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Distributing Games

Once your game is ready, you can bundle it into a single package for easy distribution.

Creating assets.pak

On Windows

You can use the packaging tool included with Playfield Engine:

  1. Go to the misc/windows/ folder.
  2. Drag and drop all your game files (such as main.pf, images, sounds, etc.) onto playfield-pack.exe.
  3. The tool will create an assets.pak file in the same folder.

This file contains all of your game’s scripts and assets in one archive.

On macOS

Use misc/macos/playfield-pack instead:

  1. Open the terminal.
  2. Go to misc/macos/. (cd misc/macos)
  3. Run xattr -c playfield-pack to clear the macOS's quarantine flag.
  4. Run ./playfield-pack <files> to create a package.

On Linux

Use misc/linux/playfield-pack instead:

  1. Open the terminal.
  2. Go to misc/linux/. (cd misc/macos)
  3. Run ./playfield-pack <files> to create a package.

Files to Distribute

To distribute your game, you only need the following two files:

  • playfield.exe
  • assets.pak

Place them in the same folder. Your players can then run the game by simply double-clicking playfield.exe.

Changing the Icon

For Windows

Use a third-party tool to replace the application icon in playfield.exe.

Or alternatively: 1. Download the Playfield Engine source code. 2. Replace resources/windows/icon.ico with your own icon. 3. Rebuild the app.

For macOS

  1. Download the Playfield Engine source code.
  2. Replace resources/macos/icon512.png with your own icon image.
  3. Rebuild the app.

For Linux

  1. Download the Playfield Engine source code.
  2. Replace external/StratoHAL/src/icon.c, with your own icon data.
  3. The file must contain a valid XPM image text.
  4. Rebuild the app.