Itch.io for Game Devs – Quick Tip

Itch.io, as you may know if you are a game developer, is a massive indie game store. It’s a little like Steam but catering more to indie developers and experimental games. One really nice thing about Itch.io is that it’s not just limited to video games, there are comics, novels, print and play board games/Tabletop role playing games and… game developer assets!

When you buy (or download a free asset pack) they are linked to your account and then you have to download the assets. If the asset pack is updated you have to go back and re-download the files. But there is a better way. Itch.io actually offers a desktop app, much like Steam. It will keep your assets up to date and even allow you to roll back to previous versions if you need to.

One slight issue with the desktop app is that you ask it to open an asset pack or run a game, it runs some sort of security check before opening the product. For games this isn’t much of a problem and for smaller asset packs it barely registers before the folder opens. However, for large asset packs with lots of files this can take a really long time (minutes) and to make things worse it does this EVERY time you press the Open or Run button.

There is a quick work around and I made a Youtube Short on how to deal with it.

In essence when you click into the asset pack that you want to open, instead of clicking “Open”, right click on the bar at the bottom of the app and then click “Open Folder in Explorer”. This will bypass the checks and open your file explorer of choice in the asset pack folder!

If you liked this quick tip, be sure to share it with your fellow indie game developers!

Are there any other game dev tips you would like distilled into short form tutorials?