Quote:Original post by leiavoia
That's good for unix, but most windows games i played in years past usually come in one big lump with no installation (especially freebie games that you just unzip and run).
Lei,
As far as Windows games are concerned (commercial ones at least), the 'big lump' approach is beginning to more or less disappear these days. It seems a common practice now that the games will install themselves and the basic data into some directory of the user's choosing (usually C:\Program Files\ by default), but will put the user-specific data, like user preferences, saved games, and mods somewhere in the user's home directory (usually the My Documents folder). That way the user sort of sees the separation between the files he can mess without breaking the game, and those that should probably not be touched unless the user knows what he's doing.
But of course, for smaller games, especially ones that don't require installation, probably just one big lump is the best approach. Although, this needs a qualifier. It's probably still a good idea to organize your big lump. ;) Don't just stick all the files in the same directory as the executable, but, ya know, make like a "data" folder, or like a "models" folder, and what-not. It's probably obvious.
Also, regarding the shortcuts, you may have figured it out by now, but basically, whenever you open up a shortcut, your working directory will be the one where the shortcut is located, so it's the same as if you just opened up the prompt in that directory and ran the program from there without the whole cd bit.
So... I hope I helped clarify some things, instead of confusing them further. :)
