In my opinion would be great to have an option in GD to pack everything, all the images, sounds, project files, folders, in to a single encrypted project file and we could use this file to share GD project without allow people to have direct access to actual content. So we could choose if we want to save the project “normally” as it is now, or we want to pack/export everything in to a single encrypted file that would require GD to have access to content and of course if something packed in to a file that cannot be extracted any way, only GD could decrypt/read the content in to memory for the time of editing. This can be useful for example to share projects using copyrighted content without anybody have access to actual content outside the project.
Actually as I really take it seriously my little space game (and my art skills are really sh*t), I decided to pay for graphics to use in the game, and I have asked the artist about permission to share the graphics along with my project files under such and such license and the first time he was give me permission, but later he changed his mind because even if it protected through licensing it would allow people to have access to his graphics for free anyway and easily can get out of control and shared all over the internet for free and this is not something he want. And I agree with him, as license can protect your creation only from people who really care about the license, but in most cases people don’t care, they just use them and share them, link them, upload them. But, in case the content would be encrypted such way inside a file, within the project, that would make it a bit different because people have no direct access to actual images, content. Content can’t be used anywhere else, only inside that specified GD project. So, with such feature “protection” we can share GD project files even with copyrighted content, of course we still need permission but with such “protection” imo, would be easier to get one.
But I also have an other reason to request this feature.
I have made a save/load function for my game. I store basically all the details of complete scenes, different areas inside external files that can be saved, loaded in any moment of gameplay with any changes made during gameplay. Basically I don’t need to use layouts, scenes and layers in such crazy, confusing way that seen in my earlier shared project files. Only thing my game has now is a single empty scene that used to load/save areas of game world from/to external files. It make it super easy to create and use as many “areas” in the game world as I want and I can still share information between them. But the point is, I have just realised that, this can be also used to allow players to make and design their own levels to use in the game by simply design the level in GD, save the details of the level in to external file and copy the external file in to the game folder. So I could create and share a GD project including the content used in the game, specifically to design areas even complete game world inside GD and save details in external file in such way and form that the game can use and understand and this way players could use GD to design levels for the game. Somehow similar to Source games can be modded using Source SDK and Hammer Editor, Unreal Games can be modded using UDK and Unreal Editor. In my case, new levels, areas could be designed by players in GD and shared, imported in to my game but it would require to encrypt content so people have no direct access to copyrighted content inside the project that used to design custom levels.
So GD could be used not only as a game maker tool but also as modding tool for existing games in case games designed such way and the point is that GD has the power to design games to be moddable, but use of copyrighted content for such purpose is a question that can be solved with such feature in my opinion.
Any thoughts, opinions on this? I’m really would like to know what do you think about it.
Thanks.