Project Settings and Preparation for Packaging

In this chapter I will show you how to set up some of the project settings that are necessary for the packaging of the game. Additionally, I will show you how to adjust some settings to reduce the size of the packaged game by packaging only the necessary levels, and disable some plugins.

Firstly, let us set the project’s default map to the L_MainMenu level that we created. To do that go to Edit and Project Settings.

From project settings, go to Project, Maps and Modes, then in Editor Startup Map and Game Default Map choose L_MainMenu.

That is the only absolutely necessary step. The rest of these are just good practice and will make your game look more professional.

To set an icon for your .exe file, go to Platforms and choose Windows. Here, you can select a few things; for example which Rendering Hardware Interface you want to use. You can leave this at default, or choose DirectX11 or DirectX12.

Further down in this menu, you can choose a splash screen and a game icon for your game. If you hover over the images, you will see the exact size for your splash or icon. For the icon to work, you need an image that is 256 x 256 in dimension and it must be a .ico file.

Next we want to go to Project, Packaging. Here, at the bottom of Packaging section, you will find a drop down menu named Advanced, open it and look for List of Maps to Include in a Packaging Build. Click on the + sign and press the the 3 dots in the new field. Then you got to find L_MainMenu and choose it. Add other levels. This will make sure that the only maps we are building are the ones that we are going to use.

Lastly, to reduce the size of your project, you may disable the plugins that you are not using by going to Edit and Plugins. In the top right corner, click on Settings and Show Only Enabled. Please be careful with what you are disabling, but for example we are not going to need any Android plugins, so you can disable those.

Note

If your game is still too large, give it a google search to find other ways of reducing the size of your game. There are a plethora of tips and tricks for reducing the size of your game out there.