exceeded that, which is simply a result of the game’s engine and the bundled .NET runtime. I’m not making a browser-based game, but if I was, that overhead would likely be a compelling reason to look into custom export templates.
Custom export templates essentially allow developers to strip out unnecessary things from the final executable. I can’t really say more than that because I have no experience with them, beyond knowing they are available. Let’s say it’s above my pay grade.
How to Upload Your Game to Itch.io
Uploading to itch.io is very easy. First, you’ll need an account, which is free to create and set up. Once that is done, uploading your game involves creating a page and setting a theme.
To make a nice looking itch.io page, you first need
- A page banner
- A cover image
- A selection of screenshots (I went with four total)
Your page can further be styled with fonts and colours. I set my game to free, but players can choose to donate if they so wish (I have made two dollars so far, which fills me with joy).
I believe itch.io has file size limits for game uploads (1GB). I wouldn’t imagine many visual novels exceed that, but itch.io also allows you to host your game externally if that situation arises.
With everything uploaded, this project is essentially done, and all that remains is to write this blog post and share my work with friends.
What I cut from this game and where I would like to expand
I wish this game had more sound effects and transitions, as well as additional character portraits. Those would definitely help give things more atmosphere. It’s an extremely static VN. I also think that the text styling could be improved in general, though that might involve some changes to the user interface.
One idea I had early on which I simply ran out of time on, were extra lore files that the player could unlock once they achieved a certain ending. Specifically, the character of Xa-Kol mentions writing a report on the game’s events in every single ending. Depending on the ending achieved, a different report would be available to read from the game’s main screen.
In conclusion
I think I learned a lot from creating this small visual novel. I’m excited to expand on this and create more complex 2D games. My next goal is to create a demo for Gemseeker (probably the Prologue) and also do another Visual Novel that might serve as a small prequel to that game. It would demo both the functionality that has been shown in Something By The River while including more interactivity and animations.
For those considering writing interactive fiction, I would definitely suggest giving Ink a try. So far, it’s done exactly what I needed it to do, and I am excited to keep using it.
Until next time!
The rest of the series:
→ Part 1: Overview
→ Part 2: Building the VN System
→ Part 3: Art and Design
→ Part 4: Exporting the game
