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[K1lo]

I'm working on a game called Isomer currently (plug out the way  ) and I've wanted to put out a demo in advance of beginning alpha funding for some time. It hasn't worked out so far as there just wasn't enough of the game mechanic to show up until now and worse - I was concerned about putting off players before the game was even ready if the demo was too basic or had none of the polished art in yet.

Another issue I am keen to avoid is making a special demo build which is cut from the full version because this would probably rapidly fall behind the latest build and require me to periodically waste development effort remaking a special demo build. This of course makes no mention of the code mess resulting from numerous if( isDemo ){ // A } else { // B } type situations.

So I was pondering the problem and I came up with a possible solution that I'd like to get your feedback on. Rather than all the above I was thinking of distributing the game as a single installer which is a combination of demo and full version. When it is installed, if the player has bought and enters their key the game, the full game plays, otherwise a handy 'buy' button appears on the launcher and the demo version can be run.

So in the above screenshot showing the current installer, I'd change it such that instead of not being able to launch the game without a key, you can play the demo version.

The demo version is identical to the release version except each game is time limited (say ~5mins - a value I've literally just plucked out of thin air) after which the game is saved. The demo can't load saves.

What do you guys think - good idea or am I setting myself up for a headache here?

[TestTrek]

I think it sounds good, but I don't think people like installers that much these days.

[CowBoyDan]

Based on my own failed experience, license keys are annoying or confusing to users and wont prevent piracy.  When I do a pc/mac (non-web and non-free) game again I'm just going to go the simple route with easy to access demo and after purchase hidden-ish non-expiring link to full game download.

[K1lo]

I think it sounds good, but I don't think people like installers that much these days.

How do you mean? Every game is installed to some extent even if that just means it is unzipped into a directory. That's pretty much all I mean to, you get a IsomerInstall.exe type file and it does the rest for you.

Based on my own failed experience, license keys are annoying or confusing to users and wont prevent piracy.  When I do a pc/mac (non-web and non-free) game again I'm just going to go the simple route with easy to access demo and after purchase hidden-ish non-expiring link to full game download.

Hmm interesting... so you'd advocate having a separate demo build?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

use a separate demo build, it's what most major indie devs do. it's a lot harder to crack/patch. all someone has to do is crack your game or make a keygen and it's over, whereas if you have a separate demo and full version, they have to actually host the full version somewhere or set up a torrent, which is more trouble since hosts periodically go down and torrents for small indie games often go back to 0 seeds eventually (making your game harder to pirate)