Hello ! I'm developing an app that's going to be a compilation of mini-games. I wish to publish it when three games will be ready, but I also would like to add more mini-games to the app after its first release, so I will need to update the app.
I've seen that web requests are limited to season 1 games at this time, and that solutions implying QR codes have been made to simplify the process. On my side, I redirect people to my itch.io page and tell them to follow it to know when updates will be available.
I've also created user scripts for browsers in the past. To auto-update those scripts, we have to put a @downloadURL
or a @updateURL
at the beginning of the file with an URL leading to the last version of the script.
So would it be possible to add a similar functionality to the Playdate games, through the pdxinfo
file ?
Here is an example of a pdxinfo
file from the first version of a game that would use this functionality :
name=MyGame
author=Me
bundleID=tld.domain.playdate
version=1.0
buildNumber=123
pdxinfoURL=https://github.com/me/my-game/blob/master/pdxinfo
gameURL=https://github.com/me/my-game/releases/download/my-game.pdx.zip
When the console checks for updates for the games, it also checks the updates for third-party games through the pdxinfoURL
field if it's available, that links to an up-to-date version of the pdxinfo
file. version
field found in this file is compared to the version
field found in the file of the current installed version of the game ; if it's different, the game has to be updated, and is downloaded using the gameURL
field that links to the zip folder containing the pdx folder with the new version of the game.
That would be an easier and safer solution to implement updates mechanisms in the games without allowing URL requests on the whole game (but maybe it's still not that safe) ?