Last time, I reported that I had finished the SDL3 migration for my strategic leaf-raking business simulation game, Toytles: Leaf Raking.
As soon as I get this release version built on all supported platforms and out the door, I can start focusing on the Major Update(tm).
Sprint 2026-MJ_2: Release SDL3 update version
Completed
- Ensure Linux version can still be built/deployed
In progress:
- Ensure Windows version can still be built/deployed
I try to automate what I can, partly to make sure it is repeatable. I don’t need to remember how to do something if I can just look at the script I wrote.
But I also like automation because it takes something that tends to be stressful and time-consuming and turns it into something that is routine and easy.
So as much as possible, I like to have scripts that build and package my games for release, and over the years, more and more things have been automated.
I even got my iOS build mostly automated, which has the bonus benefit of reducing my need to touch Xcode.
Anyway, the SDL3 migration has naturally thrown a wrench in my existing scripts, so I need to update them. They should more or less work as-is, and I just need to make sure I have new libraries and maybe potentially point the scripts towards them.
But deploying those versions to the various app stores is still a manual effort, and I want to change it.
For the Linux version, I created a script to take a finished build and upload it to itch.io’s servers using butler, itch’s app used for such purposes. And it works pretty well! I can just give the script the name of the project, the version number to release, and the channel (in this case Linux), and it does the right thing.
Well, mostly. I uploaded the tarball, when instead I should have uploaded a directory, which means someone with an older version of the game will not be able to cleanly update to the newer version. I need to fix that.
I am also working on the Windows version. Again, I have scripts that do the work for me, but in this case it requires me getting the SDL3 libraries for Windows first and ensuring the scripts know where to find them.
The Android build should be similarly very quick as most of the effort to build the bundle for the Google Play store is done, but the iOS and Mac builds are trickier, mainly because I don’t have a modern Mac to do development on so I work remotely on a cloud service provider. It’s not ideal, but it is cheaper than buying a new machine each time Apple decided an older one is obsolete.
But my goal with creating new deployment scripts as well as improving the build scripts is to make sure that such release events aren’t a big deal in the future.
Wish me luck!
Thanks for reading, and stay curious!
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