First of all if you want to check my upcoming game “Miko Adventures Puffball”
please do so … I just released the gameplay trailer (And don’t forget to let me know what you think ):
Alright so let’s talk about your projects files…
There is a rule: you are your project files.
How you live, how you wake up and live your day is how your project files will look like.
Game dev made me a cleaner person, in fact it made me so tidy that my project files are so clean that I can leave the game for weeks and when I come back, I remember every single folder and part and where everything is (Yeah I know it’s crazy but it’s true).
Alright let’s get into details on how it really works:
3 Steps…
1- Folders my friend, folders…
Take a look here…
This is the main folder of my game, this folder alone has around 1000 folders and counting…
Which all are over here:
Seems like not much going on right? well have a look inside the folder called “My project4”:
Wait that’s not all, this is a fraction of what’s really going on, have a look inside the folder called “All sprites”:
You see what I mean? it’s a maze and that’s a fraction of more than 1000 folders I have to go through every single day, so let’s just talk about this, how is this even possible? well it takes years to build your tree, let me explain…
Set back >> relax >> grab some snacks and let’s get into this…
Hold up! You got that new picture? put it in a new folder and make a folder named “Temp pics 1” but why is that 1? I’m just going to put all the folders in one place and that’s it…right? NO!!! what if you got a new picture that you feel can go in another folder? what if it’s for another style? what if the asset is in higher quality than the rest?
Always have folders with 1, 2 ,3 ,4 ,5 and so on… at the end you’ll automatically sort your folders and in the end you can give each one a separate name along with the numbers.
Some of you might feel that this is stupid but when you’re working on a big project, you’ll thank me later honestly.
2- Main folder >>> Sub folders >>> Sub-Sub folders >>> Sub-Sub-Sub folders >>> etc.
Please don’t be afraid to sort your pictures and objects so many times in your game folder.
Don’t be that guy (That was me) that make a new folder and names it “Game assets” then puts all the main character, objects, enemies, background, and everything in a single main folder … NO!!!
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Do it like that:
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Main folder “All assets”
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Then Sub folders called “the main character” and another one called “enemies” then another one called “background” and so on…
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Then you take that sub folder above called “background” and make another sub folders inside called “Main background” and another called “Level 2 Background” and another and another and another…
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And inside these sub-sub folders you create another sub folder called “Level 2 main background” and so on…
You get what I mean?
Always make folders for everything because with time, you’ll have thousands of assets and you’ll feel so lost, it’ll make you feel terrible inside, it’ll consume your time.
You work for 1 hour but 40 minutes of this 1 hour you’re just looking for stuff around your game folder…
Always Make everything in pieces, your brain is great at sorting stuff >>> so use that brain!
3- Naming your folders…
OMG it’s so important, don’t go like character standing 1 and then character walking… no no no
Go like this:
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You made a folder named “the main character”
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inside it there is a sub folder called “Idle”
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Inside this “Idle” folder you go ahead and put your pics inside
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Then you name every single pic inside and go ahead and do it like that: “Main_Character_Idle_1” then the next picture is called “Main_Character_Idle_2” and so on…
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Wait, your character has 2 idle animations? don’t put all the pictures in the same folder, make a new folder for it and put it there.
This way windows will make it clean for you, GDevelop will read it in a simple way and you can import your images so easily.
From just these 3 steps you know:
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Your folder location
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Your main folder and subfolders
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Your folder names
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Your assets names
See what I mean now?
Instead of 1 single main folder that have all the pictures, you have a giant tree that you grow with time with new folders, subfolders and so on…
Your folders are a mirror of you
There is another post on my mind that talks about, how to clean your events and another one about how to keep your project files safe from corrupting and how to save yourself from losing hours of progress, soon I’ll be writing these…
I just love sharing what I learned along the way with the community, my time is just very limited most of the time, but I’d wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for this awesome community who holds my hand and got stuck with me through the whole journey, GDevelop is the best thing that happened to me
It made me a better person
See you soon And as always stay awesome everyone