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What software do you use to create installers for your games?

A topic by RATASOFTWARE.INC created 19 days ago Views: 237 Replies: 9

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Hi everyone!

For those of you who release downloadable Windows builds, what do you use to create your installers, if you use one at all? I've been looking into this recently and ended up using Inno Setup. It seems to work really well, and I like that you can customize things such as the installation wizard, icons, shortcuts, installation directory, etc.

Do you create a proper installer for your games, or do you simply distribute the game as a ZIP file? Are there any particular tools you'd recommend ?

Thanks in advance!

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No Time To PlayModerator moved this topic to General Development 19 days ago

No Time To PlayModerator19 days ago

(moved to the right category)

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hechelion17 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

- Typically, installers require elevated privileges, which is often a security red flag.

- With platforms like Steam or GOG having launchers, many players don't want to or don't know how to deal with installers and will prefer not to use them.

- An installer game isn't compatible with the Itch launcher, and if you want to bring your game to Steam in the future, it can't be an installer.

These days, it's not advisable to distribute your game as an installer unless absolutely necessary.

If you still need to do it, Inno Setup was one of the best options; if not the best option I used. But it's been easily over a decade since I've done anything that needs to be distributed as an installer.

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RATASOFTWARE.INC17 days ago

I wanted to use the installer to distribute the game as a downloadable for Windows in the future, but based on what you’ve told me about launchers, I don’t think I’ll need it.

Thank you very much for your reply.

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Irog17 days ago(+1)

I do not like installers both for the games I download and the games I upload. So I put my games in a zip file. Moreover any installer is an additional software layer that can fail.

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Belle Rivers9 days ago

We didn't use any installers for releasing Recipe Frenzy since we made it using Flutter. Flutter makes you directly export your Windows and Mac builds from a simple command in the terminal. ☺️

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GameHameHa9 days ago(+1)

When installing a game I prefer an .exe file. I can put it anywhere I want! If you can distribute your resources inside your .exe that’s probably the way to go.

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redonihunter8 days ago(+2)

Only works for small games. And certain engines trying to be clever there will make your resource packed exe file trigger anti virus system.

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RATASOFTWARE.INC8 days ago(+1)

Yeah, finally I download itchio app, makes distribution much easier...

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CSAF — Core Systems Asset Factory7 days ago

Worth adding the itch specific part of this, since the thread has landed on shipping a plain zip. If you push that zip with butler and tag the channel windows, the itch app treats it as an installable build and does patch based updates, so a returning player pulls a diff instead of the whole download again. No installer, no elevated privileges, and you get versioning for free. One thing we measured that's easy to trip over. butler rebuilds the archive server side, while a zip uploaded through the browser form is served back as the exact bytes you sent. If you care about the file a buyer receives hashing the same as the one you built, that difference matters. For everything else butler is the easier path.

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