I’ve played and rated quite a few games in the last few days and there are a few things I repeatedly stumbled upon, which I think can easily be avoided.
So to make it as painless as possible to play and rate your game here are a few suggestions:
- DO put your game into a separate folder before you zip it up. It is so much easier to extract it into it’s own directory if you do that. (It’s okay if it’s only one file.)
- DON’T name that folder or your game executable ld, ld35, ludumdare, win or game. Use the name of your game instead.
- If you are using Unity DON’T include the .pdb files generated for the Windows build. These contain debug information relevant just for the developer. And often they take up more space than the game itself.
- If possible, DO link directly to a downloadable file. DON’T link to a page where I have to find the link that lets me download the game without donating anything. (Also itch.io has repeatedly been very, very slow for me. It often takes an hour to download a 100 MB game. :-()
- DON’T make your game an installer! I think Game Maker is the worst offender here. This is just very, very inconvenient. I just want to extract your game into a folder somewhere along with dozens of other LD titles and delete the whole thing after I’m done with rating it.
- DO provide a Linux and MacOS build if your engine easily allows you doing so (Mainly Unity, but also Unreal Engine, Libgdx, etc…). Even if you can’t test it someone else will tell you if it doesn’t work.
- From the comments: DON’T zip only the exe file if your game is made with Unity, you DO have to include the data folder in the zip.
Please add your comments and your own suggestions below. 
PS: You can play and rate our game ‘Gerry Wins’ here.
