Bonnie’s Bookstore Web Version
The web version of Bonnie’s Bookstore has just been released. Now you can play it directly in your browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox), no download necessary.
Or try the downloadable version.
The web version has smaller graphics and less levels, but it loads fast and you can play it as long as you want.
The downloadable version has 50 levels, rich graphics and music, a bigger dictionary, more types of tiles, and various other goodies. And you can try it for 60 minutes, but then you’ve got to cough up $19.95 if you want to keep playing.
January 17th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
Hi Phil,
I’ll give this a try tonight. I wanted to try BB (having read all through your developing it), but didn’t want to get a downloaded version.
Can you do a writeup on what was involved in converting it to a web-based version?
thanks.
January 17th, 2006 at 11:14 pm
The quick version is that I had to:
1) Drop all the graphics from 800 x 600 to 480 x 360,
2) Compress them more heavily
3) Cut out various screens not included in the web version (like the high scores screen)
4) Cut down the sound FX size
5) Remove the sampled music
6) Add MIDI music (for the menu only)
7) Stop using SDL – start using straight Windows GDI calls. (SDL’s DLLs are big)
8) Support dynamic downloading of files that aren’t used until later in the game.
All that got the size down from 9.2 MB to 0.8 MB for the initial download, with another 0.4 MB streamed as the game is playing.
Beyond that
9) Adjust graphics that didn’t downsample to the lower rez well.
10) Hook up to PopCap’s ActiveX control (which unfortunately is a bit lacking in documentation, but Brian at PopCap was very helpful in resolving issues)
11) Design 6 custom levels for the web version.
12) Probably other stuff I’m forgetting.
I may write a longer bit about it in the future.
January 17th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
This approach doesn’t create web games that work for Mac customers, of course…
January 18th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Just curious, but do any of the Popcap/casual games out there run on Macs? What’s the game market like for Macs these days?
January 19th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Steve: I just got a mail from Popcap announcing their hit-games for the Macs. The mail also mentionned bonnie’s bookstore and an other game for the Mac will be released “sometime later”.
So, yes, as from now on, the popular Popcap games work on macs. Well, at least the downloadable ones. I don’t if they have a solution for their web-framework for the Macs. I know they do have a solution for firefox, but I know nothing about the technical details of their plugin, so I have no idea if it’s possible to port their firefox plugin to Mac / Linux.