Dashingdon: Free ChoiceScript Game Hosting

Game Development
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I’ve noticed frustration with hosting games on Dropbox and Google Drive (not to mention the lack of availability of those services in some countries) so I created an alternative and, being the narcissist that I am, named it after myself! Actually the truth is that I had the domain dormant and decided to put it to use. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

At any rate, here it is: https://dashingdon.com

It’s fairy easy to use and all you need to do after creating your account and creating a game is to upload your scenes (txt files) and image files (optional) and the rest is done for you. You’ll be provided a link immediately to your game directory. You can also have your game show publicly on the front page or you can keep the link private.

Depending on the popularity and usage I have some updates in mind including allowing custom stylesheets, maybe a tagging system (fantasy, sci-fi, drama, horror, etc), and whatnot like that.

Any questions, comments, suggestions, or snide remarks are appreciated. Please let me know here or via PM if you discover any bugs or issues. Thanks.

*NOTE: If you register, please create a new password that you do not use anywhere else and especially do not use your email address password!

IMPORTANT: All files on the web server are case-sensitive. Picture.png is not the same as picture.png or picture.PNG. chapter1.txt is not the same as Chapter1.txt or chapter1.TXT. Please ensure that the references in your game files match the filenames exactly.

ALSO IMPORTANT: The “20 file” upload limit is per upload. If your game is more than 20 files then you can upload all your files (just 20 at a time for the server load).

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This is really cool, good luck with this! :smile:

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Are you sure this site would be able to handle the traffic though? Dropbox seems to have problems with that.

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Yup, and I have it spun up on an easily resized droplet. It’ll handle a good deal of traffic/usage before needing to be embiggened though. :smile:

Spanks!

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Bookmarked. I would much rather do this than jump through dropbox’s hoops. I trust you have a privacy policy and such drafted?

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Yes, I’m working on a privacy policy along with terms and conditions. Those should be up soonish.

I’m also going to clean up all the messy code and get some decent comments in and release the source on GitHub for anyone who wants to use or improve the system but that’s on the backburner until I get some more free time.

Just takes so much time! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Well good luck. Will you be hosting the burden on here instead of Dropbox?

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Yes I have it up on there already. I also have my CoG competition game up there but it’s set to private.

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You just saved me weeks of frustration for my game. I cannot express my gratitude more.

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oooh cool! that could be helpful for a lot of people.

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This is awesome! Excellent idea, you might’ve just made a ton of people’s lives way easier. :slight_smile:

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I gave it a try: created a game and selected files to upload. Of the 54 text files I selected, only 20 uploaded. Is there a limit to the number of files one can upload?

a

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Ah yes sorry. You can only upload 20 at a time (that’s a default limit set by PHP on the server). You will be able to load all 54 but only 20 at a time. I will make a note of that and look into getting the limit increased.

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How do I upload a picture?

This is not working for me :confused:

I also tried uploading a file named dashpic.jpg, but that didn’t work either.

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Ah ok I was able to reproduce the error after a few tests. I believe it has to do with the size of the image. I had the max size set to 200kb per image which is actually pretty large but I upped it to 1mb per image which is rather massive. I don’t think any games will need any larger images than that - hopefully!

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@dashingdon
Yep, it is working now, the images showed up in the game.

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@dashingdon
I remember talking to you about this.
I am glad it is up and I cannot wait to try it out! (might take some time though I am still ironing out the bugs in my story)
I am also wondering about what @ballmot said: Do you think this site can handle the traffic?

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Yes, our conversation spurred me into getting off my lazy butt and getting this done. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: I’m still ironing out bugs too, on this and three stories… I’m all over the place!

I’m confident the server can handle the traffic. If it gets really popular and bogs down, I’ll only need a few minutes for maintenance in order to increase the resources to handle the load.

@ballmot Awesome. I love when a bug gets squashed so quickly!

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Wow! This is great for the community. Thank you so much for your effort.

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I was wondering if it was possible to see the code for games hosted using this? I know I mostly learned ChoiceScript just by looking at others code and found errors for people as well by sneaking peeks at it. I know that with the complied games hosted on Dropbox you can’t or its much more difficult too.

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