Compiling/Building Project with TGB

#1 You could look into a product like MoleBox for distribution if you like. The executable icon is one of those irritations that a lot of developers have had in the past. The easiest way is to use an icon hacking tool to replace the icon. Working in support, I would definitely not say that the console being built-in is a downside, though. The console and console.log provide invaluable feedback for the times when users make your game do something wonky. And they will. Often.

#2 I'll look into this molebox, but honestly must ask, what is the point of having this nice game builder if it cannot even properly compile my game? Having all the pretty GUI to create and place things is nice, but to be honest, not incredibaly complex to make, I have made level editors for previous engines that I've worked with that accomplish everything that is needed to design a level, certainly not with all the bells and whistles of TGB, but bells and whistles are just bells and whistles. I shouldn't have to 'hack' the icon of the game I just made, is it that complicated to have the TGB compile all resources into the executable. If it can be done by a single person, for example Mark Overmars the author of Game Maker which is a great learning tool, then it should be no problem for GarageGames to have this feature.

And about the console, its a developer console because its used by developers, I agree that the console is a great resource for advanced end users looking to resolve their problems, however, if I'm making my own game I'd much rather have a home made console so that it has a unique look and feels, and possibly features not present in the current console. Something like that would seem like an implmentation requiring modificatoin to the engine code, but can be more effectivly implmented via the scripting language.

#3 On the matter of consoles. As you already know, the inclusion of a console has been popular since the days of Quake (and prior). I'm playing Fallout 3 right now which also offers a console for entering cheats, mods, and other commands. Granted, their console isn't very attractive, but it's still a design choice on whether to include or not.

Last I checked, you can disable or completely remove TGB's console. You could even create your own using TorqueScript and the GUI Editor, neither of which requires source access.

#4 I looked into molebox and it does not work properly with TGB, any script file that is packed into the exe will not be indexed properly and thus does not exist to the engine, has it worked for other people, because there is no way it could really work without modifications to the TGB source. Again I ask: Why doesn't the Game Builder support functionality to compile the game into a single exe?

#5 Even if you have the PRO version, you'll not be able to compile the whole game into one executable. All of your art resources will be available. Even if you place the art resources into an encrypted ZIP file, everything has to be loaded onto the video cards at some point. There are tools that will extract your textures off the video card. If you do want your game logic to be hidden, you'll need the PRO version so that you can make engine changes. That still doesn't rule out reverse engineering.

As if often stated here and elsewhere, I'd worry about making a game that people want to play, then worry about converting scripts to code and encrypting art assets. (Which, even for the Big Developers, only delays the time a game is copied by a few weeks.)

#6 Thanks for the reply William. I'm not attempting to make my game more secure at all as doing so is a waste of time and resource, especially considering the likley hood of someone spending time to crack a indie game. I want to simply have the end package be more compact and stop the casual user from accessing the client, decompiling byte code is not nearly as difficult as reversing an executable.

Also, if I had the pro version I very well could pack EVERYTHING into the executable, sounds, images, the works. There is no point in doing this, but I'm just emphasizing its doable and realitivly easy to implment. The TGB goes through all the trouble of making these conviences like a networking system, gui, and physics but doesn't include some basic essentials that an engine should have. I'm also a bit confused as to why they implmented such poor sound support, but I suppose thats another matter.