How do you know what version your game is?

[Nothing Clever]

Hey everyone.

So, the first release of my game is ready to go, and I was just about to post it in the game request (fingers crossed!). But it occurred to me... how do I know what version I should put? As it is the first release, I just left it at 1.0. But since it's the first chapter, should I put it aS [Chp 1-1.0]? But doesn't 1.0 mean the game is done? Should I try to rename it as 0.01? Ack, I'm doubting everything, including whether this universe is real? AGHHHHH!!! X(

 

[Niv-Mizzet the Firemind]

If the game is gonna be released in chapters, then you should release it as chapter 1 or whatever and the last chapter would be named ch # - Final or something.

Otherwise, if you know what percentage of the game is done with the first release, it should be roughly a percentage. If for example you'll release 10% of the finished game, the version would be 0.10, and bugfixes would be 0.11 or whatever.

If nothing makes sense, just pick a number at random, start with it and increase it by a certain increment with each subsequent release. Just be consistent with the increment.

Lastly, just don't release it as 1.0. 1.0 signifies that the game is more or less complete and whatever comes after that are bugfixes and such.

Edit: good luck with your game!

 

[Jofur]

It's mostly a subjective thing, so the most important is to have a system that works for you and the players. But one of the more common ways are:
MajorUpdate.MinorUpdate.Patch

In major updates, 0 is a development build, 1 is a shippable product, 2 and onwards are often total revamps of a product where major systems are redesigned. E.G Imperator Rome 2.0.

Minor updates are what most people release when they update stuff on here. Despite the name they can be huge or pretty small. As long as it adds new stuff.

Patches are well, patches and hotfixes that doesn't add new content but fixes things. Often hotfixes get their own number behind the patch as well if they are really small.

So for example 1.17.2 would imply it's a finished game, that it's had 17 updates since it was released, and have been patched 2 times since that specific updated went live.

 

[79flavors]

Since you've already said it's starting as 1.0, I'm going to assume you're talking about RenPy.

The thing that controls it is a line in the options.rpy file.

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Change that to whatever you like each time you start work on a new version.

As to which numbering system to use, it's entirely up to you.

I would suggest starting at 0.1 up to 0.9, then go to 0.10, 0.11 and onward. If you ever release a "bugfix release" version, call those 0.3a, 0.3b, etc. When you finally finished, call it 1.0, with any updates after that being 1.1, etc. In short, keep it simple.

As people are already suggesting, there are alternatives... 0.1.0, 0.1.1, 0.2.0, etc being a common industry example. Except it delivers a level of fine control on versioning numbers that isn't really needed for what is largely a hobbyist community.

The only real hard bit is remembering to change the config.version line immediately after you publish a release to the players.

 

[Mattock]

as a minor addition:
I would like to stress the fact, that every published version shall be unique!

addidionally, personally I would like them to be ~comparable~
this conflicts a little with 79flavors suggestion because "0.10" may be considered smaller than "0.3a"
I know it looks dumb to start with "0.01"...
(I kinda would NEVER post a version below 0.1 (lol) ... but maybe 0.1.rc2
and this way "0.10.something" will be greater than "0.3.xxxupdate")

Edit: typo: dot instead comma