Hi folks, We just released our first game Super Sheep Tap. There's an immediate issue after the launch: the app size shown in iTunes or AppStore increased to 49mb, which was 27mb if archived as IPA. I know ipa is basically your app build zipped. But my question is is there a way to make the downloadable version on iTunes the same size as an IPA file? I submitted the app in the xcode archived app interface. Does it make any difference if I use Application Loader to upload the ipa file? Thanks in advance!
hmm.. sound odd.. it should have the size of the ipad +- a meg or two.. but not the uncompressed project size..
I read somewhere that just the assets are compressed, not the actual binary file (as that is encrypted later?). So yeah, I'm not sure if this is correct, but it came out pretty much right for me. So you need to do the following: After building your app, remove the binary file from the package, then zip what's left. Add the size of this zip to the size of the uncompressed binary file and that's the size that your app will be on the store. Be interested to see what the results are for your case. If your binary is unusually large, and compresses down well, this could explain it.
Thank you for the information, I extracted the binary file... the the file alone is 50mb, the rest zipped to 10mb... Man, I need to investigate if it's due to the fact that the game is compiled by unity3d..
Use this method to determine what your post upload app size will be. http://www.gaminghorror.net/steffenj/how-to-calculate-the-size-of-an-iphone-app-after-approval/ I read that 3rd party libraries add bloated size. I know Unity is one culprit.
50mb sound very big for the binary.. i never worked with unity but if i recall tight you have the possibility to strip unused features out of the build..
I got some results after another round of search. It's said that a 15-20mb binary is normal for unity game build. And if build for armv6+armv7 the size will double! So I changed mine to armv7 only and now the binary is 25mb. Still not a happy kid but it's less ridiculous now.. And the strip feature in unity pro will reduce 7mb from binary size. Yes, unity is pretty bad in terms of app size, but there are still plenty developers managed to get their app under 20mb with nice quality. So I will keep looking...
ShootStorm was created with Unity. The binary is 14.1 MB, and I don't have the Pro version, so no build stripping to reduce size. I was very careful over the size of assets and tried to reuse code wherever possible. You should be able to get a lot of help with this on the Unity Forums.
Hi Moonjump, I read your post in several threads. And I'm also seeking answer in unity forum. I'm still confused by the binary size difference between projects. As you said your binary is 14mb but mine is 25mb even after dropping armv6 support. I just want to know the theory behind binary building and common pitfalls, so I can get a slim binary like yours next time
well i would have thought for such a "simple" 2d game people would rather stick to 2d engines like cocos2d who are alot slimmer than unity which is pretty big which is normal since its a full fledged 3d engine.. *shrug* well good luck on optimizing.. for a tiny casual games imho its pretty important to be under the 20mb threshold for thoose "opportunity buyers"
I agree, plenty evidence show downloadable via 3G is very helpful. And cocos2d is no doubt very dominant in 2D iOS game development. Actually learning from the first project, we are planning to make it possible to build a workflow between Unity and cocos2d: make the level in Unity taking advantage of a nice editor; and serialize the data and import it into cocos2d. It sounds like a lot of work. But it can open window for some really cool stuff and efficient workflow
A Unity to Cocos2D exporter sounds like a very interesting project. I'm sure that would be popular on the Unity Asset Store if you wanted some extra revenue. Your game does look as if it needed a lot of textures, and ones that could not be compressed without a significant drop in quality, so that may account for a lot of the app size. I have a 2D project on the go, and I worry about the final app size as most of the textures will have to be Truecolor, but I know Unity well, so I will be sticking with it to get it done by the deadline.
