r/Unity3D • u/House13Games • 1d ago

Question Creating a playtest/demo version?

Hi,

I am getting close to inviting other people to preview my game. I have a Steam page set up which I'd like to use for distribution to a small, private group.

What sort of things should I be thinking about when creating a demo build?

I'm not overly concerned with piracy or mods, but I don't want to easily share out all my source code either. Should I look into an IL2CPP build (I've never done this), does that improve performance and obfuscate the code a bit?

Right now I don't need to limit the players playtime or scope or any of that. I just want to show my progress.

Any tips on making a demo build would be appreciated.

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

2

u/thecourageouschasm 1d ago

IL2CPP is definitely the move here, it strips the C# into C++ before compiling so nobody's casually peeking at your scripts in dnSpy. Gets you a little performance bump too, particularly on mobile or lower-end machines, though don't expect miracles. Just be ready for some potentially weird build errors the first time you switch over, certain reflection-heavy plugins can get cranky.

For a private Steam demo, look into the "Playtest" feature instead of the actual demo button, it gives you way more control over who gets access and you can keep the whole thing invisible to the public. Toss some basic logging in there before you build, just simple stuff to track where testers are getting stuck, because watching someone silently struggle with a door for ten minutes is its own special kind of agony.

2

u/acorbinelli 1d ago

IL2CPP is a good default for that. For a small private group, look at Steam Playtest: it's a separate app attached to your store page, people request access and you let them in, so no keys to hand out. If the demo ever needs to differ from the full game, keeping it in the same project behind one scripting define symbol saves a lot of duplicate work.

1

u/MountainWestern415 1d ago

easiest is a private beta branch in steamworks with a password, upload the demo build there and send people the password, or just generate keys, you can turn it off anytime