Shipping your game

Package Game turns your .blend into a standalone Windows game anyone can run — no Blender, no DarkRoast install.

Before you package

1. Save your .blend. Sounds and textures are found relative to it.
2. Open DarkRoast → Game and set the Game Title. It names the exe, the folder, and where saves go.
3. Fullscreen (on by default): the game starts fullscreen at the monitor’s own resolution; untick it for a 1600×900 window. Players switch with F11 or Alt+Enter, or in the pause menu, and their choice is kept.
4. Launcher (on by default): the game starts with a small window to Play, Play with Vulkan or Play in VR, so players never need the command line. They can tick Remember my choice; holding Shift as the game starts shows it again.
5. Version and Update Feed, for updates (below). Leave Version empty to use the time you package (2026.10.24.2130).
6. Switch to the scene the game should start in. The scene you’re viewing when you click Package Game becomes the first level.

Package it

1. Click Package Game (in the main panel or the Game panel).
2. Choose an output folder. Leave Also make a .zip ticked.
3. Wait while every scene is exported and its textures are compressed (BC7). Big levels can take a minute.

You get:

<output>/
  My Game/
    My Game.exe          the game (no console window, no debug keys)
    game.json            title, first level, window settings
    levels/
      Level1.glb         one per Blender scene
      Level2.glb
      sounds/, textures/
    vcruntime140.dll ... Visual C++ runtime, so it runs on any PC
    ENGINE-LICENSE.txt   the engine's licence (free, including for games you sell)
    THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt  the licences of the libraries and fonts in the engine
  My Game.zip            the same folder, ready to share

Send people the .zip. They unzip it and double-click My Game.exe.

Updates

Set Update Feed to a web folder you can upload to (https://example.com/mygame/updates/). When a player starts the game, the launcher checks it, and if there’s a newer version it offers Update now: it downloads the zip, checks its SHA-512 and that the new program is signed by whoever signed the old one, then closes the game, swaps the files in and starts it again. To publish a new version, package the game and run:

python tools/publish_update.py "My Game.zip" --feed-dir updates --page https://example.com/mygame/

and upload the two files it makes in updates/ (my-game.json and the zip) to the feed folder. With --url the feed points at a zip that’s already on your site instead.

Multiple levels

• Each scene in your .blend (the scene selector at the top of Blender) becomes levels/<Scene name>.glb.
• Move between them with load_level("Level2.glb") from a script — see Exit to the next level.
• Each scene has its own World settings and Level Script.
• The game table is wiped when a level loads. Use save() / load() to carry score, inventory or health across.

The packaged game

• Pause menu (Esc / Start): resume, restart, volume, mouse speed, rebind keys and gamepad buttons, quit.
• Settings and saves are stored per player in %APPDATA%\BlendForge\<Game Title>\. Changing the Game Title starts fresh saves. (Test runs from Blender save to %APPDATA%\BlendForge\BlendForge\ instead, so test saves stay separate from the packaged game’s.)
• The developer keys (F1 stats, F3 navmesh, F5 reload) are disabled.
• Licences: the game is yours to give away or sell, with no fees or royalties. Keep ENGINE-LICENSE.txt and THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt in its folder; add your own licence for your game alongside them if you like.
• Signing: your game’s .exe is the engine’s player program, renamed, and keeps its signature: Windows shows it as published by Sentient Bean LLC. To publish under your own name, sign it with your own code-signing certificate (Windows signtool; your signature replaces ours). A new download may still get a SmartScreen prompt until it has built up reputation: players click More info → Run anyway.

Checklist before you share

• Play through the packaged build, not just Play in Blender — it’s what players get.
• Check every load_level name matches a scene name exactly (case and spaces matter).
• Check for red script errors on screen. In a packaged game they’re easy to miss until a player reports them.
• Try it on another PC if you can — especially one with a weaker graphics card.