The tutorial · Step 10

Shipping it

Play this step Its whole project

Your game is finished. Here it is, on its third level, with everything you've built on screen:

Now hand it out. A target is a kind of machine or place a game can run: a desktop computer, a web browser, a handheld. This step gets your game ready for the targets it lists, and puts it where people can play it.

Who it is

Shuyi: a game's id says which game it is, written like a web address back to front: io.github.yourname.box-pusher. The player's saves are kept under it. A new game's is a placeholder, and two games with one id share their saves, so set your own before you hand out a build, and never change it after, as players would lose their progress.

In shuyi.ron's app, change the id. If you have a GitHub account, use your name there:

        id: "io.github.zafnok.box-pusher",

Then write it into the code. This rewrites app_info.rs, the file you've been told not to edit by hand:

cargo shuyi app-info

Check it

Game idea: a gate is a check that must pass before a change goes in. Run the gates before each release, and ideally before each change. Shuyi has a command for each.

cargo shuyi check --target all
cargo shuyi lint
cargo test --workspace

• check --target all holds the game to each target in shuyi.ron: that its frame fits the screen, that its text can be read, and that every screen's controls exist there. This is why every screen had to go on the list in stages.rs.
• lint reads your code for what breaks Shuyi's rules, like a key named in text, and words written in code and not in en.ron.
• test runs everything you wrote, and everything shuyi new gave you.

Each problem comes with a code, like SH2101. cargo shuyi explain SH2101 says what it means and how to fix it, and so do the problem code pages.

Build it

Until now, you've built in debug mode, which compiles quickly and checks a lot as it runs. For players, you want release mode, which takes longer to compile, and runs faster and smaller.

cargo shuyi web --release

dist/web/ now holds everything: the page, the game and NOTICES.txt, which must ship with it. That file credits everyone whose code and fonts your game uses, as their licenses require, and the tools wrote it for you.

Try it through any local web server, since a browser won't load a game from a plain file for safety reasons. If you have Python, this works, and then you can open the address it prints:

python -m http.server --directory dist/web

Put it on Pages

The folder is a static site, a set of files that need nothing but a place to be served from, so any host works. On GitHub, publish dist/web/ from your repository with Pages (Settings, then Pages), by a workflow that builds it or by pushing the folder to a branch. Everything in it loads by a relative path, so it works from the address Pages gives your repository.

Then send someone the link. You've made a game, and they can play it.

Chapter 9 covers the other targets, and how cargo shuyi export packages a game for desktop.

What you've learned

Look back at what you know now. In Rust: functions and types, structs and enums, match, Option and Result and ?, borrowing, ownership, traits, generics and closures. That's most of the language you'll use day to day. Rust has more, and you can learn the rest as you need it. The Rust Book is free, and very good.

In making games: the loop and its frames, state, commands, determinism, data apart from code, and testing by playing.

In Shuyi: screens on a stack, Ctx, views and skins, the grid kit, actions and the keymap, text by key, the palette, the format registry and the bundle, TurnRules and History, menus and results, storage, the options screens, the Harness, GameTools, bots and replays, and targets. You'll find all of these in the glossary.

Where next

The best next step is to change this game until it's yours. In order of difficulty:

1. A level of your own. Add levels/6.map, put it in levels.ron, and add lines/6.ron. The test will tell you if it can be won.
2. A new look. Change the palette, and the characters in TERRAIN_LOOKS and Pieces, until it doesn't look like this tutorial.
3. A new kind of tile. Add ice, which keeps a box sliding, or a hole that a box fills in. You'll change TERRAIN_NAMES, TERRAIN_LOOKS, a level's legend and apply. The compiler will find the rest.
4. A new command. Add a "reset the level" action, as you added Undo. Think about whether it's a command at all, or whether it starts a new History.

The book explains each idea of the engine on its own, including all the things this game didn't need: real-time games, maps, pictures, sounds and more. And Hello, Grid is a bigger example to read.