Game Launcher(Hypegames)

Hello, I've been developing a game launcher.
I got the idea from the SteamLauncher project and I thought: "Hey, I wanna try to make this"
So it's mostly done now, But I wanted to ask several questions.

• Was it dan200 who created 'Worm' in CC? (I have no clue)

•Would you like your game to automatically be installed on the first time this launches?(I mean it downloads it from pastebin and into the folder this program has) if you do then do this

Spoiler

1: Create a file that looks like this

{["credits"] = "<Name here>", ["price"] = <Numbers here>,}

That's the file that's going to be give the information on how much it costs, and who made it as you pretty much have figured out, If the price is nil it will be free in the store.
Now upload that file to pastebin.

2: Upload your game to pastebin if you haven't already

3: Edit in some achievements in your game
Example:

if runFromHypeGames then -- This is a boolean value that does so this doesn't error if it isn't run from the launcher and therefore doesn't run any achievement code
local score = 100
  if score >= 100 then
  achievement.unlock("Scored 100",50) -- This will give the player 50 points when he have reached 100 score in the game
end
end

But be reasonable with the rewards and don't make them super high for something super easy!

If you have additional files for your game add shell.path() when writing/reading from a file or making a directory etc.

local file = fs.open("SomeDirectory/SomeFile","w")
file.writeLine("2 = 1; 1 = 3; 3 = 1; -- :P/>")
file.close()

4: When you've done all steps above you should
Post this

Game: <Game Name>
Game ID: <Pastebin ID>
File Info: <Pastebin ID>
Rating: <What you think your game quality is out of 10>

Additional files: <Filename 1> <Pastebin ID1> <Filename 2> <Pastebin ID2> etc.

That's all!
I'll pretty much release the program when I've got more games to it ;)/>
- Hellkid98

I've started working on a game today. If I have working code I think I will make I compatible with your launcher くコ:彡

How do you plan on charging people for the games since you have the price setting?

He could use LuaPay :D/>

Sammich Lord, on 01 August 2013 - 05:56 PM said:

How do you plan on charging people for the games since you have the price setting?

It isn't real money, You earn points from completing achievements and you can use those points to buy games on the CC computer :)/>

Hellkid98, on 01 August 2013 - 06:13 PM said:

Sammich Lord, on 01 August 2013 - 05:56 PM said:

How do you plan on charging people for the games since you have the price setting?

It isn't real money, You earn points from completing achievements and you can use those points to buy games on the CC computer :)/>

Do you get a starting game or starting amount of coins? Cause if you don't you can't use it at all :P/> Maybe also gifts to others would be cool :)/>

Also, what's going to stop people writing and submitting a game that gives them millions of coins? Are you going to require games to be submitted to you first, then you'll add them, or is it automatic somehow?

GravityScore, on 02 August 2013 - 03:39 AM said:

Hellkid98, on 01 August 2013 - 06:13 PM said:

Sammich Lord, on 01 August 2013 - 05:56 PM said:

How do you plan on charging people for the games since you have the price setting?

It isn't real money, You earn points from completing achievements and you can use those points to buy games on the CC computer :)/>

Do you get a starting game or starting amount of coins? Cause if you don't you can't use it at all :P/> Maybe also gifts to others would be cool :)/>

Also, what's going to stop people writing and submitting a game that gives them millions of coins? Are you going to require games to be submitted to you first, then you'll add them, or is it automatic somehow?

Before I add them I'll check them out so the one wjo've created it haven't created super high rewards etc. And if the game they submit here follows those requirement they will be added to the store. ;)/>
For your other question, You can get worm for free in the store with lots of achievements that should be enough for buying some other games.
And didn't think of adding 'gift sending' great idea! Will try to add that! :D/>

And FYI when you've earned an achievement you can't earn the same one again on the same account, So that's pretty good I think.

But I'm open for ideas so just reply if you have one, I'll definetly going to try to add GravityScores ;)/>

Hellkid98, on 02 August 2013 - 05:28 AM said:

-snip-
Before I add them I'll check them out so the one wjo've created it haven't created super high rewards etc. And if the game they submit here follows those requirement they will be added to the store. ;)/>
-snip-

I like the idea; it's quite interesting. However, remember that pastebin has an edit feature, so someone could submit a game to you, you'd approve it, and then they could go and edit their pastebin code to give them tons of credits. And you would never know. Also, game code could be edited straight from the computer it's run on, so again, nothing would stop people from editing the software to give them credits.

A suggestion? Host code on your server, where it cannot be edited. As for the editing of local files, well, I don't think you can do much about that.

Hellkid98, on 01 August 2013 - 05:14 PM said:

-snip-
•Would you like your game to automatically be installed on the first time this launches?(I mean it downloads it from pastebin and into the folder this program has)
-snip-

What if my game hasn't got only 1 file?

I don't currently don't have any site I can host the codes on and I don't feel like being bothered to creating one either, So I'll just check this out often and if I detect anyone messing with their game to cheat then their game will be banned from the Launcher,you don't get any warnings when you do this I just simply remove them from Launcher, And also if anyone else detect any of this then they should simply send me a PM with information about it.

And for local files… Well I can't do anything about that, But if you want to cheat then I don't really care, I mean the reason most of us play games is that we think it's fun and that we've accomplished something in the game.
I think that cheating just takes the fun out of the games etc.

- Hellkid98

ardera, on 02 August 2013 - 05:57 AM said:

What if my game hasn't got only 1 file?

Do you mean an API or something else?
If it is an API you can simply post the link to it and it'll automatically download>install>load it
Else if it's some important files that can load from the same folder as the game then simply put them in a spoiler and have a link to them all as well as a name for them.

Well i'm making a game but it requires an api and some sprites too. So I hope it will work because I put everything in a different folder so it needs an installer ….

bjornir90, on 02 August 2013 - 06:03 PM said:

Well i'm making a game but it requires an api and some sprites too. So I hope it will work because I put everything in a different folder so it needs an installer ….

Well just post the API and it will download it automatically and load it, As for the sprites.. How do you like use them?
Are you using as specified folder for it when loading them

fs.open("someDir/someFile","r")

Or are you using the shell API to get the folder it's installed in etc.?

Like I added my game eggcracker and it does actually have a custom directory when loading/saving files..

But if your game uses a custom dir to load the sprites it shouldn't be too hard..

Just make sure that you post if you use a custom directory for the files,which files there are and ofcourse the directories the files should be in and I'll make sure it installs correctly.
Updated the OP to have this information on how the post should look. ;)/>
Hope I get some games to add to this soon! :)/>

EDIT: Just discovered a huge derp when launching eggcracker through this.. You had the same save for every user .-.

So to those who have saves for their games you should do this, And the same for the additional files

-- Examples
local file = fs.open(shell.path().."SomeFile","w")
file.writeLine("print('Hello World!')")
file.close()

fs.makeDir(shell.path().."SomeDir")

So simply add 'shell.path()' before your file loadings/savings stuff etc. and it should now work to have multiple files ;)/>

Did a pre-view video of this a little while back.. Here it is